OPINION — A few weeks ago, Al Jazeera named Google Cloud as its primary technology provider for “The Core,” a sweeping program designed to integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) throughout its production process. The move, which further deepened the relationship between the two companies, should sound alarm bells for policymakers and anyone concerned with the accuracy, credibility, and transparency of the news media and information space, which impacts nearly every aspect of society.
The Core enables more efficient reporting and even drafts scripts that humans generally would otherwise write. Reporters can pull archival material in seconds, generate compelling data visualizations — visual stories — and synthetic images at planetary scale, and automate story planning, all through AI platforms built by Google.
However, it’s not the innovation that’s the problem but rather its use to generate and amplify adversarial state-funded and directed news with no warning labels to its global audience.
The Qatari state funds and oversees Al Jazeera, shaping editorial output. Because of its shared ideology with the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera’s content often reflects the lens of the Muslim Brotherhood, three branches of which the United States just designated as a terrorist organization. The Qatari outlet also has a history of producing content that glorifies terrorism. Tech companies that help Al Jazeera amplify its content using algorithms, AI, or other methods, advance Qatari foreign policy rather than reflecting independent media assessments on a wide range of worldviews.
Part of the Al Jazeera-Google program is “AJ-LLM,” described as the editorial brain of the system that will be trained on Al Jazeera’s archives and connected to Gemini Enterprise, according to the companies. Al Jazeera is already very prominently cited in large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude in questions about the Gaza war, and Gemini could very well follow that trajectory with this expanded partnership.
While one reason Al Jazeera features prominently in LLM answers is because it has no paywall. New partnerships, including Google’s major expansion with Al Jazeera, may fuel its presence even more.
Al Jazeera assures there will be sufficient human oversight in the process. However, Al Jazeera’s current and historic content, with its anti-Western bias that amplifies the likes of Hamas, loaded into its LLM platform, will churn out faster, flashier versions of the same editorial product, in countless formats.
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When users worldwide ask LLM’s about the conflict, they are frequently fed content from a media company that celebrates Hamas terrorist attacks and frames Israeli self-defense as aggression. Because these AI systems operate as black boxes with limited transparency, audiences may receive algorithmically amplified narratives that systematically favor Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood perspectives while appearing to be the product of neutral technological systems.
In May 2025, Google partnered with the Qatari Government Communications Office and the Al Jazeera Media Institute to train journalists in building digital-focused newsrooms. Participants included news directors, journalists, and representatives from various media organizations across Qatar’s media landscape.
What kind of messages do Al Jazeera trainers convey to journalists and diplomats who take their courses? The case of Muhammed Khamaiseh from the Al Jazeera Media Institute is instructive. In 2018, Khamaiseh posted, “Jews have been known for centuries to be cunning thinkers, and currently, the entire global economic system is under their control.” Khamaiseh had previously celebrated Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians in 2014 and offered affection for Hamas after its kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. “This is why we love Hamas :D,” he wrote. Ironically, Khamaiseh is the author of “A Guide Avoiding Discrimination and Hate Speech in the Media, published by the Al Jazeera Media Institute.”
Qatar is an authoritarian nation, whose stringent media laws prohibit any criticism of Qatari leadership or policy, making Al Jazeera’s output anything but independent. The Department of Justice has determined that Al Jazeera is owned and directed by a foreign government. Congress has asked Justice to review whether the Qatari government should be required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. DOJ has already required Al Jazeera’s AJ+ to register but the Qatari network has failed to do so.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq are among the countries that have placed bans on Al Jazeera. Some bans remain on the Qatari channel. In addition, despite Al Jazeera posing as a savior of Palestinians, prominent Palestinians have long expressed concerns that Al Jazeera has stirred up regional hostilities and fomented violence, a problem that would be amplified if Al Jazeera’s cleverly designed content is recast as neutral algorithmic outputs. News consumers would be hard-pressed to find examples of Al Jazeera criticizing Hamas’s atrocities.
U.S. regulators should regard AI partnerships with foreign state-directed authoritarian media as they would regard sensitive technologies. They should trigger formal risk assessments. Congress should require companies with AI products to disclose the extent to which foreign state-directed media sources are used in training data, retrieval systems, or generated outputs. Absent such transparency, lawmakers and the public cannot evaluate the scale of foreign state influence embedded in AI-driven information systems.
Google should also require clear labeling when AI-generated news summaries or analytical outputs rely on content from foreign state-directed media organizations. Users should not be left to assume neutrality.
Preventing Americans and the global community from being manipulated by the Qatari state’s anti-Western, pro-extremist Al Jazeera content, even though it may be cloaked in high-tech flash, should be a top priority for both technology companies and policymakers. It’s time to pull back the curtain.
Toby Dershowitz is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Asher Boiskin is an intern. Follow them on X @TobyDersh and @asherboiskin.
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