Textio, a Seattle startup that helps companies write better job listings, today introduced a new feature that uses artificial intelligence to speed up the writing process. Textio Flow allows business users to turn a handful of notes into a fully fleshed out block of text automatically.
The new feature is a bit like Google’s Smart Compose, which suggests email responses or phrases as you type. But instead of a few words, Textio Flow thinks up whole paragraphs.
It’s starting as a feature of Textio’s flagship tool for writing job postings but is expected to expand to other scenarios such as writing emails in the future.
Textio Flow takes the crux of the user’s message and turns it into something more. In a job posting for a graphic designer, for example, the word “originality” might become “Are you an innovator with imagination and ingenuity?”
The feature works with Textio’s existing product, which is able to suggest words that are more likely to attract job applicants and improve the diversity of those candidates. The idea is to get more and better responses with less work.
Textio CEO Kieran Snyder said that she found it hard to go back to writing normally after using the new feature. “It’s hard to describe how old and broken it feels to write anywhere else,” she said.
Textio’s customers tend to be large organizations that do a lot of hiring and want to save time, be consistent and attract the best applicants.
“Textio Flow lets us get more intentional about the alignment between our words and our culture. And it’s fast — going from a few rough ideas to the best expression of those ideas takes minutes, not hours.” Terri Coligan, manager of recruiting enablement at Nestlé, said in a statement.
“You almost can’t get your head around the billions of words that get written by a company like Nestlé and Expedia every single day,” said Snyder.
The suggestions are informed by the startup’s own large datasets, which help to pick words and phrases that statistically lead to better outcomes, as well as a library of the company’s past writing so that the suggestions reflect the brand.
Initially, the Flow feature will be limited to Textio’s website. Eventually, it will roll out to Textio’s assistant on Gmail and LinkedIn.
While job postings remain the main application for Textio’s product, the company wants to make its writing companion every email user’s best friend. “Email is the other big domain where this is powerful. Any time you write an email you want someone to answer you,” said Snyder.
Source: Geek Wire
