Chris Dinn: How a Toronto News Startup Developed an AI Chatbot to Analyze & Report on Municipal Budgets

Chris Dinn joins Nikita Roy to talk about building AI bots for his Toronto news startup, Torontoverse. Chris also explores the Online News Act's effects in Canada and AI's potential impact on the news industry.

Chris is the Emmy award-winning founder and publisher of Torontoverse, a Toronto-based digital news startup harnessing cutting-edge technology for local news delivery. He earned his Emmy in Technology and Engineering for his contributions at mDialog, an innovator in integrating live video streams with advertisements, later acquired by Google.

At 19, Chris entered the media realm, selling ads for his college newspaper. His zeal for innovation guided him to mDialog, where he was instrumental in reshaping the video ad landscape. Following its acquisition by Google, Chris dedicated six years as a software engineer focusing on publisher ads. In 2022, he launched his publishing venture, torontoverse.com.

Referenced in the episode: 

1. Meet TorontoBot: Torontoverse’s AI-powered municipal budget analyst
2. Try out TorontoBot
3. How Torontoverse built their AI-powered newsletter

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