GNI x NPA Ai-Powered
Next Gen News Sprint
Future-proofing audience strategies for news
Supported by
An existential challenge
The future of journalism depends on how fast news organizations can anticipate audience needs and adapt to change. Younger audiences aren't interacting with news the way previous generations did, and the newsrooms that understand and meet them now will be the ones that thrive.
The GNI × NPA AI-Powered Next Gen News Sprint is a structured, eight-month program that guides news organizations through the full journey from understanding next-gen audiences to shipping real AI-powered products designed to reach them.
Built on cutting-edge research
The program builds on the Next Gen News Report from the Knight Lab at Northwestern University, one of the most comprehensive studies of how younger audiences relate to journalism today. We're thrilled to partner with the Knight Lab to bring their Ideal News Experience research to life and bridge academic insight with real-world newsroom experimentation.
How it Works
The Sprint guides newsrooms through four core moments of transformation.
Understand your audience.
Before you can reach next-gen audiences, you have to know them in the context of your specific area and mission. Participating newsrooms conduct original audience research, localize findings from the Next Gen News Report, and define a clear, evidence-based strategic challenge to solve.
Ideate, prototype, and test.
Insight without action doesn't move the needle. During an in-person design sprint co-facilitated by GNI and NPA experts, teams transform their audience research into AI-driven strategies and working prototypes.
Execute with structure.
The core belief is simple: execution with structure accelerates learning. By combining targeted coaching and measurable goals, teams are more likely to ship meaningful experiments. Guided execution reduces drift, clarifies tradeoffs and increases the odds that AI adoption translates into real audience impact. Each newsroom receives ongoing strategic product support alongside expert audience and AI coaching that adapts to their specific needs and goals.
Learn among peers.
Participants join a community of twelve news organizations navigating the same challenges, sharing progress, exchanging tactics and holding each other accountable. Through monthly sessions, async collaboration and structured peer exchange, every conversation makes the work sharper.
The inaugural cohort brings together 12 forward-thinking U.S. news organizations already on a product and AI journey:
Advance Local · Boston Globe · Chicago Public Media · Deep South Today · Graham Media Group · Los Angeles Times · Tampa Bay Times · Salt Lake Tribune · The Atlanta Journal-Constitution · The Minnesota Star Tribune · The Philadelphia Inquirer · The Texas Tribune
The Cohort
NPA Next-Gen Resources
At the end of the program, participating newsrooms will publish case studies, contribute to a public Next Gen AI Toolkit and present their results at an industry-wide showcase. Stay tuned — the best of what this cohort learns will be available for any news organization to use.
Reach out to us directly at hello@newsproduct.org to learn more in the meantime.
