Introducing N2+AI

“I automate whatever can be automated to be freer to focus on those aspects of music that can’t be automated. The challenge is to figure out which is which.” –Laurie Spiegel, coder, composer, badass.

I started N2 a decade ago because the internet was changing the usual way of doing things. Today, we’re launching N2+AI in a similar moment.

Rewinding to the mid-2010s, traditional media models were collapsing and the long-form, impactful journalism jobs that I and so many of my peers aspired to were vanishing. At the same time, I’d never been so busy with corporate clients. These companies—largely in tech and finance—needed precisely the kinds of talented folks who were getting laid off from newspapers and magazines, or grossly underpaid as teachers and researchers. The tricky piece was bringing the sides together in a way that worked for both. In 2015, I started N2 Communications to solve that problem. We’ve been evolving and refining our model ever since.

Today, the AI revolution is fast remaking how we create, consume, and even conceive of content. Our new venture—N2+AI—builds on what my team and I have learned over the past decade and tailors it for what’s next. We are extremely proud to announce that we’re partnering with Das Rush to spearhead our AI team. For the past 10 years, Das has led content initiatives for some of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors, tech companies, and startups, most recently as head of content for a16z Growth, the late-stage fund at Andreessen Horowitz.

Das has been a friend since college, and we’ve been talking about AI over desert campfires and over-caffeinated Zoom calls for years. Gradually those conversations have turned into hypotheses, syntheses, and now into a full-blown set of services and a crack team of AI implementers. We’re here to help innovators bring their software to investors and the market, and to help companies and creators use those tools efficiently, responsibly, and creatively. With years of experience in writing, tech, and AI, I think Das is the best person in the business to bring it all together.

Our AI thesis is simple: your content is now your data, and to have the best and most trustworthy data, you need to invest in content experts (read: writers, researchers, artists, etc.) along with AI engineers. Sometimes that means creating great content so that your language models have the best data to train on—otherwise it’s garbage in, garbage out. Other times that means developing smart, responsible AI policies and principles and communicating them to your customers, clients, employees, and investors. Sometimes it means using the best editors, producers, and fact-checkers to conceptualize and clean up AI-created content; and sometimes it means knowing when the right human is more artful and efficient than the algorithms.

We are now seeking beta customers for a set of services we have developed to run AI content initiatives end to end both for startups building today’s AI and for the enterprises implementing it. These services span the ideation, development, and ongoing improvement of generative AI and LLM strategies.

1. Ideation – map your AI journey

We begin all AI engagements with a consultation to develop a plan to:

• Build strategies and messaging that stand out and educate the market
• Identify AI use cases, both internal and external
• Set editorial policies for safe and effective models and applications that users can trust
• Capture your expertise in proprietary content that will differentiate your AI
• Use AI for creating and updating high-quality content, like pitch decks, videos, podcasts, and thought leadership

2. Development – turn your content into data

Once the strategy and policies are in place, we develop the content and then curate it into datasets for:

• Low-code/no-code chatbots
• Retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
• Finetuning
• Language model training

3. Ongoing Improvement – test and iterate your AI

We have the skilled editors, content moderators, and language experts to:

• Redteam your AI to improve it before release
• Monitor your AI for adherence to your editorial guidelines
• Curate prompts and responses into new datasets to keep improving your AI

Das and our AI team have produced a series laying out our views on AI, starting with the role creatives play in developing best-in-class AI and a primer on LLMs. We’re excited to expand on this series as the space evolves.

We approach this moment with curiosity, humility, and our eyes open to what we don’t know. We also approach this moment with the belief that N2’s tested model and vast talent pool position us to serve our clients well, whatever may lie ahead.

To hear more about N2+AI, please reach out to ai@n2comms.com, and be sure to watch this space as we share more from Das and our team.

Onwards,
Joe Flood
N2 founder and CEO

Edited by Chris Edmonds, N2 co-founder and COO

Feature image prompt (with help from GPT-4o): Create an image that captures the transition from traditional media to AI-powered content creation. The image should depict a timeline or evolution, starting with a traditional newsroom setting on one side and transforming into a futuristic AI-driven content hub on the other. Include elements like journalists with notebooks and cameras on the left, and on the right, advanced AI interfaces, digital screens, and data streams.

Like this post? Check out other pieces in our content series:

• Our take on the importance of writers to AI
• A primer on LLMs and the breakthroughs that have made them possible

Interested in working with us? We are currently looking for beta customers for our AI content services. Reach out to ai@n2comms.com.