How news organizations are using AI to advance their vital missions

Over the past year, we’ve continued working with news organizations to explore how AI can be most useful—helping with time-consuming tasks, enabling new reader experiences, and supporting stronger, more sustainable businesses.

Across the industry, reporters, editors, and businesses are using OpenAI technology to help journalists cover more ground, make decades of reporting searchable, reach audiences in new languages and formats, and turn complex information into faster decision-making. These tools are becoming embedded across all departments—including newsroom, product, and business workflows. For example, the American Journalism Project recently announced ⁠ (opens in a new window) our renewed support for its portfolio of dozens of publications spanning 38 states. We’re also proud to continue supporting the important work of both the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and WAN-IFRA ⁠ (opens in a new window) .

While AI is an important tool, people remain at the very center of this work—from frontline journalism, to editorial direction, to critical business decisions.

The American Journalism Project ’s Product & AI Studio—supported by OpenAI—is a center of excellence helping local news organizations responsibly leverage AI to strengthen their work and sustainability. Nonprofit news organizations are quickly adopting AI workflows and seeing tangible benefits. Using OpenAI technology, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), Puerto Rico’s leading investigative newsroom, built a collection ⁠ (opens in a new window) of custom GPTs that save time for its small team as they draft and translate donor communications in both English and Spanish—all while preserving the newsroom’s authentic voice. Innovations are traveling across the country, landing where they can be most impactful. CPI also developed a ChatGPT‑powered translation workflow that has since inspired ⁠ (opens in a new window) other newsrooms: Enlace Latino North Carolina adapted it to launch its first English-language newsletter, bringing its work to wider audiences and opening new sponsorship opportunities, and Boyle Heights Beat took the same approach to deliver real-time bilingual coverage during the L.A. fires.

The Associated Press is using OpenAI technology to help journalists strengthen reporting, verification and newsroom workflows, all while keeping journalists in control of editorial judgment. A variety of tools help journalists scan overnight news and podcasts for reportable developments; support image and video verification through upload tracing, geolocation and chronolocation; and turn thousands of Supreme Court filings into searchable, structured information. AP is also applying the technology to surface potential stories in government datasets, recommend member content for editors to consider sharing, build integrated and actionable audience metrics reports, and convert AP articles into broadcast scripts. These tools reduce repetitive work and help journalists get to stories faster and devote more time to distinctive, original reporting.

Axios has built a collection of custom GPTs to help with everything from understanding internal policies, receiving interdepartmental support, submitting open records requests, and checking their copy’s use of their signature Smart Brevity style. The “FOIA Refiner GPT,” for example, helps Axios reporters craft sound open-records requests that are specific, efficient, and less likely to be denied or delayed. The “O Caption! My Caption!” GPT optimizes captions for images on stories. The “Axiomizer” GPT reviews story copy to suggest sharper headlines and clearer writing.

The examples below—in the words of the news organizations themselves—are just a few of the many that demonstrate how AI is helping them strengthen journalism and the businesses that sustain it.

Publishers are finding many ways to put AI to work to enhance their research and reporting.

At POLITICO , AI helps journalists analyze large volumes of public documents and data for deeper, more timely original reporting; while commercial teams use AI to tailor client sales experiences with richer data on POLITICO’s offerings, freeing the teams to focus on human relationships.