Computing Answers brings tech news into the AI era

Pulling from 50 years of market-leading content

Computing’s readers can now access a proprietary LLM that will help IT leaders gain insight and make faster business decisions, utilising the power of generative AI to access a trove of technology news, trends and analysis.

We are bringing our flagship website into the AI era with a new AI-based search tool that will answer readers’ most pressing technology questions.

The new Computing Answers feature, launched this week, will dig through decades of news, research, interviews and analysis to answer your exact questions. No more searching for vague terms; no more trying to remember keywords to return to an article you read weeks ago. Simply ask, read, and learn.

“We're not resting on our laurels,” said Stuart Sumner, chief content officer at Computing parent The Channel Company. “We're innovating."

Mining both the latest Computing stories as well as decades of historical content to provide results that are both timely and in depth, Computing Answers gives readers access to a proprietary LLM that enables them to ask natural language questions about the innovation, breakthroughs and market-changing acquisitions that impact how they do business, Stuart said.

Computing Answers also suggests additional questions based on a viewed article to help readers dig deeper into the topics they care about most.

“We see it as a massive leap forward,” Stuart said of the move to bring AI-powered search capabilities to Computing. “It could become one of the main ways readers engage with our brand.”

The launch of Computing Answers marks our latest investment in new AI tools, with most articles already including an AI-powered “listen to this article” feature that can read content aloud.

How Computing Answers works

The proprietary LLM that powers the new search tool has been trained on over 50 years’ worth of Computing content. The one-click search tool returns a Computing Answers box with results that are to the point and in context, automatically including links to the articles used to formulate the answer.

In addition, a “Related Questions” box incorporated into articles delivers AI-generated follow-up queries visitors are most likely to have, based on the articles they read; and a “Highlighted Resources” module uncovers content related to the search topic from sponsoring technology vendors.

Stuart sees Computing Answers – already live on Computing’s sister sites like CRN UK and CRN.com, and coming soon to MES Computing and Computing Deutschland - as the next evolution of search, saving readers time by quickly giving them a full answer to whatever is on their mind.

He called Computing Answers a step toward “the next phase” of website interaction in the AI era.

“It’s going to be a hit,” he said. “I’ve tried it, and I love it. I think it’s incredible.”

Even as Computing and The Channel Company continue to invest in AI across every department, Stuart stressed the continued importance of humans to the delivery of tech-focused news coverage. Computing Answers will not and cannot replace the Computing editors and journalists who bring unparalleled expertise to bear from their years of experience reporting on the IT market.

Instead, Computing Answers is “leveraging and finding new ways to surface the brilliant content that's written by our brilliant humans,” he said.

While some media outlets are turning to technology to replace reporters, we see the human-to-human relationships our editors have, and the face-to-face events we run, as all the more important in the AI era.

“This is a perfect use case for AI, but it is only valuable because of all the work done by humans,” Stuart said.