The AI fight brewing inside The New York Times | The VergeSkip to main contentThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.The VergeThe Verge logo.TechReviewsScienceEntertainmentAIPolicyNotificationsNotificationsHamburger Navigation ButtonThe homepageThe VergeThe Verge logo.NotificationsNotificationsHamburger Navigation ButtonNavigation DrawerThe VergeThe Verge logo.Login / Sign UpcloseCloseSearchTechExpandAmazonAppleFacebookGoogleMicrosoftSamsungBusinessSee all techReviewsExpandSmart Home ReviewsPhone ReviewsTablet ReviewsHeadphone ReviewsSee all reviewsScienceExpandSpaceEnergyEnvironmentHealthSee all scienceEntertainmentExpandTV ShowsMoviesAudioSee all entertainmentAIExpandOpenAIAnthropicSee all AIPolicyExpandAntitrustPoliticsLawSecuritySee all policyGadgetsExpandLaptopsPhonesTVsHeadphonesSpeakersWearablesSee all gadgetsVerge ShoppingExpandBuying GuidesDealsGift GuidesSee all shoppingGamingExpandXboxPlayStationNintendoSee all gamingStreamingExpandDisneyHBONetflixYouTubeCreatorsSee all streamingTransportationExpandElectric CarsAutonomous CarsRide-sharingScootersSee all transportationFeaturesVerge VideoExpandTikTokYouTubeInstagramPodcastsExpandDecoderThe VergecastVersion HistoryNewslettersArchivesStoreVerge Product UpdatesSubscribeFacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSThe VergeThe Verge logo.The AI fight brewing inside The New York TimesNotificationsNotificationsComments DrawerNotificationsCommentsLoading commentsGetting the conversation ready...AICloseAIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All AIBusinessCloseBusinessPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All BusinessTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechThe AI fight brewing inside The New York TimesUnionized tech employees at the Times say the company is violating their contract by using AI tools to monitor employee performance.Unionized tech employees at the Times say the company is violating their contract by using AI tools to monitor employee performance.by Mia SatoCloseMia SatoFeatures Writer, The VergePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Mia SatoMay 27, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftYellow taxis pass in front of The New York Times newspaper building. Alexandra Schuler/dpa (Photo by Alexandra Schuler/picture alliance via Getty Images)Mia SatoCloseMia SatoPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Mia Sato is features writer with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.How newsrooms should use AI — or if they should at all — has been a recurrent debate within the media industry over the last several years. Increasingly, these rules are being hammered out at the bargaining table between unions and publishers. Right now, employees at The New York Times are gearing up for a fight.Unionized staff with the Tech Guild say Times management has refused to provide the union with information related to how the company has used AI, its plans for AI use in the future, and how it will affect employees’ jobs and workflow. (The union filed an unfair labor practice charge earlier this month.) The Tech Guild, a NewsGuild of New York unit of around 700 software engineers, designers, product and project managers, and data analysts, also filed grievances saying Times management violated their collective bargaining agreement when it started using two internal AI tools that track and evaluate employee performance and activity.One of the AI tools, called DX, advertises itself as an engineering productivity tool that lets companies track employees’ output, generative AI use, and efficiency, among other metrics. DX was originally announced internally as a way to improve the developer experience, says Ben Harnett, a software engineer at the Times and chair of the unit’s generative AI committee. The goal, at least according to Times management, was to measure the company as a whole. Over the last few months, though, the DX data has become more personalized, with benchmarks being applied to individuals, Harnett says.“Now people in disciplinary situations are suddenly having read back to them, ‘You only did one [pull request] per week, per whatever, and that’s 25 percent below industry standard,’” Harnett says. He is concerned that the blanket metrics flatten all work the unit members do and erase the nuance of engineering into an opaque set of metrics that can be used against staff in disciplinary or performance review settings. The metrics don’t correlate to quality of work or the actual number of features an employee delivers, Harnett says.“All this [data] reasonably could be expected to … help us understand how we’re doing, but not the way that they’re using it and implementing it, which we think is amounting to a de facto quota,” Harnett told The Verge. DX statistics have been cited in recent disciplinary conversations, the Tech Guild says.“We feel really [this] amounts to deploying surveillance and monitoring tech against the workers.”Another software called Glean takes internal knowledge bases like wikis, GitHub documents, Google Docs, and emails, and allows employees to query the system to find what they’re looking for more easily. But there are concerns among employees that Glean can also be used to monitor workers because it pulls in vast amounts of internal documentation: Harnett says that if he’s working on a draft document to describe a feature he’s building or leaves a comment in a file that’s available in Glean, for example, a manager could query the tool about his individual performance or contributions. The Tech Guild told The Verge that the style and format of recent disciplinary notices sent to staff suggest they were generated using Glean. Harnett says that Glean has issues — namely that it generates falsehoods and can lead a user on “wild goose chases.”