Globe & Mail's Sophi to market as Naviga partners

Oct 26, 2020 at 08:14 pm by Staff


A partnership with Naviga has seen Sophi.io - the AI system developed by Canada's Globe and Mail - built into a system to automate a newspaper's content-to-layout print manufacturing workflow.

In use by two Scandinavian publishers in the form of Naviga Publisher, the AI/ML-based system teams with an Adobe InDesign plug-in (Naviga Templates) to automate layout of individual articles with the option of manual control.

Norwegian daily Agderposten is already using the Naviga Publisher elements, while the template plug-in is being used by Sweden's Gota Media.

On the developer's website, Agderposten editor-in-chief Øyvind Klausen says combining the products has enabled them to develop the same level of quality newspaper with fewer resources. "This enables us to re-allocate those resources to driving better content and increased subscriptions," he says.

As well as print manufacturing, e-paper publishing can be automated from a content-neutral content management system. Features include Sophi-based Blockbuilder and Blueprint engine which use artificial intelligence and machine learning to measure stories, consider headline alternatives, calculate and curate the newspaper layout. Then 'camera ready' pages are delivered as PDFs or editable InDesign files.

Naviga is marketing the integrated product as Smart Layouts.

Sections: AI & digital technology