OpenAI and Microsoft have collaborated with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism to help bring more artificial intelligence (AI) tools to the newsroom. The move comes at a time when media organizations have been at loggerheads with AI companies over them (allegedly) illegally scraping their copyrighted work to train their AI models. Journalists themselves are worrying that the tech could eventually eat away many newsroom jobs.

The announcement highlights that while tech companies have been pouring billions of dollars into expanding their AI capabilities, the demand from end users hasn’t been as strong as expected, prompting them to use such techniques to boost its adoption. Here’s everything we know about Microsoft’s ploy to get newsrooms to use its AI tools and its implications.

OpenAI and Microsoft Commit $10 Million for Newsrooms

OpenAI and Microsoft have committed a total of $10 million towards the initiative. Each will contribute $2.5 million in direct funding and $2.5 million in “software and enterprise credits” to help newsrooms use their AI tools.

“We will work with the Lenfest AI Fellowship to drive AI innovation that can help news organizations create new products to extend their reporting, find new sources of revenue, and ultimately build a more sustainable future,” said Teresa Hutson, corporate vice president, technology for fundamental rights at Microsoft.

Hutson added, “We hope these news organizations will be lighthouses for the industry, to provide examples of how AI can build a better future for the business of news.”

Microsoft and OpenAI have initially selected the following four projects as part of the endeavor.

  • The Minnesota Star Tribune: The newsroom will experiment with AI summarization, analysis, and content discovery for readers as well as journalists.
  • The Seattle Times: As part of the project, it will use AI platforms to assist in advertising, and sales training analytics. Subsequently, it will expand the learnings to other functions.
  • Chicago Public Media: The company would leverage AI for features like transcription, summarization, and translation.
  • The Philadelphia Inquirer: The media house will build a conversational search interface for its archives using AI. Additionally, it will use the technology for monitoring media produced by local agencies like municipalities.

As you can see in the above test cases, Microsoft and OpenAI aren’t just interested in AI news writing. They are testing AI across a ton of different newsroom functions. However, the deal does not talk about them using the data from these news organizations to train their large language models (LLMs).

Newsroom Might Be the New Battlefield for AI Companies

Newsrooms might be the new battlefield for AI companies and Google is also reportedly testing a tool called “Genesis” designed to write news articles. In her statement, Google spokeswoman Jenn Crider said that “in partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help their journalists with their work.”

While very little is known about Genesis, Google recently added new AI-powered features in Pinpoint, its tool for journalists. Earlier this year, it announced a fund to train journalists to develop new skills and help them explore using AI in their work.

“There’s a lot more to come this year and we’re looking forward to continuing to develop the tools and resources that support journalists’ work around the world,” said Google in its release.

That said, while tech giants like Microsoft and Google sense an opportunity for AI in newsrooms, they have been at loggerheads with some media and journalist organizations.

Microsoft and OpenAI Have Been Sued by Media Organizations

Last year, The New York Times filed a lawsuit accusing AI giants OpenAI and Microsoft of brazenly copying millions of articles from their websites without due permission to train their AI systems.

Earlier this year, journalists Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Charles Graeber filed a class action suit against Anthropic in a California court accusing it of using their work without permission to train the company’s Claude chatbot.

Yesterday, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal’s parent company sued Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity, accusing the AI startup of illegally using their copyrighted news.

Tech companies have now been looking to license the work of media organizations for training their LLMs. Earlier this year, OpenAI signed a $250 million deal with News Corp, which gives it access to current and archived content on leading portals like The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and The Daily Telegraph. OpenAI has also signed a deal with Time that gives the Microsoft-backed company access to its archived content dating back a century.

AI Giants Have Been Trying to Allay Fears

There are genuine fears that AI would take away the jobs of journalists. Mindful of the sensibilities, a Google representative said that the company’s tools are meant “to help journalists with their work.” They added, “These tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles.”

OpenAI has also made similar observations as the company announced a $5 million outlay t0 support the adoption of AI in newsrooms. “While nothing will replace the central role of reporters, we believe that AI technology can help in the research, investigation, distribution and monetization of important journalism,” said OpenAI Chief of Intellectual Property and Content Tom Rubin. He added, “Local news is a particularly vulnerable area of journalism, and we believe AI can help it thrive.”

However, such assertions have failed to cut ice in the past also and even this time around there are bound to be apprehensions about the real intent of Microsoft and OpenAI.

Microsoft and OpenAI Need to Justify Their Massive Capex and Investment

Many analysts have been concerned about the monetization capabilities of Microsoft and OpenAI which was valued at $157 billion in the most recent funding round.

To be sure, barring chip companies – predominantly Nvidia and its supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – few companies have many (if any) tangible benefits to show from the countless billions of dollars spent on AI. If this continues for long, it’s hard to imagine that tech companies held up by lofty AI promises will continue to boom.

Revenues of companies creating AI products like Microsoft and Alphabet aren’t taking off in a big way despite the massive investments that they are making in AI. With their collective $10 million bet, both Microsoft and OpenAI are looking to enhance the adoption of their AI tools.

While fears of AI virtually taking over newsrooms are not unfounded, for now, these models are far from perfect as is visible in several instances.

The increasing use of AI might also have some other unintended consequences for newsrooms. As the Columbia Journalism School notes, “The increasing use of AI will likely reinforce existing inequalities among news organizations, with well-resourced, international publishers getting a head start.”

It also makes what perhaps looks the most apt statement on the relationship between AI and newsrooms, “Currently, AI aids news workers rather than replaces them, but there are no guarantees this will remain the case.”