06/23/2026
NewsGuard Launches First AI Chatbot Built to Deliver Trusted Journalism Only from Reliable News Websites
NewsGuard AI draws responses exclusively from 12,000 publishers vetted for reliability by NewsGuard journalists—and compensates all publishers for their cited work
‘Think of how the existing AI chatbots operate, and in every respect, NewsGuard AI does the opposite.’
NEW YORK, NY — NewsGuard, the company whose journalists have evaluated the reliability of online news sources since 2018, today announced the launch of NewsGuard AI, the world’s first news aggregation chatbot purpose-built to deliver reliable responses to prompts on topics in the news. It is available immediately at www.newsguard.ai
While the leading AI models regularly generate false claims on controversial news topics NewsGuard AI offers a new, trustworthy solution: Responses drawn exclusively from 12,000 news and information sources rigorously vetted by NewsGuard’s journalists for reliability. And, unlike other AI systems trained on publisher content without attribution or compensation, NewsGuard AI prominently cites publishers in its responses and will share revenues 50-50 with all news publishers whose journalism is cited.
This gives users of NewsGuard AI quick, convenient access to the best journalism and provides quality journalists with much-needed funding.
In addition to publishers earning revenue from citations, they have the opportunity to generate new subscription revenue as Co-Marketing Partners by introducing NewsGuard AI to their readers.
“NewsGuard AI combines our proprietary database of 12,000 reliable publishers, vetted for reliability by our analysts, with a custom-built AI process that instantly delivers accurate news aggregated from quality sources,” explained NewsGuard Chief Operating Officer Matt Skibinski.
With NewsGuard AI, users can:
- Get fast, reliable answers based on reporting from journalists around the world, with prominent links to sources.
- Get news designed to be even-handed and nuanced.
- Dig deeper with follow-up prompts.
- Fact check dubious claims.
- Send a detailed debunk to a misinformed friend or relative.
- Look up the NewsGuard reliability score and ratings for more than 36,000 news sources.
- Get a personalized update on news from around the world and from last night’s town board.
- Know that they are using an AI service that compensates quality journalism rather than pilfering it.
A ‘Big Tent’
NewsGuard journalists have rated more than 36,000 news sources since 2018. The ratings are based on nine transparent, apolitical basic journalistic criteria. Only sources rated as generally reliable are used by NewsGuard AI to generate responses. The 12,000 news and information sites rated as reliable — many of which will be NewsGuard AI Co-Marketing Partners (see below) — are aggregated under a big tent that includes newspapers, magazines and broadcasters, opinion sites from across the political spectrum, local news startups, single-author news and commentary websites and Substacks, as well as the informational websites of state and local governments, think tanks, hospital systems, and research universities assessed as credible.
NewsGuard journalists trained NewsGuard AI with 41 editorial safeguards designed to provide responses that cite sources for every fact, report all sides of a story even-handedly with nuance, and suggest follow-up prompts based on a reader’s interests. Users will also be able to search the ratings of news sites and access NewsGuard’s Reality Check daily newsletter.
Put simply, NewsGuard AI is for people who want real news and information from reliable sources.
An explanation of how NewsGuard AI works can be found here.
Journalism Versus Algorithm
NewsGuard AI bridges the gap between information reliability and the accelerating use of AI chatbots for news. Today’s leading AI models are trained on everything on the internet, without regard to whether the source is a trustworthy news organization or a healthcare hoax site, foreign influence operation, or conspiracy spreader. Since 2023, NewsGuard has regularly audited how the top 11 AI models respond to prompts on news topics, finding that they spread false claims on controversial topics 35 percent of the time, in part because disinformation networks have deliberately infected the internet that the top AI models indiscriminately train on.
As additional protection, NewsGuard AI includes a proprietary guardrail to its responses by accessing NewsGuard’s continuously updated catalog of 64,000 instances of significant false claims circulating online debunked by NewsGuard journalists. This enables users to fact check dubious claims such as those spread by social media and get detailed debunkings that they can share with friends and family.
A recent comparison of a NewsGuard AI response and responses to the same query from popular LLMs can be found here.
“Think of how the existing AI chatbots operate, and in every respect, NewsGuard AI does the opposite,” said NewsGuard Co-CEO Steven Brill. “We only access reliable sources. We cite them prominently and link to them. We compensate them. And we use our proprietary debunking data as failsafe guardrails to prevent hallucinating.”
“NewsGuard AI will enable news publishers to benefit from the dramatic growth of AI use by sharing in revenue every time their journalism is cited in a response,” said NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz. “The LLMs instead shoplift journalism from many publishers by using their reporting without payment.” NewsGuard AI will also launch a widget enabling readers to access NewsGuard AI on publisher websites, serving readers with an AI tool on the publishers’ own news sites instead of having to leave news sites for the LLMs.
