April 3-4, New York City
Poynter and the Associated Press presented two energizing days of discovery, debate and insight into the future of news and generative AI. More than 50 participants — including newsroom technologists, fact-checkers, academics, reporters and standards editors — charted a path forward. Together, we learned how to avoid what our industry faced during previous pivotal moments in the digital landscape, by experimenting ethically, responsibly and with purpose.
The summit discussed how newsrooms can shape how AI transforms journalism, but they need clarity of purpose, ethical guardrails and a real relationship with their audiences. And more than anything, they need journalists — human beings — fully present in the process. It’s not a cliche; it’s crucial: Keep a human in the loop.
More than 50 people participated in the invitation-only 2025 Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism presented by Poynter and the Associated Press. (Courtesy: Keith Hughes)
Takeaways from the summit:
- We explored the ethical use of AI in visual journalism and news product development, equipping emerging leaders with lessons for engaging their newsrooms around responsible innovation.
- Innovation needs purpose to be meaningful. As one speaker put it, “Innovating in and of itself is not innovative.” If it doesn’t meet a real user need, it’s just a novelty.
- Tools like chatbots and summarizers may help reconnect casual or overwhelmed audiences — but only if journalists are involved in design and oversight.
- Every AI experiment needs ethics guidelines. They are not optional.
- The newsroom “assembly line” model may no longer fit. AI challenges us to rethink everything: content, delivery and even newsroom structure. Your ethics guidelines and values should put people first when considering these sweeping changes.
- Audiences may not be asking for AI, but they can still value it — if it’s built with care and explained clearly.
A few quotes that stuck with us:
“What reporters do is extremely valuable. We want to use AI to amplify what the reporters do. We don’t want to use AI to replace the reporters.”
“We’re building with — not for —our newsroom partners. Otherwise we just make tools no one wants to use.”
“What if we talked about methods? What if we talked about citations? What if we talked about a framework that is more focused on ‘here’s what we did, here’s who we’re in conversation with,’ rather than ‘here’s all the bad things we did, please love us anyway’?”
What’s next:
We’re keeping the momentum going:
- Check out photos from the event — please consider sharing on your social networks and tagging Poynter and the Associated Press.
- Read about the latest research on generative AI by Poynter and the University of Minnesota, written by MediaWise Director Alex Mahavedan.
- An update to our AI Ethics guidelines is in the works, to help journalists and media leaders apply responsible standards to emerging tech. Your work helped define new principles and guidelines for AI use in visual journalism and newsroom products.
- Sign up for the new MediaWise-AP course in partnership with Microsoft Talking About AI: Newsroom Toolkit, a practical resource for integrating AI literacy into reporting and newsroom workflows.
