Taboola, a company best known for displaying strange ads that are often found below articles on the Internet, has created an artificial intelligence chatbot. The tool, called “DeeperDive,” is launching in beta on the websites of USA Today and The Independent and will answer readers’ questions using information “obtained from trusted journalists.”
A demonstration on Taboola shows the DeeperDive search bar at the top of the USA Today homepage, which automatically provides prompts such as “How does the UK government plan to tackle the cost of living crisis in 2025?” and “What are the environmental impacts of recent North Sea oil drilling projects?”
In addition to the AI-generated answer, the chatbot also offers a list of related USA Today articles followed by a sponsored link. In its announcement, Taboola notes that DeepDive allows publishers to insert “contextually relevant, targeted ads directly into the search results page powered by artificial intelligence.” With DeepDive, readers can also highlight a part of an article and ask questions about it.
For now, the AI bot will be available to only one percent of USA Today’s audience while it is being evaluated for quality. The Verge reached out to Taboola for more information on how many readers of The Independent will see DeepDive, but did not immediately receive a response.
This is not the first time USA Today publisher Gannett has used artificial intelligence. In 2023, the company suspended its coverage of sports events using artificial intelligence after a negative reaction from reporters and readers. It also added articles that appeared to have been created by artificial intelligence to its Reviewed website, which it later shut down (but then returned to its new owner). Last year, USA Today also started testing AI-generated annotations that appear at the top of articles.
