The challenge
Limited moderation capacity meant the Financial Times sometimes closed comment threads, including at weekends. It wanted to sustain reader discussion without diverting resources into building its own system.
A model shaped by FT standards
As community editor Lucy Warwick-Ching explained in June 2024, Utopia’s model trained on 200,000 reader comments. Human moderators checked early decisions and helped refine the system over the following months.
More space for community work
AI reduced routine review and exposure to offensive material, giving the team more time to build relationships and identify reader insights that could inform reporting. No moderators were made redundant. Human judgement remained part of a process that continued to improve.
Read the interview
Journalism.co.uk explores the FT’s implementation, the balance between automation and oversight, and the resulting opportunities for community-building.