AI Guide: Home

This guide, made possible by support from the Google News Initiative, was created for LION's News Entrepreneur Academy and authored by Shira T. Center and edited by Natalya Dreszer.

Guide Sections

    Introduction

    For news businesses, AI is a dynamic force that will continue to change our readers’ expectations, business models, and journalism.

    Indeed, users are adopting AI technology at many times the speed of social media twenty years ago. ChatGPT reported having 1 billion active monthly users as of May 2026 – just 3.5 years after it launched. Compare that to Facebook, which took nearly nine years to reach that benchmark.

    Perhaps you’re already experimenting with AI to help your organization, such as for transcribing or creating marketing copy, but you’re seeking more structure – a formal process and way of thinking about integrating it into your organization and journalism.

    Maybe you’re using AI regularly in your administrative work because you’ve seen what a force multiplier it can be, especially for resource-constrained organizations. Now you want to help your colleagues integrate it into their workflows.

    Or maybe you remain extremely skeptical about the impact AI is having on society and democracy, so you’re hesitant to even try it. Still, you want to understand AI before you decide – including whether to encourage or dissuade your colleagues from using it. 

    This guide is meant to give leaders of independent news businesses – wherever you are in your journey – the tools and frameworks to make the best decisions about using AI.

    After reading the guide, you’ll understand how AI works (or doesn’t), the purpose of governance and guardrails, and how to kick-start adoption in your organization (if you so choose). You’ll get practical guidance and frameworks to bring AI into your operations and editorial workflows. We’ll finish off with a look at use cases from early adopters to highlight ways you can bring AI into your business.

    You can read more about each section of this guide below, or click the 'Foundational Concepts' button to get started.

    Foundational Concepts

    This section covers how AI will impact news businesses, key terms and how they relate, how AI works, and what AI can (and can't) do well.

    Governance and Policies

    This section outlines the steps to consider when building an AI policy, starting with your mission and people, reviewing what other organizations have done, drafting your own policy, assessing risks, and more.

    Getting Started

    This section covers how to get started using AI: what you'll see when you log in to various platforms, which platforms to use and for what, prompting, building workflows, and determining what's worth building.

    Overcoming Uncertainty and Fostering Experimentation

    This section covers how to work with your team to address concerns about using AI, steps to encourage experimentation, and the importance of a landmark use case and tracking results.

    Case Studies

    This section is packed with examples of AI use cases, categorized by LION's three pillars of sustainability and level of difficulty.

    Generative AI was used to refine the writing and check content on this page. All content was created, reviewed, and verified by a human, who takes full responsibility for its accuracy.