Isabella Simonetti of The Wall Street Journal profiles Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg, who has produced more stories in six months than any of his colleagues at Fortune delivered in a year.
Simonetti writes, “While many journalists hit the phones and cultivate source relationships, when news breaks Lichtenberg often uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly. His work involves what some view as the third rail of journalism: AI playing a leading role not just in researching, but in writing stories.
“AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most were written by Lichtenberg.
“Lichtenberg’s approach to journalism is a far cry from the dogged, shoe-leather reporting memorialized in movies like ‘Spotlight,’ about the Catholic church’s child-abuse scandal, or ‘All the President’s Men,’ about the Watergate scandal. Lichtenberg isn’t pounding the pavement to find and unveil secrets about institutions and power brokers.”
Read more here.
