A Different Path on Local News

AI for DC

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Hi

Welcome (back) to The Prompt. AI isn’t well understood, but we learn a lot in our work that can help. In this newsletter, we share some of these learnings with you:

• We’re taking a different approach to news partnerships

• Inside ChatGPT: 1 million prompts per week for local news

• OpenAI Signals puts new data tools into workers’ hands

If you find them helpful, make sure you’re signed up for the next issue.

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[Insight] A different path on news

For years, the relationship between big tech firms and news organizations has been defined by tension. As digital platforms reshaped how people discovered and consumed information, there was a tendency to view journalism as a “legacy” business, a relic of the last century printed on dead trees or stiffly recited in front of a teleprompter. Bloggers, vloggers, and podcasters were seen as the future of our public discourse, and tech companies instinctively rejected the idea that professional journalism might be worthy of special attention.

Partnerships were rare. Dialogue was limited. News was a bad business model, Silicon Valley told itself, without much regard for how it affects how we understand the world around us and how trustworthy information underpins our democratic ideals.

We’ve set out a different path. A thriving, independent media sector isn’t just compatible with AI; it’s essential to it. People want to know the sources of news they see on ChatGPT, and showing high-quality journalism makes ChatGPT more useful and informative. For news organizations, AI tools create opportunities to reach new audiences, operate more efficiently, unlock new forms of value from their work – and move on from the era where they saw steady erosion. This isn’t a zero-sum relationship; it’s a complementary one, with mutual benefits.

That belief shapes how we engage with publishers. Instead of resisting or delaying engagement, we’ve prioritized partnerships early in our development. Since we launched ChatGPT three years ago, we’ve built a broad and growing set of commercial relationships with leading news and media companies around the world. These collaborations reflect a shared commitment to quality information, sustainable business models, and mutual benefit.

Our goal is simple: shared success. We want to move into the future alongside publishers, as partners, building an ecosystem where AI innovation and high-quality, independent journalism reinforce each other.

The future of information depends on collaboration. We’re proud to be helping build it together. – Adam Cohen, OpenAI Head of Economic Policy

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[Data] 1 million prompts per week for local news

Today, we’re announcing an expansion of our partnership with Axios to keep underwriting local news reporting, just as Axios Local marks its fifth year and adds new ground to cover. In 2026, Axios will launch nine more local newsletters, bringing its footprint to 43 communities, with new reporting hires across Colorado, Arizona, Florida, and Ohio.

People continue to trust local news more than national news, and the demand for reliable local news is already visible inside ChatGPT at a rate of about 1 million prompts per week. Most of that interest focuses on daily civic life: community events and local businesses, crime and emergency response, and legislation, courts, and public policy.

And then, there’s winter weather: “Weather, disasters, school closures” more than quadrupled in share of prompts to become one of the top topics after January 17 as Winter Storm Fern rolled in.

ChatGPT can help people find local news, provided local journalists are still out there covering it. Northwestern’s Local News Initiative reports that almost 40% of local newspapers have vanished over two decades, the age of social media, leaving about 50 million Americans with limited or no reliable local news. OpenAI’s partnership with Axios is a bet that better tools, in the hands of working journalists, can help keep communities informed when it matters most.

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[AI Economics] Putting data in workers’ hands

We’re launching OpenAI Signals, a new public effort to share clear, empirical evidence on how people are using ChatGPT to create economic value around the world. Signals will publish privacy-preserving, aggregated usage data, updated quarterly, on where adoption is happening, how use is changing over time, and how often and for what work-related purposes are people using AI.

Building on our earlier work, including our How People Use ChatGPT paper, this initiative is designed to fill a real gap in the public conversation, which too often relies on anecdotes and scattered surveys. By pairing the data with ongoing economic analysis and maintaining strict end-to-end privacy protections, Signals aims to give policymakers, researchers, employers, and the public a more grounded, consistent picture of AI adoption.

Employers, employees and job applicants will be able to make more informed decisions about hiring, applying and career direction when they have real information. Federal and state agencies will be able to analyze it, informed by what we are seeing. We’re also talking with policymakers about ideas that we hope can inform future legislation encouraging AI labs to share this type of data. – Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s Chief Economist

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[About] OpenAI Forum

Explore Forum programming by and for our community of 60,000 AI experts and enthusiasts from across tech, science, medicine, education, government, and other fields.

6:20 PM – 7:20 PM ET on Feb 5

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[Disclosure]

Graphics created by Base Three using ChatGPT.

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