"I would say everyone has read at least once an algorithmically produced article," said Robert Weissgraeber, CTO and Managing Director of AX Semantics. In many cases, readers don't see a difference between human- and bot-authored copy, Weissgraeber told Built In. His company, AX Semantics, is one of several -- including Narrative Science and Automated Insights -- exploring natural language generation, or automated writing. The technology can be used to generate product descriptions, quarterly earnings reports, fantasy football recaps and journalism. The Washington Post, for instance, has developed an AI-enabled bot, Heliograf, that helps generate election and sports coverage.

These days almost every journalism conference has at least one session on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in modern journalism and, interesting, it is always been asked: "will AI replace journalists and writers?". Last week I had an opportunity to visit the technology center of America's top news agency in Washington. There were using many tools and techniques to generate quick, accurate and foolproof contents using Artificial Intelligence (AI). These tools had multiple layers of data-centric AI wrappers to ensure the filtration of Fake News. During my visit, I was able to produce 550 words article, based on a press release, with a single click and amazingly this article had many relevant references from the past.

A text-generating "bot" nicknamed Tobi produced nearly 40,000 news stories about the results of the November 2018 elections in Switzerland for the media giant Tamedia -- in just five minutes. These kinds of artificial intelligence programs -- available for nearly a decade -- are becoming more widespread as news organizations turn to them to produce stories, personalize news delivery and in some cases sift through data to find important news. Tobi wrote on vote results for each of Switzerland's 2,222 municipalities, in both French and German, for the country's largest media group, according to a paper presented last month at the Computation Journalism conference in Miami. A similar automated program called Heliograf has enabled The Washington Post daily to cover some 500 election races, along with local sports and business, since 2014. "We've seen a greater acceptance of the potential for artificial intelligence, or robo-journalism, in newsrooms around the world," said Damian Radcliffe, a University of Oregon professor who follows consumer trends and business models for journalism.

These kinds of artificial intelligence programs -- available for nearly a decade -- are becoming more widespread as news organizations turn to them to produce stories, personalize news delivery and in some cases sift through data to find important news. Tobi wrote on vote results for each of Switzerland's 2,222 municipalities, in both French and German, for the country's largest media group, according to a paper presented last month at the Computation Journalism conference in Miami. A similar automated program called Heliograf has enabled The Washington Post daily to cover some 500 election races, along with local sports and business, since 2014. "We've seen a greater acceptance of the potential for artificial intelligence, or robo-journalism, in newsrooms around the world," said Damian Radcliffe, a University of Oregon professor who follows consumer trends and business models for journalism. "These systems can offer speed and accuracy and potentially support the realities of smaller newsrooms and the time pressures of journalists."

As journalists face increased layoffs despite the growing appetite for up-to-the-minute, timely news, a new trend has quietly been disrupting the news industry. News organizations are increasingly turning toward artificial intelligence (AI) for production, using a variety of new automated systems to pump out content with minimal need for direct human input. According to a report by The New York Times, Bloomberg News relies on a system called Cyborg to produce about a third of its articles. Most of Cyborg's output takes the form of company earnings reports that are rife with percentages, charts, and other financial data that can be crunched down into a news story quickly and accurately. Increasingly, major news agency like Reuters and Associated Press, along with a number of newspapers such as Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, are using algorithms to crunch out news on everything from local minor league sports games to earthquakes.

How do you know I am really a human writing this article and not a robot? Several major publications are picking up machine learning tools for content. So, what does artificial intelligence mean for the future of journalists? According to Matt Carlson, author of "The Robotic Reporter", the algorithm converts data into narrative news text in real-time. Many of these being financially focused news stories since the data is calculated and released frequently.

The days when most companies will add an AI content writer to their digital marketing team may not be too far off. From Heliograf to Quill, discover some of the AI content writing tools that prove AI can generate good content. AI is writing content even as we speak. Heliograf, The Washington Post bot, is an example of how AI can take care of the more mundane aspects of a writer's job, such as compiling data-based reports. Originally launched for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the bot went on to generate hundreds of short data-based reports for football games and more.

Here's a scary fact that most SEO content creators may not want to face: AI-generated content is already happening. In 10 years, AI-generated content probably will be the norm. In 20 years, robot content creators might take over the reins entirely. "In 10 years the majority of content will be generated by software. In 20 years, humans will wonder why we wasted so much time on content creation. I can't see any other way around this." So, if you're a content creator, should you just give up now?

Is this article written by a bot? In a few years, it might be hard to say one way or another. Artificial intelligence is being applied to many different industries, and the areas of news and journalism are certainly no exception. In fact, automated journalism is already helping create news articles and enhance storytelling. The Washington Post reported last year that its own AI bot, known as Heliograf, published 850 stories entirely autonomously, primarily reporting on sports and the outcomes of regional political races.

Close your eyes and try to picture a journalist. Well, what if all of that was replaced … by robots? Okay, our show isn't about to be hosted by a machine (yet). But artificial intelligence is already being used in newsrooms today. For instance, there's Heliograf, a bot developed by The Washington Post.