From experimentation to action: What’s next for AJP’s Product & AI Studio

When we launched the American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio in 2023, our goal was to explore the smart application of emerging technologies in local journalism. Last year, we announced our first cohort of grantees, who focused on experimenting and learning — laying the groundwork for how local newsrooms can use AI in thoughtful and innovative ways. These organizations used generative AI to optimize editorial workflows, create public-facing products, build trust with their communities, and find stories through civic information buried in public meeting transcripts. 

Throughout this year, the Studio has also made progress in AI Spanish-language translation workflows, hosted prompting workshops, and met with a broad network of vendors and potential partners to better understand the AI landscape. Through this, we’ve seen increased interest among local news organizations — both within our portfolio and throughout the industry — for continued collaboration and a desire to learn more about the potential of generative AI in the newsroom. Most importantly, we’ve learned a lot about utilizing AI to bolster local news organizations from these initial experiments, which we’ll build on going forward. 

Today, we’re excited to share that we’re awarding a new round of grants totaling $1.4 million to help the local newsrooms in our portfolio leverage AI to tackle critical challenges, specifically generating revenue and uncovering stories buried in civic data.

A collaborative approach to AI at scale

The 28 news organizations receiving support – all members of AJP’s portfolio – will be organized into small, collaborative groups, each tackling shared challenges or building collective tools. These cohorts will each have clear learning agendas focused on either revenue or civic information, dedicated support from AJP staff, and hands-on guidance from experienced project managers. 

Some cohorts will also work alongside a growing list of partners, including Gigafact, the Documenters network, BlueLena, News Revenue Hub, and Stanford University’s Big Local News. All of these partners have expertise in leveraging data, fostering collaboration, and delivering tailored AI support. The partnerships will enable cohort members to make meaningful advancements in AI development more quickly than would be possible alone.

Group 1: AI solutions for revenue growth

This group of cohorts will support leaders in revenue, business, and product roles to adopt AI tools that enhance their fundraising efforts and unlock new revenue opportunities. 

• AI-Powered fundraising assistants: Streamline fundraising operations with AI tools to free up staff and give them more time to focus on building relationships and generating support.
• New earned revenue products: Develop earned revenue strategies enhanced and streamlined by AI to fuel revenue diversification opportunities for nonprofit local news organizations. This will include, among other experiments, exploring building an AI-powered sales kit generator. 
• Expanding audiences: Explore opportunities to leverage AI in language translation to attract new audiences and potential members.
• Optimizing membership campaigns: Through partnerships with BlueLena and News Revenue Hub, organizations that focus on reader revenue strategies for news organizations, cohort members will test AI-assisted messaging and outreach to improve reader revenue campaigns.

Group 2: Leveraging AI to unlock civic data for impact

Important stories often lie buried in public records and civic data. This group of cohorts will help newsroom leaders use AI to analyze and surface insights from these complex civic datasets, enabling impactful reporting that serves local communities.

• Surfacing insights from audio: Utilize AI tools to transform dense civic datasets into actionable, accessible story ideas. For example, partners like Gigafact will allow for faster fact-checking and uncovering critical insights from transcripts generated from audio files.
• Revealing policy trends across communities: City Bureau’s Documenters Network, who track and document public meetings in 22 communities across 14 states, as well as their partner newsrooms, will enhance their transcription pipelines, improve search functionality, and expand language accessibility—equipping communities with better access to public information.
• Building AI-powered data journalism tools: Through a partnership with Stanford University’s Big Local News, participating news organizations will equip their newsrooms with AI-powered data journalism tools and be supported in building data tools that leverage local municipal records, from documents to APIs, along with other public data sets.

Equipping newsrooms leaders

In early 2025, we’ll also launch an AI Leadership Series to help newsroom leaders develop clear policies and strategies for emerging technologies. As AI transforms journalism, transparency and thoughtful adoption are critical. This series will aim to equip leaders to take confident, ethical action — developing AI policies, building cross-functional teams, and integrating AI into workflows responsibly. Through this, we hope to help news organizations utilize AI in ways that strengthen both their operations and their trust with audiences.

Collaborative support for progress

Our cohort model ensures that no newsroom tackles these challenges alone. We’ll build a network of support for innovation where news organizations can learn from the experiments of others and surface lessons for the broader field.

The Product & AI Studio’s work is designed to provide a supportive, collaborative environment for AI experimentation in local newsrooms. We aim to enable the responsible, ethical, and strategic use of AI to give all local newsrooms the tools they need to innovate with confidence and expand their impact.

For more information about the Product & AI Studio or partnership inquiries, contact us at ajpstudio@theajp.org. To read about our first cohort and their accomplishments, visit our first cohort update.

Michael Ouimette is chief investment officer at the American Journalism Project.

The organizations receiving support, whose logos are above, include The Beacon, CalMatters, Capital B, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, Charlottesville Tomorrow, The CITY, City Bureau, Cityside, Civic News Company, CT Mirror, El Paso Matters, Enlace Latino NC, Fort Worth Report, inewsource, The Marshall Project, Mirror Indy, Montana Free Press, Mountain State Spotlight, Open Campus, Outlier Media, The Salt Lake Tribune, San José Spotlight, Sahan Journal, Signal Ohio, Spotlight PA, The Texas Tribune, VTDigger and Wisconsin Watch.