Narrative Science
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Natural language generation, Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | January 1, 2010 in Evanston, Illinois, United States |
| Founder | Kris Hammond, Larry Birnbaum, Nick Allen, John Templon |
| Fate | Acquired by Salesforce and merged into Tableau Software division |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois , United States |
| Products | StatsMonkey, Quill |
| Parent | Salesforce (from 2021) |
Narrative Science was a company specializing in natural language generation and data storytelling, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. On December 17, 2021, it was acquired by Salesforce and subsequently merged into Salesforce's Tableau Software division.
History
Established in 2010 in Evanston, Illinois, Narrative Science emerged from a student initiative at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Lab. The founding team—Kris Hammond, Larry Birnbaum, Nick Allen, and John Templon—created the original technology named StatsMonkey, designed to automatically produce narratives based on data. Initially, the focus was on generating baseball game summaries using player statistics and match details. That same year, Narrative Science licensed StatsMonkey from Northwestern and commenced its commercial activities.
The company transitioned its attention from media-related applications to business-oriented solutions by introducing Quill, a Natural Language Generation platform that interprets structured datasets to generate narratives tailored for business users without advanced data expertise. Among its investors were SAP Ventures and In-Q-Tel, the investment entity affiliated with the CIA. By 2014, the firm had secured $32 million in equity funding, including a $10 million investment round led by client USAA.
In 2020, Narrative Science initiated Data Storytelling for Good, a nonprofit program offering complimentary access to its software for organizations serving community interests.
On November 15, 2021, Narrative Science consented to be acquired by Salesforce. The transaction was finalized on December 17, 2021, resulting in Narrative Science's integration into Tableau. Post-acquisition, Salesforce discontinued the standalone sale of Narrative Science’s products.
Recognition
In 2017, Fortune featured Narrative Science among the top 50 companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation. Earlier, in 2015, CNBC included the company in its Disruptor 50 list.
Gartner designated Narrative Science as a “Cool Vendor in Smart Machines” in 2014.
The firm was also listed on the Red Herring Top 100 North America in 2013, which spotlights promising startups across multiple continents including Asia and Europe.
Narrative Science earned an Edison Award for Innovative Services in Collaboration and Knowledge Management in 2013.
In 2018, it received recognition as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and was honored as the Most Innovative Company by Crain's Chicago Business.
Competitors
Per Gartner's 2019 "Market Guide for NLG", leading companies in the NLG space include Arria NLG, Automated Insights, AX Semantics, Narrative Science itself, vPhrase, and Yseop. Additional competitors comprise Smartologic, Retresco, United Robots, and Linguastat.
Criticism
Early on, journalists expressed concerns that Narrative Science’s technology might displace human writers, particularly within sports and financial reporting sectors. Critics also cautioned that biases present in source data could be magnified through AI-generated content, thereby perpetuating inaccurate assumptions. A CBS report underscored potential risks within financial journalism by comparing automated reporting to the housing market bubble phenomenon; it noted that computer-generated stories could disseminate biases more swiftly and extensively than those crafted by humans.
The Columbia Journalism School highlighted inherent limitations of "robo-journalism," stressing that it lacks capabilities such as assessing real-world implications, conducting interviews, or determining newsworthiness—functions reliant on essential human editorial judgment.