AI research assistant leverages four decades of published Chronicle reporting on colleges and universities
Today The Chronicle of Higher Education rolled out Chron, a generative AI tool designed to answer readers’ questions about the state of higher education, as a new benefit for all individual subscribers and institutional site-license customers.
The Chronicle initially introduced Chron in late 2024 as a beta experiment for Print & Digital Access subscribers. Today’s expansion makes Chron accessible to an even greater audience of hundreds of thousands of academic professionals.
Leveraging the expertise of the nation’s leading independent newsroom covering higher education, Chron offers readers a convenient way to surface valuable insights from four decades of Chronicle reporting.
Ask Chron a question, and it will reply with an answer derived from more than 140,000 source articles written by Chronicle journalists and contributors, using material dating back to 1990. Chron can field questions about major trends affecting colleges, student demographics, faculty pay, and more.
The Chronicle created Chron in collaboration with technologists at Amazon Web Services (AWS), who provided the technology upon which the tool was built. The Chronicle team selected a model called Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet for its accuracy, performance, and commitment to ethical principles.
“In creating Chron, we sought to give readers a more accessible means to surface valuable insights to help them solve problems and navigate the complex challenges bearing down on higher education,” said Michael Riley, president and editor in chief of The Chronicle. “Chron showcases the breadth and depth of coverage published by The Chronicle’s newsroom during the past 40 years.”
Chron’s responses are based solely on The Chronicle’s rigorous, independent, and verified content, ensuring that readers receive trustworthy answers to their questions. To limit what are known as hallucinations, where an AI bot generates inaccurate information, Chron will not answer questions that it can’t directly source from The Chronicle’s own archive.
Subscribers and institutional site-license readers who are interested in trying Chron can find the tool by signing in to chronicle.com and visiting the Account Benefits page.
In addition to Chron, a Chronicle individual subscription comes bundled with other powerful benefits, including unlimited access to award-winning reporting on higher education and access to the indispensable Daily Briefing. Get started today for just $4 for your first month.
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