Why we’re personalising myBT with you

THE media can’t stop talking about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that delivers poetry and prose, conversation and commentary, essays and engagement.

But it cannot yet deliver news you want before you know you want it. For that, The Business Times (BT) is bringing you myBT.

Let me qualify that a little.

One big request of BT readers is personalisation: being served news on specific topics that interest them. Entertainment media is already very good at this. Music streaming service Spotify and video streaming service Netflix are examples. Besides allowing users to create playlists, both services also offer suggestions.

In its Best Personalisation Practices for News Media report published in September 2022, the International News Media Association framed personalisation as a necessity.

Readers, listeners and viewers have needs and problems that aren’t otherwise effectively addressed, it said.

Phase 1 of myBT is focused on active personalisation: you actively declare your personal preferences, and we deliver the news you have declared an interest in. We will explore the viability of offering passive personalisation down the road, perhaps automatically inferring your preferences through tools such as machine learning.

For now, however, we will need to see how well myBT Phase 1 serves your needs. We are also offering myBT not only to paying subscribers, but also to those who have registered for a free mySPH account.

Free users can follow fewer keywords than paying users, though, and we hope more enjoy using myBT enough to consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

Phase 1 of myBT will only be available on our website, but we are working hard to build myBT into our mobile apps. We aim to deliver this to you by the end of July 2023.

As we evolve our personalisation tools, maintaining trust and credibility will stay paramount.

myBT allows us to deliver sponsored and branded content related to topics you are interested in. The intent is to maximise relevance and minimise intrusiveness.

But just because we have a contextual channel to recommend content doesn’t mean we will abuse this access. We will apply the same marketing standards to personalisation as we do to other BT tools and content.

We will also remain mindful of potential pitfalls in taking personalisation too far, or pushing it in a direction that doesn’t serve our audience.

One potential danger of personalisation taken to an extreme is the creation of an echo chamber that could leave readers isolated from what’s happening in an increasingly interconnected world.

Such an outcome would be at odds with our mission to bring business insights to you that matter, when it matters. Personalised news isn’t the same thing as personalised entertainment.

That isn’t to say those concerns will stop us searching for smart new ways to make your time with BT more rewarding. In a world of accessible AI tools such as ChatGPT, there are more opportunities than ever to leverage intelligent automation. It just means we won’t rush into a solution until we’re sure it will bring you value.

In the meantime, please enjoy myBT. It may not be AI-powered yet, but it does give you control over what BT stories you see. Follow some keywords to find out if it works for you.

Off The Record is a monthly column by BT’s editors on the modern news industry from an insider’s perspective. We welcome feedback and suggestions at btnews@sph.com.sg