From roughly 2012 to 2015, Forbes published short AI-written articles about company earnings on its website, produced by a software platform called Quill, made by a company called Narrative Science. The articles were generated automatically from structured financial data and published under a Narrative Science byline — no human journalist wrote them.

Quill used natural language generation — a technique that turns data tables into readable sentences — to analyze earnings figures, stock prices, and analyst estimates, then produce short-form preview articles. An example article about Barnes & Noble appeared on Forbes.com and was reported on by Slate in 2014. The practice appears to have ended around 2015–2016; a 2017 report noted Narrative Science had not produced Forbes articles for more than a year. Narrative Science was acquired by Salesforce in December 2021 and the Quill product was discontinued. This practice is no longer active.