Grow with AI: your 30-day plan

When you finish, you can follow a four-week plan and talk openly about AI use with editors and audiences.

Skills that gain value

Verification and open-source investigation, data literacy, interviewing, local knowledge, clear explanation and ethical judgment all rise in value when synthetic content floods the web. Audiences look for outlets and reporters they trust. Building your reputation matters as much as any tool.

Learn the basics of how these tools work and fail, so you can report on them too. Understanding AI is now part of understanding schools, courts, workplaces and elections.

Learn the policy, start with public material

Week one: learn your newsroom's policy, or ask for one. Practice with public, non-sensitive material only: explainers, interview question lists and glossary building. Log each prompt and every error you catch.

Week two: build verification habits. Take AI-written paragraphs and verify every claim. Practice with images and audio using reverse search and source tracing. Try tools that help with transcripts, then correct them against the recording.

Verify, log and talk it over with your editor

Week three: use AI in a real, low-risk workflow, such as preparing for a routine meeting you cover. Compare time and quality with your usual method. Show your editor the log, including the mistakes the tool made.

Week four: propose a small, written guideline for your team: allowed uses, banned uses, verification steps and disclosure language. Or write a short piece for your audience about how you use these tools. Choose one skill, such as data analysis or open-source verification, to study next.

Resume and conversations

On a resume or portfolio, write: “Use AI tools for background research and transcript drafts, verifying all content against primary sources and following newsroom policy.” Avoid claiming that AI produced your reporting. Prepare a story about a mistake the tool made that you caught.

Talk with editors about risks as well as benefits, and offer a pilot with clear rules. Talk with your audience honestly about how stories are made. Transparency can set you apart in a crowded information space.

Practice now

Draft a six-line AI use guideline for a small newsroom: allowed, not allowed, verification, disclosure, who decides, and review date.
Write two honest portfolio lines about AI use and one story about an error you caught.

Use any AI assistant you have. Do not paste private, client or patient information into it.

Check yourself

1. Which skills rise in value when fake content is common?

2. How should you start with AI in a newsroom?

3. What belongs in a portfolio statement about AI?

Ask the AI tutor

Ask anything about this lesson, in any language. The tutor is an AI: it can be wrong, and it never needs your personal details.

Take the final exam

AI-drafted. Checked by an automated validator and a separate AI reviewer; a person has not read every lesson. Translations and tutor answers are AI-made. Found a mistake? Tell us. AI can be wrong. General information only, not professional advice. Not affiliated with any AI company named. Current University is not accredited.