Stuff's Democracy.AI Wins Global Award for Best Use of AI

In a time when many news organisations are pulling back from regional coverage, New Zealand’s Stuff Group is doubling down. With over 30 newspaper mastheads across the country, Stuff remains committed to informing even the most remote communities about local government decisions that impact their lives.

Enter Democracy.AI - a custom-built generative AI tool developed by Stuff’s Masthead Publishing division to supercharge local reporting.

New Zealand has hundreds of municipal bodies, and manually reviewing council documents is time-consuming. Democracy.AI changes the game. It scans meeting minutes and submissions, filters for relevant content, and can even draft articles, headlines, and summaries. It’s designed to help reporters focus on the human stories, while the AI handles the groundwork.

A two-month pilot at the Waikato Times, which covers 11 local councils, showed incredible results. Reporters produced more local democracy stories, launched a new Ratepayers’ Roundup section online, and saw engagement soar. During the pilot, digital subscriptions more than doubled, and the subscriber net promoter score jumped 19 points.

Editor Jonathan MacKenzie was initially unsure but quickly became a fan:

It’s like having an army of worker bees… freeing up our reporters to find deeper, more meaningful stories.”

Since then, Stuff has rolled out Democracy.AI to more regional newsrooms. It’s not replacing journalists... it’s enhancing their ability to serve the public. By using AI to power local reporting, Stuff is proving that innovation and public interest journalism can go hand in hand.

Democracy.AI is AI for the people - bringing local news to life, one council meeting at a time.