A record eight Pulitzer awardees disclosed using artificial intelligence this year, including five winners and three finalists. This follows a mandatory disclosure rule introduced in 2024. Entrants reported using tools and large language models more frequently than in previous years, primarily to search large document sets faster.
The Wall Street Journal used an internal LLM to summarise thousands of public documents on Texas floods. The Minnesota Star Tribune used ChatGPT to translate a female shooter’s diary written in faux Cyrillic, then had language experts check the results. The Associated Press used an LLM to search tens of thousands of leaked documents on Chinese surveillance technology, and the New York Times used GPT-5 to check its manual classification of SEC crypto cases. Pulitzer administrator Marjorie Miller told Nieman Lab that the news industry now accepts AI is here to stay and better understands where its use is appropriate. The disclosure rule will also cover book entries starting next year.
- AI use is restricted for writing and editing stories considered for the prize
- Language experts must verify machine-translated text
- The requirement applies to book entries from next year