“The way that they’re using [DX and Glean] we feel really amounts to deploying surveillance and monitoring tech against the workers,” Harnett says. The union believes that the use of these tools violates multiple parts of their contract, including protections around privacy and monitoring, job descriptions, and requirements for notifying employees and bargaining with them.Both the Tech Guild and the Times Guild (which represents 1,500 editorial, ad sales, and support staff at the Times) filed unfair labor practice charges against the Times, saying that company violated labor law by refusing to respond to their requests for information around AI use at the outlet.The Times did not respond to specific questions about how it uses DX and Glean, but spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an email that the company disagrees with the characterizations made in grievances and that it would respond as part of its “normal contractual process.”“Likewise, we will respond to this Request for Information (RFI) in due course as we’ve done with 80+ other RFIs from the Guild in recent years,” Rhoades Ha said.RelatedThe chum king behind those AI articlesThe New York Times’ first generative AI deal is with AmazonThe Times Guild is currently bargaining a new contract, pushing for robust protections against AI, like requirements that a human is behind any AI tool being used, that any journalism utilizing AI is transparently labeled, and that staff are compensated for AI model training deals the company might make. The Times deploys artificial intelligence tools for some reporting, like using it to parse millions of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein or scan satellite images of Gaza to try to find where Israel had dropped a specific kind of bomb.Journalists across the industry are in the process of negotiating union contracts, and AI is one of the most urgent issues at stake. In April, 150 unionized employees at ProPublica walked off the job for 24 hours; one of the key sticking points with management was how AI would be used and disclosed to audiences. After McClatchy, the company that publishes newspapers like the Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, started rolling out a generative AI tool that spits out different versions of stories, some staff withheld their bylines in protest.Harnett emphasizes that the unit’s position is not that AI shouldn’t ever be used, but that workers should have a say in how it’s deployed. Metrics like how many tokens an employee uses or how often they’re using AI to do their jobs create pressure to do more and incentives that don’t align with doing quality work.“It’s going to distract [you] from actually doing a good job, which is what we think the company should want,” he says.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Mia SatoCloseMia SatoFeatures Writer, The VergePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Mia SatoAICloseAIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All AIBusinessCloseBusinessPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All BusinessCreatorsCloseCreatorsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All CreatorsLaborCloseLaborPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All LaborTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechMost PopularMost PopularJony Ive’s Ferrari looks nothing like a FerrariUber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’Google Health is here, but a lot of people want their Fitbit app back insteadNvidia has retired its GeForce Control Panel app after 20 yearsYou’re about to feel the AI money squeezeThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)Sign UpBy submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Advertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native adMore in AIThe Pope isn’t AGI-pilledDid the Pope use AI to write about the dangers of AI?PlaySundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the webNobody wants to tell me why they only listen to their own Suno slopAI warfare is already hereUber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’The Pope isn’t AGI-pilledHayden FieldAn hour agoDid the Pope use AI to write about the dangers of AI?Jay Peters and Hayden Field12:38 AM UTCPlaySundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the webNilay PatelMay 26Nobody wants to tell me why they only listen to their own Suno slopTerrence O'BrienMay 26AI warfare is already hereHayden FieldMay 26Uber president says AI spending is getting ‘harder to justify’Jess WeatherbedMay 26Advertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native adTop StoriesMay 26Jony Ive’s Ferrari looks nothing like a FerrariAn hour agoThe new Razr Ultra isn’t your average phone — for better and worseMay 26Sony’s sloppy Spider-Man universe gets even messier with Spider-NoirAn hour agoThe Pope isn’t AGI-pilled27 minutes agoYouTube is putting AI labels where you’ll actually see them11 minutes agoIt’s going to be a while before you can play Dragon Quest XII.The VergeThe Verge logo.FacebookThreadsInstagramYoutubeRSSContactTip UsCommunity GuidelinesArchivesAboutEthics StatementHow We Rate and Review ProductsCookie SettingsTerms of UsePrivacy NoticeCookie PolicyLicensing FAQAccessibilityPlatform Status© 2026 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights ReservedNotifications DrawerThe VergeThe Verge logo.Sign in to see your notifications or create an account to join the conversation.Sign in

