OpenAI has committed new support to the Lenfest Institute’s program placing full-time AI engineers inside local news organizations. The program began at 11 US outlets; its next phase will admit more organizations and share tools developed by participants. Earlier projects included archive search and lead monitoring. The expansion matters for whether smaller newsrooms can maintain and adapt those tools with their own staff.
The Lenfest Institute for Journalism and OpenAI are expanding a program that places full-time AI engineers in local news organizations. OpenAI announced a new $5 million commitment, with up to $5 million more in software credits and engineering support. The program began in 2024 and has involved 11 US news organizations. The institute plans to admit more participants and share tools developed through the program across newsrooms.[1], [2]
The engineers were hired by news organizations rather than assigned as outside consultants. They worked with reporters, product teams and revenue staff. At The Philadelphia Inquirer, a tool called Dewey made decades of archived reporting searchable. Another tool, Scrape, changed a lead-monitoring task that had taken roughly 15 hours a week into a daily digest of possible stories. Chicago Public Media worked on Spanish translation and transcription of older audio archives.[1]
Lenfest plans to turn effective projects into tools and implementation guides that other newsrooms can use. The Baltimore Banner has drawn on a news-discovery approach developed at The Philadelphia Inquirer, an example of sharing within the program. The joint announcement also expects some fellows to become permanent employees at participating organizations. That remains an expectation: the announcement provides no independent measure of wages, total staffing or productivity following the work.[1]
