AP said Monday it is offering buyouts to an unspecified number of its U.S.-based journalists, part of what it described as an acceleration away from a newspaper-centered model that supported the organization’s work for more than a century. The company said the shift reflects a changing media economy and a greater emphasis on visual journalism, including video production, alongside efforts to build new revenue streams.
Julie Pace, the Associated Press’s executive editor and senior vice president, described the move as an update to the organization’s newsroom structure and business strategy rather than a retreat from its core mission. “We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Pace said in an interview.
The News Media Guild, which represents AP journalists, said more than 120 of the staff members it covers received buyout offers on Monday. The union said the company refused to offer “appropriate training and tools,” and it criticized AP for pairing the job cuts with an increasing emphasis on artificial intelligence.
AP said it has been expanding its video capabilities, including doubling the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022. Pace also said the company is deploying rapid-response teams, in which journalists based in different locations contribute to the biggest stories of the day, and that AP is putting more journalists on beats to break news on topics that match known customer interest.
The company said it also plans to maintain a presence in all 50 states. Pace said the AP is “making these changes from a position of strength,” tying the transformation to what she described as a changing customer base dominated by broadcast, digital and technology companies.
In its comments about finances and customers, AP said big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income, and it said it has seen 200% growth in revenue from technology companies over the last four years. The AP said its revenue from newspapers has fallen by 25% over the past four years, and it cited the departure of companies including Gannett and McClatchy from AP in 2024.
AP pointed to recent deals and licensing arrangements involving artificial intelligence and data products. The company said it agreed in 2023 to lease part of its text archive to OpenAI, and it said it launched on Snowflake Marketplace last year to license data to enterprises. AP also said it launched “AP Intelligence,” a division aimed at selling data to financial and advertising sectors.
The AP said its technology and direct-to-consumer strategies also include election-data partnerships and a growing predictions-market relationship. It said last month it agreed to sell U.S. elections data to Kalshi, and it said AP saw a 30% increase in customers between the 2020 and 2024 election cycles, with additional customer sign-ons from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.
AP executives said the company’s shift into new products is meant to preserve its standards for fast, accurate, non-biased reporting even as its distribution and revenue models evolve. Pace said AP is trying new forms of fact-checking, including through video, and it plans to put more journalists in public to explain how they produced specific stories, including through what she described as “authenticity” by associating reporting with identifiable beat journalists.
The company said it is not providing exact numbers on how many journalists will lose their jobs. Pace said AP’s goal is to reduce its global staff by less than 5%, but she said the amount of cuts would depend on how many buyout offers are accepted, and it was unclear whether the offers were concluded by Monday afternoon.
The Associated Press said the buyout plan was in the works before it learned that Lee Enterprises is seeking an early exit from a contract due to expire at the end of 2026. Pace said AP made a decision earlier this year to be “bolder in this transformation,” and the company framed that effort as a response to the broader collapse of many legacy news outlets and the resulting changes in how people get news.