The radio industry’s been shrinking for decades, and Jen Austin knows it better than most. Austin, a radio veteran since the 1990s, has watched newsrooms contract, dayparts go unstaffed, and local content slowly fade from the dial. So instead of lamenting the shift, she built something to fight it — a hyper-local AI-powered news platform called Riply.
“It’s a radio problem with a technology solution,” Austin said. “That’s what we wanted to apply here.”
Riply functions as an always-on content intelligence system, continuously harvesting local, state, and national news for stations across America — and beyond. Stations log in and find a curated feed of stories, complete with cited sources, ready to be turned into newscasts. Every piece of content goes through human review for accuracy before being voiced, either by an AI agent or by the station’s own talent. It’s designed to do what a part-timer or intern used to scramble to do manually — only faster, cheaper, and around the clock.
Austin didn’t arrive at the idea by accident. Years of watching a once-vibrant industry get stretched thin drove her toward a solution that technology could actually deliver. “When I started in the 90s, there was 24/7 staff and live people on every daypart,” said Austin. “It’s gotten smaller since then. And the people who are there need help gathering information, staying local, staying relevant, and delivering to listeners.”
Staying Local Is the Mission
For Austin, the core value proposition isn’t just speed — it’s specificity. Anyone can pull generic headlines from a national wire, but Riply drills down to the community level. “Really, it’s staying local,” the Riply executive shared. “It’s harvesting information 24/7 constantly. For any city in America and anywhere in the world. You don’t have to sit at a computer or have an intern or part-timer bring back stories one by one. This does it continuously.”
That local emphasis also positions Riply as a complement to national news providers, not a competitor. With CBS News Radio‘s exit, Austin sees an opportunity for stations to pair with Riply’s hyper-local content. “We could be the local complement to that,” she said. “It’s whatever the station needs, and that’s key for Riply. We are highly customized and continue to work with the station, respond to their voice, and let them tell us what markets or areas they want to cover.”
The platform verifies information across three to four web sources before surfacing a story, mimicking the process a careful journalist would follow — just at machine speed. Austin was direct about the stakes of accuracy.
“Just like a human would look around the web for news, this is doing the same thing and stamping the source so we know exactly where it came from.” She added that the platform spent 10 to 11 months in testing before launch. They worked to refine its outputs to meet broadcast standards. It’s not, as she emphasized, AI running unchecked.
“It follows a dedicated path and comes back curated to save time and money for radio stations,” said Austin.
Overcoming the Fear Factor
Adoption hasn’t come without hesitation. Austin acknowledged that perception remains one of Riply’s biggest hurdles — not performance, but fear. The radio industry, like many legacy media sectors, carries anxiety about AI replacing the humans who give it character. Austin pushed back on that concern directly. “AI is nothing to be afraid of. It’s a great tool, especially on the local level and in local newsrooms.”
Still, she recognized that skepticism requires a demonstration, not just reassurance. “Hesitation is probably the right word, but once they hear the voices and see the content and writing, they believe it,” the longtime radio leader stated. She added that stations that’ve tried it have come back with confirmation that the stories Riply surfaced matched exactly what their teams were already discussing. That kind of real-world validation has accelerated momentum. “I feel like there’s been rapid adoption in the past month or two,” Austin said. “More stations are getting on board, trying AI themselves, and realizing it’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Flexibility has driven much of that buy-in. Riply offers human voices, AI voices, or the option for local talent to read scripts outright. Austin put it simply: “It’s whatever they want it to be.” What’s right for a major market like Detroit doesn’t fit a smaller market like Poughkeepsie, and Riply’s design accounts for that variance.
For Austin, success ultimately comes back to something personal. She grew up in rural Nebraska, where local news wasn’t just convenient — it was currency. “My grandma would know by 3:30 in the afternoon who fell off a tractor that day,” she said. “AI is even faster than my grandma.” That connection to community is what she wants Riply to restore. “Responding to that local need for information and giving it to communities is exciting to me,” Austin said, “and that’s success.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
