Introducing Smart Answers, a genAI tool for CIO.com readers

Today we launched Smart Answers, a generative AI chatbot that answers your questions based on our editorial content.  

The goal is simple: To help you, our readers, find relevant, accurate, up-to-date information that you can trust. And if you can do that using an interface that is intuitive and fun to use, so much the better.   

Smart Answers is built using generative AI, but features only content written by CIO’s human journalists—and those of our sister publications Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. It’s like having a research librarian at your fingertips: You ask a question using natural language, and Smart Answers compiles an answer with footnotes pointing to source materials. From there, you can refine your question or read the recommended articles for deeper engagement.  

It doesn’t replace reading articles for depth and context—or just the pleasure of reading a well-crafted feature story or sharp opinion piece—but it will help you surface relevant content on the topics you care about most.   

Why Smart Answers 

CIO’s publisher Foundry has a near 60-year history of being innovative and embracing the new, while retaining and reinforcing our core values of reader service and quality journalism. Our investment in Smart Answers honors that history by enhancing the reader experience and showcasing the work of our award-winning editorial teams. 

In the media industry, a lot of the talk around generative AI has focused on efficiencies and cost savings, on replacing writers with robots. Indeed, efficiency is an important part of the AI revolution, and we have for several years been using such tools for tasks such as transcribing interviews and translating stories from our sister publications around the globe. As AI tools mature, we will undoubtedly find more ways to make use of them. But we won’t sacrifice journalistic integrity in the process.