Nextdoor launches new ‘Assistant’ feature powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Neighborhood social community Nextdoor is introducing new options powered by generative AI, the corporate introduced on Tuesday. Most notably, Nextdoor is launching a brand new “Assistant” function that helps customers on the app write higher posts. The brand new Assistant function, which is being examined with choose customers, is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The Assistant function is designed to assist customers write posts which are extra prone to drive constructive neighborhood engagement. When writing a brand new publish, customers will begin to see a revised suggestion that they’ll evaluation and edit earlier than ending their publish. Moreover, Assistant will counsel methods to rephrase doubtlessly dangerous feedback to make the identical level in a extra pleasant manner.

“With ChatGPT launching in November, we noticed a chance to coach ChatGPT expertise on prime of our proprietary native data to create one thing we predict actually helps customers create a extra partaking publish,” Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar advised TechCrunch in an interview. “We’re now providing you with an assistant that claims ‘Hey neighbor, would you wish to rephrase or reword this publish to have extra neighbors remark and react to it.’ It’s ready that will help you create posts and in the end have interaction your neighborhood.”

Nextdoor presently has a “Kindness Reminder” function that notifies customers of the platform’s neighborhood pointers and provides customers the chance to replicate on a doubtlessly dangerous publish. With the brand new Assistant function, Nextdoor will begin serving to customers rewrite posts to come back throughout kinder. Say you and a neighbor are discussing the addition of recent velocity bumps in your neighborhood and also you write a heated response. Assistant will provide help to reword or rephrase your publish to make sure that your message comes throughout in a balanced and constructive manner.

As well as, Nextdoor says the brand new generative AI applied sciences allow the platform to ship extra personalised and related content material to customers by analyzing the subject and context of conversations. Consequently, Nextdoor can higher match content material to customers and supply extra focused suggestions for native information, occasions and actions.

Friar says Nextdoor is prioritizing security with this launch, noting that customers don’t should work together with the brand new options. As an illustration, you don’t have to just accept the strategies that Assistant makes, you possibly can go on and publish as you wish to whereas nonetheless adhering to the platform’s neighborhood pointers.

Nextdoor initially started testing the brand new options with 25% of its customers, and is making them extra broadly out there beginning at the moment, however the firm doesn’t plan to make the options out there to 100% of its consumer base simply but. Friar says Nextdoor plans to proceed to check the options and ensure it’s rolling out the expertise safely earlier than making it out there to everybody. The options will roll out to everybody in america extra time, after which finally to the opposite markets the place Nextdoor is on the market.

“We’ll watch to guarantee that there aren’t unexpected penalties, and naturally be accountable,” Friar stated. “We’ll proceed to maneuver on the proper tempo to ensure we’re doing it the suitable manner. With any new expertise, there’s at all times concern about what might occur, however on the identical time, we need to make AI out there to the lots. I really feel like everybody has a proper to know how this expertise could make their life extra environment friendly.”

Nextdoor plans to proceed testing generative AI fashions and is constructing a devoted generative AI crew led by the corporate’s Head of AI Qi He, who joined Nextdoor final 12 months after greater than eight years at LinkedIn. The devoted crew will likely be hiring product leaders and engineers to advance the corporate’s use of AI throughout its platform.

Final 12 months, Nextdoor revamped its app with new profiles and extra community-building options. The modifications got here because the social community developed a fame for racial profiling through the years, which led to Nextdoor releasing particular options to deal with this and the corporate’s former CEO stepping down. The revamp was a part of Nextdoor’s bigger imaginative and prescient and its aim to create a welcoming neighborhood each on-line and offline.