Local newsrooms exist to serve their communities by keeping residents informed and engaged; today, they’re being asked to do this in a rapidly changing technological and information landscape. The American Journalism Project helps nonprofit local newsrooms grow and thrive, and our Product & AI Studio has become an increasingly important part of that work, demonstrating that emerging technologies and generative AI can be applied responsibly, practically, and in service of stronger journalism.
We launched the Studio in 2023, shortly after ChatGPT’s viral debut, with $5 million in anchor funding from OpenAI. The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation has also been a key partner in advancing this work, contributing a cumulative $1.6 million.
At the time, the questions around AI’s role in news were still wide open: where could AI actually help local newsrooms, where might it fall short, and what would responsible adoption look like in practice? Today, the answers are clearer. Across our portfolio, newsrooms are using AI to save time, expand civic information, strengthen fundraising, deepen reporting and serve communities in more languages and formats, always with humans firmly in the lead.
Now, OpenAI is renewing its investment, contributing an additional $5 million over the next two years to help the Studio move from experimentation to field-building— most notably, by adding a new pillar focused on product development. In addition, OpenAI is providing API and Enterprise credits to support product innovation, and expanded access to its suite of Enterprise products to the entire AJP portfolio.
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