OpenAI Rolls out AI Academy for News Organizations

OpenAI announced on Wednesday (Dec. 17) the launch of OpenAI Academy for News Organizations, an online learning hub designed to help journalists, editors and publications integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into newsroom workflows.

The initiative arrives as generative AI companies face rising legal scrutiny from major news publishers, highlighting both opportunities and tensions in the AI-journalism ecosystem.

The OpenAI Academy for News Organizations offers on-demand training, real-world use cases and practical guidance for news teams to leverage AI tools for research, reporting, data analysis, translation and operational efficiency, according to a Wednesday news release.

Developed with partners like the American Journalism Project and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the curriculum covers core AI concepts and newsroom-specific applications while emphasizing responsible use and internal governance frameworks.

OpenAI said in the release the academy is designed to help newsrooms extract near-term value from AI as the technology becomes embedded in daily editorial workflows. The company acknowledged that AI adoption raises concerns around trust, accuracy and employment, and said the program was developed to address those issues directly.

The Academy’s rollout coincides with ongoing legal confrontations between OpenAI and major publishers over how AI systems use news content. In early 2024, OpenAI publicly called a copyright lawsuit filed by The New York Times “surprising and without merit,” stressing that the companies had been in partnership discussions shortly before the complaint and asserting that no single source makes a meaningful contribution to its model training data.

In its statement cited by PYMNTS, OpenAI said it collaborates with news organizations to support reporters and deploy AI tools while maintaining that any “regurgitation” of publisher content is a priority issue for mitigation.

OpenAI cited partnerships with publishers including News Corp, Axios, the Financial Times, Condé Nast and Hearst, alongside collaborations with industry groups such as the American Journalism Project, The Lenfest Institute, WAN-IFRA and INMA. OpenAI said these efforts support shared learning across newsrooms globally and will expand with new courses and live programming in the year ahead.