The Lenfest Institute for Journalism and OpenAI announced on September 28, 2026, the next phase of the Lenfest AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program, which the two organizations describe as the largest AI fellowship program in American journalism. According to the joint announcement published by OpenAI, the program launched in 2024 with AI engineering fellows placed in 11 major American news organizations. The expansion includes a new $5 million commitment from OpenAI, along with up to $5 million in software credits and engineering support, which the announcement states doubles OpenAI's previous support. The program places full-time AI technologists into news organizations to work alongside newsroom leaders, reporters, product teams and revenue staff. The Lenfest Institute said it will invite a new group of news organizations to join the cohort. The announcement cited specific projects, including 'Dewey,' an archive-search tool, and 'Scrape,' a monitoring tool at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and AI-assisted translation workflows for Spanish-language coverage at Chicago Public Media. Lenfest CEO Jim Friedlich said the program's central lesson was that 'responsible AI adoption is less about the technology and more about trust.' OpenAI's Tom Rubin said the partnership would support more journalists in local news work.
- New $5 million OpenAI commitment plus up to $5 million in software credits and engineering support, doubling prior support
- Program launched in 2024 with fellows in 11 major news organizations
- Cited tools include 'Dewey' (archive search) and 'Scrape' (lead monitoring) at The Philadelphia Inquirer
What it means for you
A well-funded program is proving out how small, resource-strapped organizations can adopt AI without wrecking quality or trust. The headline number is a vendor funding a program that uses its own products, so treat it as positioning. The genuinely useful part is the lessons: their own stated takeaway is that successful adoption depends more on trust, policy and understanding your actual needs than on the technology.
Try this
Look at the named use cases — turning a 15-hour weekly monitoring task into a daily digest, speeding up translation, searching your own archives — and ask which repetitive, time-eating task in your own operation looks similar. Pick one and test whether an AI tool can compress it.
Who should care
Small newsrooms, nonprofits and any small business with a lean team doing repetitive research, translation, monitoring or archive-digging work.
Skip this if
You are not a news organization and you have no interest in general adoption lessons — the specific fellowship only affects invited outlets.
Sources: OpenAI — read the original