- What it is: An AI-powered Chrome extension that adds historical and legal context to news articles
- What it does: Detects key concepts in an article and surfaces background, timelines, and precedents in real time
- AI used for: Topic detection and semantic matching, contextual summarization of historical events and legal cases, relevance scoring between current news and prior events
- Built as: Browser extension prototype (Figma Make)
- Tools: ChatGPT / Claude / NotebookLM / Figma Make
- Why it matters: Helps readers understand why a story matters—not just what happened today
This prototype builds on my experience designing AI-powered reading and trust features for large-scale media platforms.
Context
Many readers—including myself—consume news without sufficient historical or legal context. Articles often assume prior knowledge: earlier rulings, past events, or long-running political dynamics that are critical to understanding the present moment.
As news cycles accelerate and AI-driven summarization becomes more common, readers are given less context, not more. The result is shallow understanding, misplaced outrage, or disengagement—especially on complex topics like courts, elections, and public policy.
Problem
News articles are optimized for timeliness, not continuity. Even high-quality journalism cannot fully explain decades of precedent or historical background within the constraints of a single article.
Readers are left asking:
What happened before this?
Why does this case matter?
How is this different from past rulings or events?
Existing AI tools summarize articles—but rarely supply the missing context needed for comprehension and judgment.
Insight
From a human-centered design and anthropology perspective, understanding comes not from isolated facts, but from narrative continuity. Readers need scaffolding: timelines, definitions, and precedents that situate today’s news within a broader arc. Used responsibly, AI can act as a contextual guide—quietly filling in gaps without interrupting the reading experience or asserting authority.
Prototype
I designed InContext, a lightweight Chrome extension that augments news articles with on-demand background information. As a reader scrolls, the extension:
- Detects key topics (e.g., “gerrymandering,” “Elections Clause”)
- Matches them to relevant historical events, court cases, or definitions
- Surfaces concise explanations, timelines, and legal context in a side panel
The interface is designed to be optional and non-intrusive—supporting curiosity without overwhelming the reader or distracting from the article itself.
Outcome & Implications
InContext reframes AI’s role in news consumption from summarizer to contextual companion. Instead of telling readers what to think, it helps them understand how the present connects to the past. Together with NewsWise, InContext reflects my ongoing interest in designing AI-powered media products that strengthen agency, understanding, and critical thinking.