Unionized technology employees at The New York Times are currently engaged in a dispute with the company regarding the deployment of artificial intelligence tools for employee performance monitoring, asserting that this usage violates their existing contract. The Tech Guild, which represents approximately seven hundred software engineers, designers, product and project managers, and data analysts at the organization, has filed grievances and an unfair labor practice charge against Times management over the implementation of two internal AI systems, DX and Glean.

One of the systems, DX, is presented as an engineering productivity tool designed to track employee output, generative AI usage, and efficiency. While management initially framed DX as a measure to improve the developer experience by assessing the company as a whole, employees expressed deep concerns that the data has evolved into personalized benchmarks applied to individuals. For instance, employees cited experienced negative consequences from metrics, suggesting that performance assessments based on these metrics, such as low pull requests per week, can lead to disciplinary actions. Employees argued that these metrics obscure the quality of work and fail to capture the nuance of engineering, effectively functioning as a de facto quota rather than a genuine measure of productivity, which they believed could be used against staff in performance reviews.

Furthermore, the concerns extend to the Glean tool, which allows employees to query internal knowledge bases, including wikis, GitHub documents, Google Docs, and emails. Employees fear that Glean’s ability to access vast amounts of internal documentation creates a mechanism for monitoring. There is apprehension that managers could query the tool to assess individual performance or contributions, which could lead to surveillance. Moreover, the union noted that disciplinary notices sent to staff appeared to be generated using Glean, raising concerns about accuracy, as the tool has been reported to generate falsehoods and potentially lead users astray.

The Tech Guild contends that the manner in which DX and Glean are being utilized amounts to deploying surveillance and monitoring technology against its workforce. The union asserts that this practice infringes upon contractual protections related to privacy, monitoring, and job descriptions, and demands that the company provide information regarding its AI usage, future plans, and the impact on workflows. In response to these requests for information, The Times did not provide specifics, but a spokesperson indicated the company disagreed with the union's characterizations and would respond through its normal contractual process.

The broader context involves ongoing negotiations between the Times Guild and the Times Guild, which seeks robust protections regarding AI, including requirements for human oversight on any AI tool, mandatory transparency regarding AI utilization in journalism, and compensation related to AI model training deals. This situation reflects a wider industry negotiation where AI deployment is a central and urgent topic for unionized employees. This dynamic is amplified by examples across the industry, such as the walkout by ProPublica employees over AI use and the protest by McClatchy staff regarding the rollout of a generative AI tool, underscoring the tension between technological advancement and labor protections. Ultimately, the core conflict centers on whether the application of AI in the workplace constitutes permissible management and monitoring or an unacceptable invasion of employee rights.