AP said it would offer buyouts to U.S.-based journalists as it accelerates a transformation that puts more emphasis on visual journalism and on revenue opportunities tied to technology and artificial intelligence, the Associated Press said Monday.
In an interview, Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor and senior vice president, said the organization is not operating as a traditional newspaper company. “We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Pace said, adding that AP wants to change more quickly as it adapts to shifting audience behavior and revenue patterns.
Pace said AP’s goal includes reducing its global staff by less than 5%, while the buyout offers are being extended to U.S. journalists. She said how many positions would ultimately be cut depends on how many employees choose to take the offer, and she said AP employs hundreds of journalists who can adjust to the changing media landscape.
The union that represents AP journalists, the News Media Guild, said its members were among those who received buyout offers. In a statement, the union said more than 120 of the staff members it represents received buyout offers on Monday.
The union argued that AP is moving toward artificial intelligence without providing what it called appropriate training and tools for employees. The union said AP ignored a request made last week to bargain over artificial intelligence, and it criticized what it described as a plan to reduce experienced staff while “flirt[ing] with artificial intelligence.”
AP did not immediately provide an exact number of buyout recipients, and it did not say whether negotiations or acceptances were concluded by Monday afternoon. AP also has an international presence in addition to its U.S. workforce, and Pace declined to quantify the total number of U.S. journalists affected.
The company said its business shift responds to the economic collapse affecting many legacy news outlets, and it described a decline in newspaper income. Over the past four years, AP said its revenue from newspapers has dropped by 25%, and it noted that major newspaper publishers including Gannett and McClatchy dropped AP in 2024.
Pace said AP is expanding rapid-response teams in a way that allows staff members across geographies to contribute to major stories, and she said the company is also putting more journalists on beats to break news on topics of known customer interest. AP also said it will maintain a presence in all 50 states.
AP said the changes include staffing adjustments tied to visual reporting. It said it has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022, and it said remnants of a staffing structure built to serve stories for newspapers and broadcasters in individual states have remained even as the organization pivoted.
As part of its broader revenue diversification, AP said growth is being driven by technology companies and by products that use its data and archive. AP said technology-company revenue has grown 200% over the last four years, and it cited examples including its 2023 deal to lease part of its text archive to OpenAI and its licensing efforts through platforms such as Snowflake Marketplace.
AP also said it has used elections data as a revenue growth area. The company said it agreed last month to sell U.S. elections data to Kalshi, and it said it saw a 30% increase in customers between the 2020 and 2024 election cycles, after major TV news organizations signed on to the service.
AP leaders said the company’s moves toward video and data-driven products do not represent a weakening of standards, including fast, accurate reporting. Pace said AP is trying new forms of fact-checking, including with video, and she said AP is more often putting journalists in public to explain how they arrived at stories as misinformation spreads.
“I think that authenticity, and the fact that you can associate a real person who is often quite experienced and quite deep on their beats … it builds more credibility,” Pace said, adding that AP is trying to embrace that approach because of the volume of misinformation.