The Baltimore Banner is among five organizations that will join the Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program, originally launched to help news enterprises leverage artificial intelligence to drive business sustainability and innovation.

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, OpenAI, and Microsoft announced on Wednesday, The Banner, ProPublica, Boston Globe Media, The Dallas Morning News, and Arizona State University’s NEWSWELL all will launch AI experiments as part of the program.

These new members will receive funding to work on projects that enhance audience engagement to help build both subscriptions and membership revenue, assist in organizing story tips sourced from the public, improve content personalization and audience data for advertisers, subscribers, donors, and more.

“We’re so grateful to Open AI, Microsoft and the Lenfest Institute for the opportunity to join and learn from some of the most innovative news organizations in the nation,” The Banner’s chief executive officer Bob Cohn said. “This funding makes it possible for The Banner to hire an AI fellow to help us better understand and serve our audiences, which we believe will boost engagement and subscriber retention.”

The Banner will use AI to better classify content and analyze audience feedback — deepening engagement, boosting donor outreach, and supporting sustainable expansion into new markets, creating a replicable model for revenue-aligned audience and donor insights in local news.

The AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program launched in October 2024 with $10 million in total support from OpenAI and Microsoft — each awarding $2.5 million in direct funding and $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits.

The new members join five of the largest independently owned metropolitan news organizations in the United States as part of the AI Collaborative and Fellowship: Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times.

The initial Lenfest AI Collaborative and Fellowship participants have already begun seeing the results of their experiments and sharing lessons with the broader journalism industry.

As part of the program, the organizations participating in the Fellowship will work collaboratively with each other and the broader news industry to share learnings, product developments, case studies, and technical information needed to help replicate their work in other newsrooms. The goal of the Lenfest AI Collaborative and Fellowship is to help local news publishers leverage new AI technology to build sustainable businesses.

“The Lenfest Institute is proud to collaborate with OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the AI Collaborative and Fellowship program. The five publishers joining the program each operate at significant scale and are leaders in the field. We welcome them to the program and look forward to sharing what they learn with the rest of the industry,” said Lenfest Institute Executive Director & CEO Jim Friedlich. “The Institute and OpenAI incubated the fellowship program, and Microsoft’s commitment allowed us to expand its scope and resources to more broadly explore ethical uses of AI to advance sustainable solutions for local news.”