Microsoft will be replacing about 50 journalists contracted to curate content on its MSN website with artificial intelligence software.
The journalists don’t produce any original content for MSN. However, they curate stories from other news organisations and decide how they’re presented by selecting headlines and pictures.
According to the Seattle Times, the software will perform these tasks instead.
While the 50 contracted news producers would lose their jobs at the end of next month, another team of full-time journalists who do a similar job would remain.
"It's demoralising to think machines can replace us, but there you go," a person facing redundancy told the Seattle Times.
Some sacked journalists also warned artificial intelligence may end up placing inappropriate stories on the site if they weren’t familiar with editorial guidelines.
Microsoft pays news sites to be able to use their content on MSN, and the company says the latest move is part of an evaluation of its business.
"Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis,” the US tech company said in a statement.
“This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic."
Google is also investing in robot journalist projects to investigate how they may work.
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