New York Times tests AI summaries in search, stirring union pushback

The New York Times has quietly begun testing AI-generated summaries in search results, showing machine-written snippets to a small subset of readers on a new search page. The feature adds AI summaries to excerpts and links to Times stories, and it draws only on Times journalism rather than the open web. It is not presented as a chatbot. Semafor first reported the test on Sunday. The summaries are unmediated by a Times journalist or editor, and a company spokesperson, Graham James, said the paper was "always testing new ways" for users to discover and engage with Times journalism, describing the feature as an experiment in using "the latest technology to create a better search experience." The move has drawn internal concern. The Times Guild says management is violating the company’s own editorial standards on AI use, and unit chair Jim Luttrell called the guild’s current AI policies "meaningless", arguing that management can change or violate them "as they are doing with the summarization tool". He said the paper needs strong guardrails in the contract to protect readers’ trust, and warned that AI summaries have produced embarrassing mistakes elsewhere. The guild has proposed that any AI use be subject to human oversight and that 22.5% of AI licensing deals for training data be paid into an employee pool for unionised staff. Semafor reported that the human-oversight clause would make the new search tool impractical to run. The test sits within broader negotiations over AI rules. Management told the union it would test AI summaries in search during bargaining in July, and the two sides returned to the table that month with AI clauses unresolved. The company has not said which model powers the summaries, how many readers are seeing them, how long the test will last or whether the feature is labelled. The Times has already been running AI features in non-news sections for months, and Wirecutter recently began testing Wirecutter Finder, which offers AI-generated summaries and tips based on its recommendations.