We help newsrooms, nonprofits, and business leaders step into the AI age, drawing on our journalistic and technical experience.
AI product design
Verso helps organizations identify areas of opportunity for using AI. We point leaders toward the best available products—and when they don't exist, we prototype new AI tools to solve specific problems. We work with organizations to design, test, and refine these tools, and to develop strategies for integrating them into existing workflows.
AI strategy
Verso collaborates with organizational leaders to develop ethical and effective AI strategies. We facilitate internal conversations to draw out organizational values, then help leaders navigate hiring, community engagement, and public communication of their AI principles to build trust with audiences and membership.
AI workshops
Verso provides customized training that helps organizations use AI to become more creative, sustainable, and effective. Our workshops are built on Verso's custom tools and engage participants with hands-on experiments to introduce them to the possibilities and risks of AI, and to offer practical skills they can put to use right away.
Who we are
Patrick Swanson and Kaveh Waddell are journalists and technologists. They were 2024 John S. Knight Fellows at Stanford University, where they studied and designed generative AI tools and strategy for newsrooms.
Patrick has ten years of leadership experience at the intersection of media and tech. He founded and led the social team in Austria's largest newsroom, reaching a daily audience of 2.4 million on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
Kaveh is an investigative data journalist. He led technology investigations at Consumer Reports, launched the AI beat at Axios, and reported on privacy and surveillance for The Atlantic.
What we're up to
We let journalists have fun with AI. They started building solutions.
Over the past year, we designed a new way to teach AI: blending tech skills with design thinking and improv. After 12 weeks in Vienna, we can report: It works.
Who we work with
Work with us
All of our training and implementation work is customized to individual organizations and your needs. Please get in touch: [email protected]