• by Ray Schultz , December 12, 2023

The New York Times has named Zach Seward as its first editorial director of AI initiatives, effective Monday. 

In one of his first tasks, Seward will work with newsroom leadership to establish principles for how to use and not use generative AI. 

Seward will also try to answer these questions: “How should The Times’s journalism benefit from generative A.I. technologies? Can these new tools help us work faster? Where should we draw the red lines around where we won’t use it?,” Joe Kahn, executive editor, and Sam Dolnick, deputy managing editor, said in a note posted on Tuesday.  

In addition, Seward will build a small newsroom team to experiment with generative A.I. tools and prototype ideas. He will also help design training programs for journalists.

Seward “shares our firm belief that Times journalism will always be reported, written and edited by our expert journalists,”  Kahn and Dolnick add. “But Zach will also help guide how these new tools can assist our journalists in their work, and help us broaden our reach and expand our report.” 

Previously, Seward was a founding editor of Quartz, serving as chief product officer, CEO and editor in chief during his tenure. He also has worked as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, building and leading its first social media team. And he has been an associate editor of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, helping to launch the site and report on the digital media industry.