AI Chatbot for Hyperlocal News: How Nussbaum Medien is Changing Access to Local Information with NEXI
1M+
News articles per year
380+
Cities and municipalities reached
30
Days Period of indexed content for NEXI
CUSTOMER
Nussbaum Medien is a family-owned company and market leader for official gazettes in Baden-Württemberg. With around 580 employees and a weekly circulation of over one million copies, the company reaches more than 380 cities and municipalities. Nussbaum Medien uses digital platforms and solutions to connect local governments, associations, and businesses with the local community.
FOUNDED
1959
HEAD OFFICE
St. Leon-Rot
INDUSTRY
Media / Local journalism / Publishing
PROJECT
AI chatbot development
Nussbaum Medien is the market leader for official gazettes in Baden-Württemberg. With over 580 employees and a weekly circulation of more than one million copies, the family-owned company reaches over 380 cities and municipalities. As a long-standing digitalization partner, SPRYLAB developed the AI chatbot NEXI for Nussbaum Medien, which helps users quickly find relevant content from over one million hyperlocal articles and information per year. The central challenge: with such an abundance of local data, important information risks getting lost. NEXI makes this content individually discoverable through intelligent AI-powered search, an innovative approach for publishers looking to advance their digital transformation.
The Challenge: Making Millions of Local Information Items Intelligently Accessible
- Extract precise and reliable information from a large volume of content
- Minimize AI hallucinations and error-proneness without limiting conversational capability
- Ensure individual and uncomplicated information delivery for users
- Prevent relevant information from getting lost
Nussbaum Medien possesses a unique treasure trove of hyperlocal data through its official gazette business: events, announcements, club news, municipal information, and editorial content from the entire region. New articles are added daily that are highly relevant to the respective municipalities, from creative breakfasts hosted by city administrations to emergency pharmacies to local football clubs.
The central challenge was making this abundance of information manageable for users. “We want to offer our users a solution that delivers information quickly, easily, and individually. Due to the volume of our content, there is a risk that relevant information gets lost,” explains Amir Shirazi, Innovation Manager at Nussbaum Medien. NEXI was designed to ensure that each person receives exactly the content that is truly relevant to them.
Two core technical problems had to be solved: First, NEXI needed to be able to precisely extract the right information from millions of articles. Second, AI hallucinations and error-proneness should be minimized as much as possible without compromising natural conversational capability.
The Solution: AI Chatbot with Natural Conversational Capability and Precise Information Extraction
- Successful development of an AI chatbot with natural conversational capability
- Integration of multiple data sources for improved answer quality
- Privacy-compliant implementation through Azure hosting in Europe
- Iterative optimization process with extensive testing and user analysis
SPRYLAB developed NEXI as an AI chatbot based on ChatGPT from OpenAI, specifically tailored to the requirements of Nussbaum Medien. The model is hosted in a privacy-compliant manner through Azure in Europe and extended with custom tools to meet the specific requirements.
The technical foundation is a vector database in which all relevant content from the Nussbaum platform is prepared for the AI. NEXI primarily accesses NUSSBAUM.de as an information source. Currently, the settings are configured for content from the last 30 days from official and community gazettes, club information, municipal announcements, and editorial articles. FAQ pages and nussbaum-medien.de are also integrated to a smaller extent, as it became apparent that NEXI is frequently used as a service bot.
In an initial test phase, NEXI was limited exclusively to content from NUSSBAUM.de. This early version served to validate the basic functionality. SPRYLAB then quickly developed the solution further: By opening up additional sources, particularly the “world knowledge” of ChatGPT in addition to local content, the dialogue quality could be significantly improved. NEXI thus evolved from a pure information system into a natural conversation partner.
The collaboration between SPRYLAB and Nussbaum Medien is based on a long-standing partnership. Together, they had already developed the NUSSBAUM platform as a central reader portal. NEXI was created as a further expansion of this successful collaboration. “SPRYLAB has taken a very active role and convinces with good ideas and constructive input. The team brings valuable experience, thinks proactively, and works in a clearly customer-oriented manner,” emphasizes Shirazi. This proven collaboration made it possible to continuously optimize the solution through multiple iterations.
At the beginning, extensive tests were conducted, documented, and compared with target expectations. User queries and NEXI’s responses were systematically analyzed and used for optimizations. This made it possible to understand how NEXI is actually being used, an important basis for continuous improvement.
Another AI feature optimizes the categorization of content: Since categories are generally assigned rather poorly, the AI automatically supplements and expands these to improve discoverability in the discovery section.
The Results: Fast Answers and Efficient User Guidance
- Service inquiries are answered very reliably
- Precise information extraction from millions of articles
- An average of two messages per user shows efficient result finding
- Positive response to simplicity and quick access to information
The initial results show: NEXI fulfills its core function. An analysis of query categories illustrates how NEXI is used in practice: At 56%, local content and events form the largest application area. Typical questions are “What events are taking place in my region?” or “When will the Christmas tree be collected in my town?”. Service and support inquiries related to official gazettes and subscriptions account for 23%, such as “Where can I find the community gazette?”. Inquiries about advertisements and publications are at 15%, while competitions and entertainment make up 6%.
Service inquiries can be answered particularly reliably. “Somewhat surprising was the average of two messages per user. After improving the conversational capability, we had expected a higher value,” reports Shirazi. However, this metric is a positive signal: Users use NEXI specifically for concrete concerns and quickly arrive at the desired results. The efficiency of the solution is demonstrated by the fact that relevant information is found with just a few interactions. “What we particularly like about the solution itself is the simplicity, the clear results, and the quick access to relevant information,” summarizes Shirazi.
The Outlook: Deeper Integration and Context-Based Information
In the medium term, NEXI is to be more deeply integrated into the platform. Plans include deeper integration across the entire platform, context-based information delivery on the respective pages, and connecting the search function with NEXI. Additional information sources will be connected to expand the range of answerable questions. Furthermore, Nussbaum Medien can envision linking usage to registration in the future and later to a subscription.
The collaboration between SPRYLAB and Nussbaum Medien shows how innovative AI solutions can help companies make their extensive content archives intelligently accessible. NEXI makes clear: The future of local information lies in personalized, AI-supported delivery, fast, precise, and individually tailored to the needs of users.
About Nussbaum Medien
Nussbaum Medien is a family-owned company that shapes local communication in Baden-Württemberg with its approximately 580 employees. With its digital platforms and solutions, the company opens up new opportunities for municipal administrations, clubs, and businesses to connect with local people and strengthen the common good.
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