National Public Radio (NPR) is a vibrant non-profit media organization offering breaking news, analysis, music, arts, and podcasts from its DC headquarters and beyond. With 246 member stations reaching over 100 million people every month, NPR is an essential part in the media landscape in the US.
NPR’s mission is to create a more informed public—one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas and cultures. It’s a mission that becomes even more important as the news market shrinks and grows increasingly fractured.
The Audience Insights team is a crucial part of supporting that mission for NPR, fueling the organization’s work and organizational strategy through data-informed decision-making. Given the size of the organization and the number of stakeholders involved, it’s vitally important to have a centralized, intuitive, user-friendly system for knowledge management and insights.
“Facts are at the core of our identity,” says Lori Kaplan, VP of Audience Insights. “Having a single source of truth is really critical to our work.”
Here’s the story of how NPR came to leverage Stravito to be that single source of truth for informed decision-making throughout the organization.
The Audience Insights team provides research and insights that affect decision-making for content development and evaluation, marketing, legal, business development, and more – virtually every area of NPR.
“As our team’s portfolio grew, so did the number of people across the organization seeking us out,” says Lori.
This system was workable with everyone in the same office. But the post-Covid advent of remote work highlighted an acute need for one repository for knowledge management. And as the pace quickened, they realized they needed better tools for knowledge management and insights.
After unsuccessful previous attempts to find the right tool, Lori and her team quickly found that Stravito stood out from other options on the market. The team liked the clean interface and the flexible, customizable search tools. They were enthusiastic about the “Scrapbook” feature as well which enables users to create custom reports from existing research.
They were also intrigued by the possibilities of Stravito Assistant, Stravito’s baked-in GenAI tool:
“We could see that not only could Stravito serve as a repository, but also as a way to look across what we already knew and then synthesize.”
NPR has an enormous archive, but the initial uploading process went smoothly: first, because the team had been deliberate about keeping their information organized, and second, because Stravito's interface is straightforward and intuitive.
But knowledge management is never one-size-fits-all. Lori and her team were pleased by how readily their tools could be customized. While their Stravito “power users” did hit the ground running, one learning that surfaced was the need to refine the search model.
For instance, NPR has a product called NPR Plus. “And if you search for NPR Plus and you get everything that says NPR, it’s not useful at all. Stravito worked with us so that you could actually customize and search for only what you needed.”
Which is perhaps why one user messaged Lori unprompted:
“I just wanted to say I use Stravito all the time, and I’m so glad we have it.”
As a news organization, NPR is rigorous in its approach to AI, with an entire team dedicated to reviewing any generative AI feature. Stravito Assistant was the first such tool approved for use by NPR.
Users are now experimenting with how they can use Assistant for better insights, asking questions about new products and how the audience might react. It’s opening up new possibilities for the organization in leveraging their existing knowledge.
But the “human element” is still crucial. Lori stresses that while AI shows tremendous promise, only the people on her team have the context required to understand stakeholder needs as well as the “core truths” of the organization.
“We still need the human element to bring all of these pieces together,” she explains.
Currently, Stravito is proving its usefulness throughout NPR.
“There's a lot of appreciation,” Lori says. Users are “finding it easy to locate the information they need, find answers to their questions, and move on to the next question.”
It’s also easier to ensure that all of NPR’s information and research is up to date. The Audience Insights team is diligent about uploading new information to the system, to the point where it’s now considered part of the research process: “It’s not done until it’s in Stravito,” Lori says.
With Stravito, NPR has one flexible and convenient repository for all its information, helping this nonprofit news organization continue to grow and serve its own vast audience.
⬇️ Get the full story in Lori's presentation at Quirk's Chicago 2025 ⬇️