Importing External Drafts; Improved Format and Voice Matching

Here is a short list of recent notable AI developments that we think professional writers and publishers should be paying attention to:

Cloudfare Blocking AI. Cloudfare, a major website hosting provider, will now by default block any AI domain from its clients hosted content, and is instituting a pay per crawl model. Note--while they have highlighted blocking bots (which everyone is in favor of), they in practice are blocking any AI and many adjacent domains. We have always been champions of publishers protecting their content, getting paid for AI usage, and controlling their copyright. But placing indiscriminate blocks across a wide swath of the internet by a hosting provider feels like GDPR on steroids; good intentions, poor execution. Many domains are already being blocked that are not using content to train models, and that means that publishers who don't opt-out will get less traffic with little revenue, while the consumer internet experience degrades. We suggest Symbolic users use our Chrome extension to important content legitimately (we do not train models on content that we do not own) and either opt-out of this service or look for Cloudfare alternatives.

ChatGpt to Include Checkout. If you are getting "Google Shopping" vibes, you wouldn't be wrong. OpenAI and Google are on a collision course, increasingly competing for emerging AI market share. Some of the land grab, however, feels a little back to the future.

Windsurf Acquisition. Windsurf, the business behind a popular AI coding tool, had its top talent poached by Google and the remainder of the business sold to Cognition. This entire episode is evidence of the overheated war for AI coding platforms, which are exploding in popularity. Symbolic uses several AI coding platforms, and we think the present dramatic rethinking of software development is evidence of how AI will revolutionize other vertical industries.

And here's what's new in Symbolic:

Directly Importing Drafts Created Outside Symbolic

Following the launch of Fact Check last week, we have heard from a number of customers that they are adding drafts written outside of Symbolic to the platform in order to use its AI functions, such as research, critiquing and rewriting, fact checking, and headline and social media generation. To save steps and make this a straight through process, the initial project screen now allows a writer to directly import a draft file, bypassing the project description and the research screen. Simply add a file, and you will be taken to your draft in the Symbolic Editor. From there, you can navigate to anywhere in the platform and use any of its functions.

Improved Format And Voice Matching Of Exemplars

Symbolic is making significant advancements enhancing its ability to mirror the style and structure of reference documents. “Generate from Samples” has been updated, and now leverages multiple markers to detect unique elements of writing and document style and structure, producing comprehensive instructions. These instructions can be reviewed, customized, and saved for future use. Our aim is to streamline the production process by creating drafts with saved instructions that are at least 80% ready for publication. Typically, after a brief period of fine-tuning of preset voice/format instructions by an individual or an organization, the 80% production ready target is readily achievable. All of our enterprise level customers can get access to Symbolic experts to help them create custom voice and format instructions that meet their requirements.

That's it from us this week. We are always working to improve Symbolic and make your experience more efficient and enjoyable. We would love to hear your feedback and any suggestions you may have for future updates. Don't hesitate to reach out to team@symbolic.ai.