JournalismAI 2024 Impact Report and 2025 programmes
Here’s a snapshot of our reflections from 2024, as we look ahead to some of the programmes and opportunities in 2025
As many of you charge ahead into 2025, deep in the thick of new projects and fresh goals, we at JournalismAI are taking a moment to pause and reflect. 2024 was a year of growth, learning, and meaningful impact—and we’re excited to share some of the highlights with you. At the same time, we're looking forward and eager to give you a glimpse of what's in store for the community in the year ahead, with continued support from the Google News Initiative.
In our reflections for 2023, we mentioned that in 2022, we renewed our mission to make JournalismAI more inclusive and participatory. We set a 3-year plan to guide our ambitions, with a target to be achieved by early 2025. We shared how we had already achieved four of these 11 goals in early 2024. We are happy to share, that we have accomplished the remaining goals in 2024, which include:
Listing over 200+ case studies in our public library – adding examples in languages other than English – to maintain the biggest repository in the world.
Hosting regular workshops, masterclasses, and debates to actively involve the community in the discussion about the future of AI in journalism.
Hosting 5 editions of the JournalismAI Festival - you can catch up on last year’s Festival here.
Offering hands-on training on AI to 200 news organisations worldwide via the AI Academy for Small Newsrooms.
Hosting regular leaders circles to connect the experts with each other.
Going global with our programmatic work in partnerships with leading academic and nonprofit institutions in the Global South, and the rest of the world. For example, to facilitate the meeting of demand and supply for AI and journalism trainers/consultants, we built a directory in collaboration with ICFJ.
Nurturing a more diverse, inclusive, and responsible generation of AI-in-journalism experts to improve the diversity of the field.
We expand on these goals inside the Impact Report, linked below.
So how do we plan to support our community this year?
In 2025, JournalismAI will train at least 4,500 journalists from 100 countries in 5 languages. The first of these trainings, which you may have seen, is the call for applications for the second iteration of JournalismAI Academy geared towards publishers in Latin America. More on the Academy below, but for now, here’s more of what we will be doing with and for the community:
A new AI skills-building programme. Following lessons from 5 years of the JournalismAI Fellowship Programme and a need for AI skills training for the newsroom, we will soon launch a pilot programme geared towards editors, managers, and those interested in levelling up their technical and AI skills with practical experience. Be the first to know when we launch this programme by registering your interest.
The Discovery course in other languages. We will continue to translate and adapt the Discovery course into different languages, mainly focusing on Portuguese and French, and running a second revamped and improved iteration for the Arabic-speaking community.
Developing new resources. We plan to launch new resources for journalism schools and for news organisations that are considering how to collaborate when implementing AI initiatives.
New research. Expect a comprehensive guide packed with case studies, best practices and insights from 35 small and medium-sized publishers from around the world, currently working on innovative AI tools to help fight misinformation and disinformation; experimenting with new formats across mobile, video and audio and identifying ways to grow subscription and support diverse forms of revenue.
We’re hosting another JournalismAI Festival. Join us for our sixth gathering of media enthusiasts, celebrating the most exciting developments at the intersection of journalism and AI. Stay tuned for details on the 2025 dates.
Other updates you can expect this year include:
The JournalismAI Academy is no longer just limited to small newsrooms. The goal is to widen the programme to more publishers with a more inclusive, regional and non-English language focus. We will announce a call for applications for sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific later this year.
Due to high demand for the Discovery course, the English-language version will be moved to an eLearning platform, allowing you to access the material on-demand at your convenience.
Sign up to Connect, as we will be providing a variety of online and in-person activities throughout the year.
Over and above this, we will still need help with the delivery of some of our activities, like a Portuguese-speaking AI expert to support the Discovery course; a new programme officer to support the delivery of our other activities
To deliver on the above, and more, expect some few changes and new additions to our global team, spread across five countries in Africa, Europe and the Americas.
In 2025, Lakshmi Sivadas will continue leading the Innovation Challenge, as well as taking the lead on the new AI skills-building Programme, with the support of Zena Onyango. Lwazi Maseko will oversee the delivery of the Academy and the Festival. She will be supported by Ana Paula Valacco, whose title changes to Programme Manager and Engagement Lead, overseeing a new initiative we are working on, research and Connect. Manager, Tshepo Tshabalala, will continue coordinating the overall initiative, working closely with our director, Charlie Beckett and our partners at the Google New Initiative.
And this is just a sneak peek of what we’ve got lined up for the year. Join our global community of 14,000+ media professionals to stay in the loop on all the latest updates, opportunities, and more!
As always, feel free to reach out if there’s anything we can do to support your team. We love sharing what we’ve learned—whether it’s through talks, panels, or workshops. Or just drop us a line if you’ve got ideas for how we can team up to help newsrooms use AI in smarter, more responsible ways. Let’s make it happen!
Here’s to looking ahead to even more learning, growth, and progress in 2025.