Exclusive: OpenAI Renews $5M Bet on Local News

OpenAI is renewing its investment in the American Journalism Project (AJP) with an additional $5 million in funding and $3 million in tech credits over two years. This partnership, seen as mission-driven by OpenAI, will expand direct funding to newsroom partners and broaden access to enterprise AI products. The initiative aims to help local news organizations effectively integrate AI into their operations, develop new tools, and implement shared products at scale.

• OpenAI is committing an additional $5 million in funding and $3 million in tech credits to the American Journalism Project (AJP) over the next two years.
• This renewed investment builds on a prior 2023 deal that helped launch AJP’s Product & AI Studio, enabling nonprofit local news organizations to create AI-powered products.
• The new deal plans to expand direct funding to more newsroom partners and broaden access to ChatGPT’s enterprise products.
• The first phase focused on helping newsrooms understand and integrate AI, leading to tools for fundraising, data analysis, translation, and civic information.
• AJP aims to move beyond individual newsroom experimentation to implementing shared AI products and infrastructure for nonprofit local newsrooms.
• OpenAI has also established similar AI initiatives with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Axios, and WAN-IFRA.
• This investment comes as OpenAI faces lawsuits over copyright infringement from some news organizations, while other AI firms take different approaches to licensing deals.
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