Five news organizations to join Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program

The Lenfest Institute is proud to collaborate with OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program. The five publishers joining the program each operate at significant scale and are leaders in the field. We welcome them to the program and look forward to sharing what they learn with the rest of the industry.”

Lenfest Institute Executive Director & CEO Jim Friedlich

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, OpenAI and Microsoft have announced that five additional organizations will join the Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program, originally launched to help news enterprises leverage artificial intelligence to drive business sustainability and innovation. 

ProPublica, Boston Globe Media, The Dallas Morning News, The Baltimore Banner and Arizona State University’s NEWSWELL are joining the AI Collaborative and Fellowship. These new members will receive funding to work on projects that enhance audience engagement to help build both subscriptions and membership revenue, assist in organizing story tips sourced from the public, improve content personalization and audience data for advertisers, subscribers, donors and more.   

The AI Collaborative and Fellowship launched in October 2024 with $10 million in total support from OpenAI and Microsoft — each awarding $2.5 million in direct funding and $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits.  

The new members join five of the largest independently owned metropolitan news organizations in the United States as part of the AI Collaborative and Fellowship: Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Seattle Times. 

The initial Lenfest AI Collaborative and Fellowship participants have already begun seeing the results of their experiments and sharing lessons with the broader journalism industry.  

As part of the program, the organizations participating in the Fellowship will work collaboratively with each other and the broader news industry to share learnings, product developments, case studies and technical information needed to help replicate their work in other newsrooms. The goal of the AI Collaborative and Fellowship is to help local news publishers leverage new AI technology to build sustainable businesses.  

“The Lenfest Institute is proud to collaborate with OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program. The five publishers joining the program each operate at significant scale and are leaders in the field. We welcome them to the program and look forward to sharing what they learn with the rest of the industry,” said Lenfest Institute Executive Director & CEO Jim Friedlich. “The Institute and OpenAI incubated the fellowship program, and Microsoft’s commitment allowed us to expand its scope and resources to more broadly explore ethical uses of AI to advance sustainable solutions for local news.” 

The projects were chosen through an application process led by The Lenfest Institute with assistance from FT Strategies, a global media consultant, and Nota, a provider of AI tools for journalism.  

The selected projects and Lenfest AI Collaborative partners include: 

• ProPublica will explore using an AI-powered system to help its engagement team categorize and route investigative news tip submissions — aiming to ensure that journalists quickly receive relevant leads while safeguarding source anonymity. The AI Fellow will also work with ProPublica’s journalists on other possible investigative news projects. 
• Boston Globe Media, a leader in digital subscription success among major U.S. metro newspapers, will use AI to deepen their understanding of digital readers and their habits, while providing more relevant content and impactful, tailored advertising. The work is designed to strengthen both digital advertising and subscription performance to advance long-term sustainability. 
• The Dallas Morning News, a leading regional news and marketing services organization, will explore using AI to offer increasingly personalized and interactive experiences to deepen engagement and relationships with their digital readers. This initiative aims to enhance the effectiveness of digital advertising and subscriptions, helping drive sustainable growth. 
• The Baltimore Banner, one of the most sophisticated and best supported nonprofits in a major U.S. metropolitan market, will use AI to better classify content and analyze audience feedback — deepening engagement, boosting donor outreach, and supporting sustainable expansion into new markets, creating a replicable model for revenue-aligned audience and donor insights in local news.  
• Arizona State University’s NEWSWELL, a nonprofit news organization that operates and transforms local news sites, will use AI to streamline digital and print news publishing workflows for small, local news outlets. NEWSWELL will collaborate with The Lenfest Institute on AI education programs based on insights from the AI Collaborative and Fellowship.  

“We’re seeing AI spark real momentum in local news by helping teams grow their audiences, strengthen their business and dig even deeper into the stories that matter. We’re proud to support work that’s pushing journalism forward,” said Varun Shetty, head of media partnerships, OpenAI. 

“The use cases developed by the Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program and the member news organizations will help countless local news organizations thrive in a new era of technology. Together, they are innovating to ensure local news remains a vital part of communities for years to come,” said Noreen Gillespie, journalism director at Microsoft. 

Sign up to receive updates on the experiments through The Lenfest Institute Solution Set newsletter.  Please direct any questions about the AI Collaborative and Fellowship to Lenfest Institute Head of National Programs Tristan Loper at tristan@lenfestinstitute.org 

About The Lenfest Institute for Journalism:

The Lenfest Institute creates solutions for the next era of local news by investing in sustainable business models at the intersection of local journalism and community in Philadelphia and nationwide.   

About OpenAI:  

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. Its mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.