Microsoft, OpenAI Are Spending Millions on News Outlets to Let Them Try Out AI Tools

Microsoft and OpenAI, in collaboration with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, announced an AI Collaborative and Fellowship programme on Tuesday. With this programme, the two tech giants will spend upwards of $10 million (roughly Rs. 84.07 crores) in direct funding as well as enterprise credits to use proprietary software. The companies highlighted that the programme was aimed at increasing the adaptation of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms. As many as five news outlets have been announced as the beneficiary of this fellowship programme.

Microsoft, OpenAI to Fund News Outlets

In a blog post, OpenAI announced the fellowship programme. The AI firm highlighted that it is partnering with Microsoft and the Lenfest Institute of Journalism to “help newsrooms explore and implement ways in which artificial intelligence can help drive business sustainability and innovation in local journalism”. The funding initiative, titled Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship programme, has finalised five news outlets which will receive funding in the initial round.

As per the post, the selected news outlets include Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times. Each of them will receive $2.5 million (roughly Rs. 21 crores) in direct funding and another $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits, for a total of up to $10 million.

This will be a two-year programme with The Lenfest Institute's Local Independent News Coalition (LINC) and a group of eight metropolitan news organisations in the US. During this period, the news organisations will collaborate with each other as well as the larger industry ecosystem to “share learnings, product developments, case studies and technical information needed to help replicate their work in other newsrooms.” Additionally, three more news organisations will be awarded funding in the second round of grants.

The larger goal of the fellowship programme is to help news outlets develop the capacity to use AI for the analysis of public data, build news and visual archives, create new AI tools for newsrooms, and more. OpenAI said that the recipients were chosen after a comprehensive application process.