The biggest AI stories are often hidden from view. This guide, a collaboration between the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability team and GIJN, helps reporters uncover them. This guide was originally published by The Investigative Journalism Network (GIJ) on June 22, 2026. It is hereby reproduced by iMEdD with permission. Any reprint permissions are subject to the original publisher. Read the original guide here. Editor’s Note: This guide is a collaboration between the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability team and GIJN. Karen Hao, Laís Martins, and Pablo Jiménez Arandia co-developed some of the materials described in this article. Featured image: Yasmin Dwiputri & Data Hazards Project / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ From hoping for impact to designing for impact The onus is on us, journalists, to engage audiences where they are, whether it is video platforms or offline spaces in community libraries, art venues, and school cafeterias. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a major force in many areas of society throughout the world. The technology plays an outsized role in many economies and has implications for knowledge workers globally. The most powerful players in this arena are a handful of mostly US-, Europe-, or China-based entities, many of them private Big Tech companies that have garnered billions in investments and are primed to set the tone on how this technology will be developed and deployed around the world. But from its supply chain to its applications, AI has also stirred a lot of controversy. The data centers needed to develop AI are consuming water and energy at extraordinary levels. The workers who are labeling the data that AI needs are struggling with low wages and mental health issues. The AI technologies themselves have proven to be biased and to hallucinate when used. The field of AI is rife with stories for investigative reporters