Where Journalism
meets intelligence
I'm Gabriel Elizondo. I've spent 21 years as a journalist for Al Jazeera English. Currently I cover diplomacy and global affairs full-time from the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Before that, from 2014 to 2020, I was based in our downtown New York City office covering everything — from civil rights protests, Wall Street and the NYSE, the COVID pandemic, politics, million-dollar art auctions, and anything else you can imagine in between.
Before that, eight years based in São Paulo, Brazil (from about 2007–2014), where I built a small bureau from the ground up and reported from all 26 Brazilian states and across South America — from elections in Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina, to the boardrooms of São Paulo, to civil unrest in Bolivia, to illegal gold mines and drug labs in the far frontiers of the Amazon jungle. Earlier still, in 2005/2006, I helped launch the Americas side of things for Al Jazeera English from our Washington DC office.
While studying international economics in graduate school, I worked in local TV news. I wanted to be a diplomat or international banker, but journalism stuck to me. I got my start in journalism in newspapers (sports writing), and that is where I fell in love with the written word.
Here's the deal: nothing will ever replace on-the-ground, exclusive reporting. There is no substitute. I can attest to that first hand.
For many years as a foreign correspondent, I found the most intimidating (and exhilarating) moment was walking off a plane in a foreign country, sometimes without knowing the local language, and having to find a story. It involved finding people. Talking to people. Getting the facts straight, keeping it precise, and making the story matter to viewers. All on a deadline. Sometimes I had to file a story only hours after getting off the plane!
That's how AI feels to me now: a little intimidating, but also exhilarating. The same feeling I had getting off the plane for a reporting assignment is how I feel about where AI is going right now. I can see where AI is headed, and I don't want to watch from the sidelines.
So I started experimenting and making things using AI tools. I learn these tools by using them, sometimes breaking them, and putting them to work on real problems, information, and workflows. This site you are reading now is one of them — built hands-on, in the tools themselves. In this case, Claude Code.
"We are currently in the 'Between Times.' We see the potential of AI, but our organizational systems haven't fully adjusted."
— Ajay Agrawal, University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management
The instinct I bring to it is simple: make things that are honest about what they can and can't do. Systems that flag uncertainty instead of papering over it, and that hold up under pressure. And — this is key — earn trust rather than assume it. That holds true in any field. In AI. In journalism.
So I collaborate, and I learn out loud. I ask questions. I try things. I share what works, and what doesn't. I am grounded in over 20 years of doing serious journalism work in high-stakes environments under deadline — not just theorizing about the technology without knowing how it will work when deployed in real-life situations.
AI for everybody is in its early stages, and it's moving fast. That's exactly why I'd rather be in it, building and collaborating, than watching it pass by.
The AI plane has landed. Looking forward to meeting you at arrivals and getting to work!