Deadline: February 4, 2026
Applications are open for the International Press Institute (IPI) Global AI Accelerator for Media 2026. IPI’s Global AI Accelerator for Media is an eight-month funding and support programme for small-to-medium-sized independent news outlets from Global Majority countries. It is designed for organizations seeking to experiment with AI and new technology to invest in the medium and long-term viability that ensures the freedom to do journalism independent of outside influence.
Selected media organizations will receive 8 months of up to $14,000 in funding alongside expert-led training and workshops, personalized advisory services, and access to networks and future sources of support. IPI will work directly with participants to co-create a roadmap for AI adoption that reflects changes in consumer markets and business opportunities and doubles down on security and credibility concerns.
Benefits
- A grant of up to $14,000 to deliver your project.
- Intensive training focused on tools and skills that can be transferred to your newsroom well beyond the duration of the AI Accelerator, focused on problem-solving and identifying solutions, audience research, strategic planning and product management, journalism formats built for user engagement, digital business models and diversifying revenue models.
- One-on-one personalized advisory services bespoke to the needs of your newsroom, with flexible, on-demand industry experts as coaches during the incubator.
- Group coaching sessions with peers developing similar projects.
- Speaker sessions and workshops based on themes determined in the needs assessments.
- Access to an e-learning platform with training modules and recordings from industry leaders. Monthly “Ask-Me-Anything” sessions allow attendees to directly pose questions to industry experts.
- Access to a networking platform with the current cohort, expert coaches, all programme alumni and a network of media innovators.
Eligibility
- Open to the newsrooms from Global Majority countries based in one of the following regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
- You must have a verifiable online presence and must have been fully operational for at least three years before the application call.
- You must be an independent news organization of small or medium size (3–50 staff members) that is already experimenting with, developing guardrails around or investigating AI technologies.
- You will present a pain-point or challenge, alongside user research and other evidence that your organization is responding to.
- You must be able to carry out the grant-funded work within an eight-month timeframe.
- You must agree to exchange business insights and collaborate transparently with fellow grantees and programme alumni, track your progress throughout the programme, and take part in a live final design review pitching to cohort members.
- Your media organization is independent from political or business interests, is consumer-facing, and is investing in an audience-centric concept or product for news gathering, creating or distributing journalistic work, and monetization; or innovation in your media’s business model that will help make the company sustainable, competitive and of value to its community.
- You must self-assess your current comfort level with AI tools and concepts, ranging from beginner to advanced.
- You must show openness to experimentation, including a readiness to test and refine ideas using AI.
- You should articulate how you have been collecting audience data and describe your ability to verify and interpret this data.
- You should describe the guardrails or boundaries you currently have in terms of exposure and use of AI.
- You should show openness to building a newsroom culture that thinks carefully and critically about AI, rather than using tools automatically.
- You should clearly describe the challenge you want to address with AI and explain why the challenge matters, who it affects, and why AI is a promising approach to solving it.
- You should explain your vision for how AI will shape your work and describe how you expect AI to influence your relationship with your consumer market or audience.
Application
Applications are accepted until February 4, 2026 [23:59, CEST].
For more information, visit IPI Global AI Accelerator.
