Blick Group launches Switzerland's first Facebook news chatbot

"With 'Blicki', we want to take an important step towards personalized news and play a pioneering role in Switzerland," says Roger Hämmerli, Head of Social Media at the Blick Group. "It should be possible for each of our readers to consume news in a personalized way, regardless of location and time. This is where 'Blicki' can develop its full potential."

The Chatbot is designed to give users easier access to news that really interests them. "If someone only wants news from the world of soccer, 'Blicki' can offer them just that with a personalized subscription. If, for example, the topic of Russia is currently making headlines, the user can receive all relevant articles on the topic with just one keyword to 'Blicki'," explains Hämmerli.

The user formulates his question in natural language, for example "Show me articles on Trump" or "What's happening in sports", whereupon "Blicki" shows him the corresponding articles. If the user clicks on the "Interesting" or "Not interesting" button for an article suggestion, "Blicki" learns more and more and becomes more precise in selecting the content.

The Newsbot was designed and programmed together with the Austrian developers of Convex. The project took just under six months to complete. The various terms and sentence positions in Switzerland posed a particular hurdle: "We first had to 'Swissize' 'Blicki' a bit so that he understands words like 'Grüezi' or 'Sali'," says Hämmerli. He says that collaboration with Ringier's development team was a key factor for completion.

But continuous further development also remains important: "Recognizing language, its own formulations, idioms and irony is one of the greatest challenges of artificial intelligence. Blicki' therefore has to learn constantly and is supported in this by our IT department," explains Hämmerli.