Upasna Gautam
2026-2027 Obama Foundation USA Leader
Head of Product and AI Studio, American Journalism Project; Chairwoman of the Board, News Product Alliance
Austin, Texas
Upasna Gautam is the head of product and AI studio at the American Journalism Project and chairwoman of the board at the News Product Alliance, where she strengthens democracy by rebuilding local news as civic infrastructure through technology, product thinking, and responsible AI, helping newsrooms better understand and serve their communities with trustworthy information. As the partner of strategy and innovation at Texas Tribune she worked on the organization’s local journalism expansion strategy including building new newsrooms in Austin and Waco, reimagining them as civic innovation hubs grounded in first-party data and audience insights to better serve their communities. Previously at CNN, she built Stellar, the core content platform that powered CNN’s website, apps, and publishing tools used daily by thousands of journalists, enabling faster and more reliable news delivery to a global audience of over 300M monthly users.
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