Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg cranked out 600+ stories in eight months, with the help of AI. He says that it’s “like a sports car that you can crash if you’re not careful. You’ve got to be like a Formula One driver.” His editor says it’s like having “10 Nicks.” (Isabella Simonetti, Wall Street Journal)
- Nick Lichtenberg, a Fortune editor, published over 600 AI-assisted stories in eight months by uploading press releases and analyst notes into tools like NotebookLM and Perplexity, then editing the output for publication. AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune's web traffic in the second half of 2025, prompting his editor to wonder aloud about having "10 Nicks."
- The practical question for media professionals isn't whether this is "real journalism" but how editorial standards, fact-checking workflows, and union contracts hold up when one person with AI tools outproduces an entire staff.
