The Associated Press updated its newsroom standards for artificial intelligence in late July 2026, publishing the revision on its own “Definitive Source” announcements page. The update expands what AI tools AP journalists may use day to day, and adds a new disclosure rule for when generative AI plays a material role in a published piece.
What’s newly permitted
Per AP’s own announcement, the updated standards allow AI assistance with:
- Early-stage research and document summarization
- Transcription and translation
- Drafting headlines, story summaries, and photo shot lists
- Grammar, spelling, and search-optimization cleanup
- AI coding assistants for software development — new in this revision, and the first time AP’s standards have addressed AI use in its engineering work rather than just its reporting
In every case, the standards require that AI-generated output be reviewed and edited by an AP journalist before it reaches publication.
What stays prohibited
AP continues to prohibit generative AI from creating, altering, or enhancing news photography. The standards are explicit that AI does not replace original reporting, source verification, fact-checking, or editorial judgment — those responsibilities stay with AP journalists regardless of what tools assist the drafting process.
The new disclosure rule
The revision adds a requirement to disclose generative AI’s use whenever it “materially contributes” to a published piece. AP’s standards reportedly don’t define exactly what counts as a material contribution, leaving that judgment to editors case by case — a gap several outlets covering the update flagged as the detail newsrooms will need to watch as the rule gets applied.
Why now
The timing lines up with a broader regulatory shift: Article 50 of the EU’s AI Act, which took effect August 2, 2026, requires deployers operating in the EU to disclose AI-generated text published on matters of public interest, with an exception for text that has undergone human review or editorial control. AP’s own revision predates that date by about a week, but the two rules share the same basic shape — disclosure is required unless a human has substantively reviewed the output.
What’s confirmed and what isn’t
- Confirmed: the permitted-uses list, the photography prohibition, and the material-contribution disclosure rule, per AP’s own published announcement.
- Confirmed: the EU AI Act’s Article 50 disclosure requirement took effect August 2, 2026, per the regulation’s own text.
- Not independently verified: how AP is defining “material contribution” in practice, since the standards document doesn’t spell out a threshold and AP hasn’t published examples.
