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The New York Times

23 verified, source-linked AI implementations documented between 2015–2026.

United StatesNorth AmericaGlobal / MultinationalNational
Cases
23
Active since
2015
Peak stage
4
Controversies
5

Where the AI sits

Editorial Production15
Workflow & Operations3
Audience & Community3
Commercial & Monetization1
Marketing, Distribution & Discovery1

AI implementations

2026

How The New York Times uses a custom AI tool to track the "manosphere"

Nearly 40 reporters use the Manosphere Report tool daily; provided early signals on shifting conservative media sentiment

Editorial Workflow & Writing Assistance2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2026

How does this article make you feel'

Talent Development & Upskilling2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2026

AI-hallucinated quote attributed to Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre published…

AI-hallucinated quote attributed to Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre published as direct speech — NYT reporter used an AI tool to locate Poilievre's recent public remarks while reporting on the 2025 Canadian federal election; AI tool returned a hallucinated transcription of a March speech including a fabricated quote rendered as a direct verbatim statement; published in April 2025; error flagged by reader Iris via the reporter's Bluesky post on April 15, 2026 after she searched the speeches and could not find the remark; correction/editors' note added more than two weeks after publication (May 10, 2026); Times explained AI provided 'links to a video of a speech and purported transcribed quotes' that were in fact AI-generated summaries rendered as transcript; NYT subsequently banned AI use for freelancers (May 13, 2026)

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption2 – AI-Assisted HumanControversy
Tool: Unspecified AI research/transcription tool (used to locate public speeches and generate transcribed quotes)Source ↗
2025

Document and video analysis for long-form investigations (hearing transcripts, Zoom calls)

Analysis of hundreds of hours of video impossible without AI

Research & Investigation4 – Ways of Working3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: Custom LLMSource ↗
2025

How A.I. Tools Helped the Travel Team Study Its 'Places to Go' Lists

Content Production & Automation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: GeminiSource ↗
2025

Inside the Movement Behind Trump's Election Lies

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

A Times Investigation Tracked Israel's Use of One of Its Most Destructive Bombs in South Gaza

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

To find photos in our archive, we taught the CMS how to read

Editorial Workflow & Writing Assistance2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

Estimating 3D poses of athletes at live sporting events

Content Production & Automation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

Analyzing bias in Natural Language models

Content Production & Automation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AIControversy
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

The New York Times has a course to teach its reporters data skills, now open-source

Research & Investigation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

We built an 'unbelievable' (but legal) facial recognition machine

Editorial Workflow & Writing Assistance2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

How The New York Times uses software to recognize Members of Congress

Editorial Workflow & Writing Assistance2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2025

Echo

LLM-powered internal archive and content tool

Editorial Workflow & Writing Assistance4 – Ways of Working3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: Custom LLM / internalSource ↗
2025

Cheatsheet

AI-powered investigative document analysis tool

Research & Investigation4 – Ways of Working2 – AI-Assisted Human
Tool: Custom LLM (spreadsheet interface)Source ↗
2025

Content licensing deal with Amazon (announced May 29, 2025)

NYT's first AI-focused content licensing agreement, signed while NYT continues lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft; Amazon licensed to (1) display real-time summaries and excerpts of Times content in Amazon products including Alexa, and (2) train Amazon's proprietary foundation models on Times archives; deal covers NYT plus NYT Cooking and The Athletic; agreement valued at $20-25 million annually; represents NYT's shift toward selective AI platform partnerships after aggressive IP litigation

Content Licensing & Partnerships3 – Proficiency1 – Fully AutomatedControversy
Tool: Amazon Alexa; Amazon foundation model training; content licensing agreementSource ↗
2025

Copyright lawsuit against Perplexity AI (filed December 5, 2025, US District Court Southern…

Copyright lawsuit against Perplexity AI (filed December 5, 2025, US District Court Southern District of New York); Times alleges Perplexity unlawfully scraped its stories, videos, podcasts and other content in real time to train AI models and power the Comet browser; alleges infringement at two stages: (1) scraping the website including real-time crawling to feed the Claude chatbot and Comet browser; (2) output of Perplexity products often reproducing Times articles verbatim; Perplexity moved to dismiss in March 2026, arguing user prompts are the proximate cause of any reproduced content; distinct from NYT's earlier $1 billion lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft (Dec 2023); part of wave of US publisher Perplexity suits alongside Chicago Tribune (Dec 15, 2025) and CNN (May 28, 2026)

Litigation & IP Rights2 – Adoption1 – Fully AutomatedControversy
Tool: Perplexity AI (defendant) — AI search engine + Comet browser + Claude chatbot integration; real-time content scrapingSource ↗
2023

Copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft (The New York Times Company v. Microsoft…

Copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft (The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation et al, Case No. 1:2023cv11195, filed Dec. 27, 2023, US District Court SDNY); landmark first major newspaper copyright suit against an AI company; claims OpenAI unlawfully used millions of NYT articles to train ChatGPT without authorization or compensation; exhibits show ChatGPT able to reproduce NYT articles verbatim, potentially displacing subscriptions and licensing revenue; joined by co-plaintiffs New York Daily News and Center for Investigative Reporting; demands more than $1 billion in damages and destruction of all datasets and AI models trained on NYT content; OpenAI moved to dismiss; federal judge rejected OpenAI's motion to dismiss (March 2025), allowing main copyright infringement claims to proceed; case still in active litigation/discovery as of June 2026; distinct from NYT's subsequent Perplexity copyright lawsuit (Dec. 5, 2025) and NYT/Amazon content licensing deal (May 2025)

Litigation & IP Rights2 – Adoption1 – Fully AutomatedControversy
Tool: OpenAI ChatGPT + Microsoft (defendants) — training on NYT content; verbatim reproduction in ChatGPT outputsSource ↗
2018

We recommend articles with a little help from our friends (Machine Learning and reader input)

Audience Experience & Personalisation2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2018

To apply Machine Learning responsibly, we use it in moderation

Audience Engagement & Community2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2018

Using AI to host better conversations

Audience Engagement & Community2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: CustomSource ↗
2015

"Editor" AI tool – semantic tagging and NER for real-time research and fact-checking…

"Editor" AI tool – semantic tagging and NER for real-time research and fact-checking (events, people, locations, dates)

Verification & Fact-Checking2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: Custom NLP (NYT R&D Lab)Source ↗

News companies are using GenAI in these 4 interesting ways

Built by The New York Times / Dagbladet / Washington Post / Stuff Group

Multi-country consortium: also Norway, Denmark and New Zealand.

Distribution & Discovery2 – Adoption3 – Collaborative Human–AI
Tool: GenAI (unspecified)Source ↗

Context

The New York Times is one of 182 organizations in United States documented in the index, which holds 363 cases from the country. Its work spans 10 function types, including Audience Engagement & Community, documented across 41 organizations worldwide.

Explore related

More newsrooms in United StatesAudience Engagement & CommunityAudience Experience & PersonalisationContent Licensing & PartnershipsHow this is verified
Part of J·Index — The Journalism AI Index. Every case carries a live source link. Cite with attribution; bulk reproduction is not licensed. Data licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.