Microsoft, Lenfest Institute announce AI Collaborative and Fellowship program

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism on Tuesday announced a major new collaboration with OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT) Corp. to help newsrooms explore and implement ways in which artificial intelligence can help drive business sustainability and innovation in local journalism through the Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship program. In the initial round of funding, Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times will each receive a grant to hire a two-year AI fellow to pursue projects that focus largely on improving business sustainability and implementing AI technologies within their organizations. The fellowship will also provide OpenAI and Microsoft Azure credits to help these publications experiment and develop tools to assist with local news. As part of the program, the news organizations will work collaboratively with each other and the broader news industry to share learnings, product developments, case studies and technical information needed to help replicate their work in other newsrooms. An additional three organizations will be awarded fellows in a second round of grants.