OpenAI renews local news partnership with $5 million investment

OpenAI committed an additional $5 million and $3 million in technology credits to the American Journalism Project as part of a two-year extension of the organizations’ partnership.

The funding will help the American Journalism Project expand direct support for nonprofit local news organizations and broaden access to ChatGPT enterprise products, executives told Axios.

“These partnerships are consistent with our mission and have demonstrated great success,” Tom Rubin, OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content, said. “We’re committed to them because they demonstrate that the technology can benefit society.”

The agreement followed OpenAI’s initial 2023 commitment of $5 million in funding and $5 million in technology credits. That support helped establish the American Journalism Project’s Product & AI Studio, which assists nonprofit newsrooms in developing AI-supported products and workflows.

During the first phase of the partnership, the American Journalism Project awarded direct grants to 31 organizations in its portfolio of more than 50 nonprofit newsrooms operating across 38 states.

The organization plans to extend funding to additional newsroom partners under the renewed agreement, American Journalism Project CEO Sarabeth Berman said.

“Deploying AI effectively is ultimately a leadership challenge,” Berman said. “News organizations really have to think about how they smartly integrate these technologies in ways that have good policies, have humans in the lead and support the journalistic quality of the news organizations.”

Participating newsrooms developed tools for fundraising, donor communications, data analysis, translation and the delivery of civic information. The American Journalism Project now plans to move beyond newsroom-specific experiments and develop shared products and infrastructure for nonprofit local news organizations.

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OpenAI has established several other programs involving local and regional publishers. In 2024, it launched an AI collaborative and fellowship program with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism that provided grants, engineering assistance and technology credits to publishers including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Minnesota Star Tribune and The Seattle Times.

OpenAI also reached an agreement with Axios in 2025 to support the expansion of Axios Local into additional markets, including Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Boulder, Colorado, and Huntsville, Alabama. The company has also provided AI grants, training and support to newsrooms affiliated with WAN-IFRA.

The investments have occurred as OpenAI pursued licensing agreements with news organizations while facing copyright infringement lawsuits from The New York Times and eight newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital.