The Lenfest Institute for Journalism announced Monday the next phase of its AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program, securing a doubled financial commitment from OpenAI to support the expansion of the initiative.
What Happened
The announcement marks a significant scaling of the program, which launched in 2024 as the largest AI fellowship in American journalism. OpenAI has committed a new $5 million grant to the initiative, alongside up to $5 million in software credits and engineering support. This move effectively doubles OpenAI’s previous level of support for the program.
The fellowship places full-time AI technologists directly inside operating news organizations. Over the past two years, the pilot program worked with 11 major American news organizations to help them adopt emerging technology responsibly. According to the Lenfest Institute, the program has evolved from an ambitious pilot into a proven model for developing guardrails and strategies for AI adoption in local news.
In the new phase, the Lenfest Institute will invite a new cohort of news organizations to join. The program aims to further responsible AI experimentation and implementation, building on the foundation established during the initial pilot.
Why It Matters
The expansion highlights a growing industry consensus that successful AI adoption in journalism relies heavily on trust and organizational integration rather than just technology access. Jim Friedlich, Executive Director and CEO of the Lenfest Institute, stated that the primary lesson from the first two years was that "responsible AI adoption is less about the technology and more about trust." The fellows, who were hired locally and embedded within newsrooms, worked to understand specific editorial workflows and cultural needs before building solutions.
The pilot demonstrated tangible operational impacts across participating organizations. At The Philadelphia Inquirer, fellows supported the development of "Dewey," a tool for searching archived reporting, and "Scrape," which reduced a 15-hour weekly reporting task to a daily digest of story leads. At Chicago Public Media, AI-assisted translation workflows allowed for faster publication of Spanish-language coverage and the transcription of decades-old audio archives. Other projects addressed advertising prospecting, donor modeling, and subscription growth.
Tom Rubin, OpenAI Chief of Intellectual Property and Content, noted that the partnership reflects a belief that local journalism benefits most when organizations have the expertise and infrastructure to apply AI safely. The program’s success has also fostered cross-organizational innovation, with tools and code sharing between newsrooms, such as The Baltimore Banner utilizing approaches developed by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Bottom Line
The Lenfest Institute plans to broaden its technical capabilities to turn successful fellowship projects into reusable tools, frameworks, and playbooks. The goal is to scale the cross-newsroom learning that occurred organically during the pilot, ensuring that innovations developed in a handful of newsrooms can benefit hundreds more. Several engineering fellows are expected to remain as full-time employees at their host organizations, signaling the lasting value of embedded AI expertise in local journalism.