Once a 20th-century icon seen as obsolete in the 21st, the Encyclopaedia Britannica—now known as Britannica—is powered by artificial intelligence, and may soon be made available to the public for around $1 billion, according to New York Times.

Until 2012 when printing is finishedthe company’s books serve as the oldest continuously published, English-language encyclopedias in the world, collecting all the world’s knowledge in one place before Google or Wikipedia were a thing. That helped Britannica pivot into the age of AI, where models benefit from access to high-quality, vetted information. Many general purpose models like ChatGPT suffer from hallucinations because they hoover the entire internet, including all the garbage and misinformation.

While it still offers an online edition of its encyclopedia, as well as the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Britannica’s biggest business today is selling online educational software to schools and libraries, software that is expected to increase in AI. That could mean using AI to customize learning plans for individual students. The idea is that students will enjoy learning more if the software helps them understand gaps in their understanding of a subject and retain it longer. Another education technology company, In the brainrecently announced that responses from its chatbot will link to the exact learning materials (ie books) they refer to.

CEO of Britannica Jorge Cause also spoke to Times about the company Britannica AI chatbotwhich allows users to inquire about its vast database of encyclopedic knowledge that it has collected over two centuries from vetted academics and editors. The company similarly offers chatbot software for customer service use cases.

Britannica told the Times it expects revenue to double from two years ago, to $100 million.

One company in the educational textbooks space that has seen fortunes go in the opposite direction is Chegg. The company sees it the stock price decreases almost in lock-step with the rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as students canceled their subscriptions to the online knowledge platform.

As with the rise of Wikipedia in the past, it seems that many people appreciate the accessibility and convenience ​​​​​​​​​​​of ChatGPT, even if they know that it is not completely reliable. Chegg has long had an online Q&A platform for homework help where users can pay to submit questions and get answers. But during the pandemic, a flood of new users was seen, contractors were thrown to answer new questions, and ChatGPT could not continue. Users complain that Chegg solutions are often wrong, especially when they are submitted by users other than professionals.

Perhaps Britannica’s prestigious brand and heritage will help it succeed in this new age where chatbots are still apt to return misinformation. It seems that schools are at least willing to pay for access to something they are more confident about.