The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a leader in developing solutions for the next era of local news, on Tuesday announced a major new collaboration with OpenAI and Microsoft 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.

“We are pleased to be working with both OpenAI and Microsoft on this important initiative to support local news,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of The Lenfest Institute. “Through these fellowships—and by sharing results with the broader news industry—we will help empower local newsrooms to explore, implement and advocate for AI business solutions that uphold the highest ethical standards while strengthening their future prospects. The Lenfest Institute and OpenAI incubated the fellowship program, which is designed to promote the use of AI in creating a sustainable future for independent local journalism, and we welcome its expansion in scope and resources with Microsoft’s commitment.”

The first slate of AI Collaborative and Fellows members will work on projects that focus on the use of AI for analysis of public data, to better utilize news and visual archives, to build audience engagement, for creating new AI-based news tools and products, and more. The projects were chosen through an application process led by The Lenfest Institute with assistance from FT Strategies, a global media consultant, and Nota, a provider of AI tools for journalism.