Launching with Trusted Co-Marketing Partners of All Stripes with One Thing in Common: Reliability
In the coming weeks, NewsGuard AI will work with a group of quality publishers it is assembling in the nine countries where NewsGuard operates that will make their readers aware of NewsGuard AI.
Co-Marketing Partners will include large national magazines like The Atlantic, regional newspapers, opinion journals, online-only local news outlets, public television and radio broadcasters, premium specialty publications, and other organizations that believe in quality journalism and want it to be a beneficiary of AI rather than a victim.
“Few things will matter more in the near future than the ability of humans to figure out what’s real, what’s false, and what’s confabulated nonsense, said Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic. “This is particularly true when it comes to news, and that’s why I love that NewsGuard is launching an AI news product, built on verified sources, clear citations, and a compensation model for publishers. We’re proud to partner on this important issue and approach.”
“For AI chatbots to be trustworthy, they need to cite their sources so readers can verify the facts. And for quality journalism to survive, publishers need to be compensated for the reporting that produces those facts. Snopes has restricted most AI chatbots from scraping our content, but we’re happy to partner with NewsGuard on a model that does this the right way.” said Chris Richmond, CEO of Snopes.
“Reason looks forward to being part of NewsGuard AI providing reliable information and a wide range of views on topics in the news,” said Mike Alissi, publisher of Reason magazine.”
“I’m excited to be a launch partner with NewsGuard AI,” said Jim Heaney, the Editor and Executive Director of Buffalo’s Investigative Post. “It’s a unique service that will provide value to our readers and revenue to our news organization. It’s refreshing to deal with an outfit that’s committed to doing the right thing for all involved.”
“We plan to have dozens of these partners within our first year,” Brill said.
Readers, subscribers, members or donors of some Co-Marketing Partners will receive a free trial subscription to NewsGuard AI, after which they will be offered a 33 percent discount off of the $6.00 a month subscription fee for access to the chatbot. Select Co-Marketing partners will receive half of all revenue from subscribers they introduce to NewsGuard AI through their channels. This will generate additional revenue support for news beyond the compensation that all publishers will receive when their content is cited by NewsGuard AI in response to prompts.
A Powerful Education Tool
In addition to news publishers, co-marketing partners will include universities, schools and other organizations committed to quality journalism and an informed democracy. They will offer students free access to NewsGuard AI while they are enrolled in a partner school.
“NewsGuard AI is the ideal product for students and young adults for two reasons,” said NewsGuard’s Skibinski. “First, it only draws on content from vetted reliable news publishers, protecting them from healthcare hoaxes, foreign propaganda, and conspiracy theories. Second, we have trained NewsGuard AI to refuse requests to write essays or reports. This means that NewsGuard AI can provide reliable research while not substituting for students doing their own writing and thinking.”
Partnering With Independent Bookstores and Civic Groups
Independent bookstores and civic groups will also be encouraged to become Co-Marketing Partners in arrangements that will support NewsGuard AI’s mission while also supporting them with half of all subscription fees they generate by introducing their patrons to NewsGuard AI.
Brad Graham, co-owner, Politics and Prose bookstores in Washington, D.C., said “Telling fact from fiction is more critical today than ever. To that end, P&P is supporting a new AI service that draws on quality journalism and helps users obtain accurate information.”
“By aggregating sources of truthful information on all topics, including false Russian claims, NewsGuard is launching a trailblazing weapon against disinformation,” said Nadia McConnell, president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation.
Example from NewsGuard AI’s advertising campaign.
Local-language versions of NewsGuard AI will be available in French, German and Italian in September.
NewsGuard AI is available now at newsguard.ai. For more information, click here.
About NewsGuard
NewsGuard helps consumers and enterprises know the reliability of news sources and claims in the news, using transparent and apolitical data and tools. NewsGuard’s reporting and data are produced using a combination of human analysis scaled by technology.
NewsGuard was founded by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz. Brill is a longtime journalist and media entrepreneur, who has written multiple New York Times best sellers and won multiple National Magazine awards. He was the founder of Court TV, The American Lawyer, the Clear Registered Traveler service, and the Yale Journalism Initiative. Crovitz is a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal who led the Journal to its first one million digital subscribers, making it the largest digital subscription product online in the early 2000s. He was a long-time conservative opinion writer for the Journal and has also written for National Review, Reason and the Heritage Foundation.
In 2009, Brill and Crovitz founded Press+, a software company that provided hundreds of quality news publishers with technology and data on best practices to generate digital subscriptions for the first time by asking readers to pay for full access to their online content. Press+ pioneered the industry-wide use of the “metered” model and other freemium approaches to generate digital subscriptions. The Press+ chief operating office and strategist was Matt Skibinski, who now serves as the Chief Operating Officer of NewsGuard.