The Gray Lady On the Cutting Edge: The New York Times Now Uses AI in the Newsroom

The New York Times has officially approved the use of AI in its newsroom, encouraging its journalists and editorial staff to use artificial intelligence tools. Internal training materials confirm the publication’s stance, allowing AI-assisted activities such as writing headlines, drafting interview questions, and suggesting edits.

AI’s expanding roles in newsroom workflows

The paper also recommended using AI for generating article summaries, brainstorming ideas, summarising research papers, analysing internal documents and photos, and developing news quizzes, social media copy, and frequently asked questions, while product teams can use it for coding. The training documents and mandatory video were first seen and reported on by Semafor.

Strict limits on AI use

Despite embracing AI, The New York Times has outlined clear prohibitions. AI cannot be used to draft or significantly revise an article, circumvent a paywall, or generate images or videos for publication without labelling. Reporters are warned about inputting copyrighted material, like confidential source information, and using unapproved models.

“Generative AI can assist our journalists in uncovering the truth and helping more people understand the world,” the guidelines said. “Machine learning already helps us report stories we couldn’t otherwise, and generative AI has the potential to bolster our journalistic capabilities even more.”

AI to enhance accessibility and internal workflows

Beyond efficiency, AI features like digitally voiced articles and translations could improve the paper’s accessibility, the Times added in a message accompanying the training materials. It also unveiled a purpose-built, in-house AI model called Echo that journalists can use to summarise internal materials like articles and briefings.

Along with Echo, Times developers can use GitHub Copilot programming assistant and Google’s Vertex AI, while reporters can use NotebookLM, the Times ChatExplorer, some Amazon AI products, and  OpenAI’s non-ChatGPT API, with prior approval from the legal team.

The paper declined to comment when approached by Semafor.

Since the start of 2024, a dedicated team has been in charge of prototyping potential uses of AI within the newsroom, headed up by editorial director of AI initiatives Zach Seward.

The media industry’s evolving AI policies

The Times is not alone in choosing to approve AI usage among its editorial division, as the likes of AP, The Guardian, and News Corp have all disclosed elements of their AI strategies. According to a 2023 report from a London School of Economics think tank, over 75% of journalists, editors, and other media professionals use AI in news production.

How publications can coexist with AI companies is still a point of contention in the industry. Many outlets have opted to sell their content to the tech giants to train their models, such as The Guardian, Associated Press, Reuters, LA Times, The Independent, AFP, News Corp, Financial Times, Time, Conde Nast, and The Atlantic.

AI’s threat to news industry revenue

There are growing concerns that the strategy will be short-lived, and news outlets will ultimately struggle to survive if their content appears in AI summaries instead of generating direct reader traffic to their websites.

Some outlets are choosing to beat them rather than join them, suing the tech giants for unauthorised use of their content for AI training. The New York Times is one of them, and has been embroiled in a legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft since 2023. This month, Conde Nast and a number of other major publishers have accused AI startup Cohere of similar copyright infringement.
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