Can the New York Times Save Journalism From Our AI Overlords?

For most companies, spending upwards of $20 million on a single legal fight with an uncertain outcome might mean the boss has some explaining to do. For A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, that explanation is simple: It’s the cost of defending journalism—at the Times and everywhere else.

Sulzberger, who took on the publisher role about a decade ago and has been an influential leader in the Times’ much-lauded push into digital innovation, has no shortage of defending to do lately. Nearly three years ago, the Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies illegally used New York Times journalism to train AI models. That legal case, in which motions are still being filed about discovery requests, is only one front in a broader battle: The Trump administration is waging an ongoing war on press freedoms—most recently with an outrageous attempt to subpoena Times journalists over coverage of the president’s Qatar-gifted jet to be used as Air Force One—while AI companies radically reshape the way people find and consume information online.

The Times has arguably never been stronger as a business, having recently surpassed 13 million subscribers, and its newsroom is widely seen among journalists as one of the most stable and well-resourced in the business. Still, Sulzberger believes that journalism itself is facing myriad existential dilemmas—from an administration ready and willing to target reporters, from AI companies whose products depend on the very reporting they risk undermining, and media companies being demolished by the changes they’re unleashing on the open web.

I sat down with Sulzberger in late July at WIRED’s offices. We talked about that Times lawsuit, how and where AI is transforming reporting inside the newsroom, and why he thinks journalists and media executives need to team up—even while they continue to compete fiercely. You can read our entire conversation below, or listen to it here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KATIE DRUMMOND: AG, welcome. Thank you for being here.

A.G. SULZBERGER: It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

I want to get into AI, and I will, but I would be a terrible journalist if I didn't start with news that has recently affected your paper.

Specifically, I'm talking about the subpoenas that the Justice Department has issued to several Times journalists about their reporting on the Air Force One jet that was gifted to the Trump administration by Qatar. The Justice Department also issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers to obtain text messages and phone calls between some of those journalists and their family members.