Five Pulitzer Prize winners and three finalists disclosed to the judging board this year that they used artificial intelligence in their award-winning work, Nieman Lab reports. Eight disclosures is the highest number since the Pulitzer organization first introduced the requirement in 2024.
How newsrooms used AI
According to Nieman Lab, AI was used mainly during the research phase, not in the writing itself. One example: for an investigation into failed flood warning systems in Central Texas — a finalist in the Breaking News category — The Wall Street Journal’s team used a mix of off-the-shelf and custom software to parse large volumes of public documents. Other award-winning newsrooms built custom scrapers to automatically pull public meeting minutes and agendas.
Notably, none of the published stories themselves carried any AI disclosure — no label, no footnote, no methodology box. It was disclosed only to the Pulitzer judges, not to readers.
Judges: AI “is here to stay”
Pulitzer administrator Marjorie Miller, commenting on the trend, said AI “is here to stay,” according to Nieman Lab. At the same time, she cautioned that entrants still need to reassure the judging board that submissions are ultimately produced by human beings, even when AI serves as an assistive tool. Starting with the next entry cycle, the Pulitzer organization is expanding the disclosure requirement: book category entries will also have to answer their own AI-use question.
A growing trend since 2024
Since the Pulitzer board first required AI disclosure from entrants in 2024, the number of newsrooms acknowledging its use has grown. For the industry, the record tally shows that AI research aids — for parsing large document sets or public meeting records — have become part of the toolkit at award-winning newsrooms, even when that use stays invisible in the finished story.
