News UK invests in AI legal-clearance startup ClearDraft
The Times publisher signs up as a client as well as an investor, in a bid to move routine libel and privacy checks off its in-house lawyers’ desks
- ClearDraft flags defamation, privacy and contempt risks.
- It covers news and magazines, books, podcasts, and film and TV.
- ClearDraft plans to adapt its product to US, Dutch, German and Spanish law in 2027.
- It plans an audiovisual service for Q1 2027.
For CIOs and data leaders at publishers, agencies and content-heavy brands, this is a pilot, not a rollout. Run it on copy your lawyers have already cleared and count what it misses as well as what it catches. Before signing, check where unpublished drafts are processed and stored, whether they are used to train the model, and how much of the fee pays for lawyer review rather than software. Buyers outside media can ignore it for now.
“ClearDraft will empower our journalists to break important stories faster and with greater confidence, while our legal teams can focus on the most complex and sensitive cases.”Angus McBride, general counsel, News UK
News UK, owner of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun, announced a strategic investment of an undisclosed sum in ClearDraft on 28 September 2026 and became one of its clients.
ClearDraft is run by media lawyers Alex Wade and David Burgess as co-CEOs, with technologists based in San Francisco. Its announcement dates its founding to late 2025, though its UK company, ClearDraft Ventures Ltd, was incorporated in November 2024, according to Companies House. Wade said he had worked with News UK and its titles for nearly 30 years, as a journalist and lawyer. Burgess was previously head of production clearance for EMEA at Netflix.
ClearDraft says its software is procedural, not generative: it reads finished copy and marks passages that may carry legal risk, but writes nothing itself. Its website adds that expert lawyers review what the software flags. ClearDraft says other large media groups are already clients, but the announcement names none.
The pitch rests on lawyer time. Burgess said he had seen the tool get through a book of 100,000 words in minutes, a job he put at 15 hours or more for a lawyer. The figure is ClearDraft’s own; the announcement cites no independent test. The announcement also says the product will let in-house lawyers give more time to investigative work and to fighting Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases, lawsuits used to silence reporting or criticism.
The announcement adds that News UK will use the tie-up to develop an AI tool for its own newsroom lawyers as the volume of copy they must clear grows.
Sources
- ClearDraft, “News UK Invests in ClearDraft to Revolutionise Legal Clearance for Journalists, Publishers and Media Groups”, press release, 28 September 2026. https://cleardraft.com/blog/news-uk-invests-in-cleardraft-to-revolutionise-legal-clearance-for-journalists-publishers-and-mediagroups
- ClearDraft, “About”, company website, accessed 1 October 2026. https://cleardraft.com/about
- ClearDraft, home page, company website, accessed 1 October 2026. https://cleardraft.com/
- Companies House, “CLEARDRAFT VENTURES LTD”, company 16092729, accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16092729
- City AM, “The Times publisher deploys AI legaltech support lawyers – and reporters”, 28 September 2026. https://www.cityam.com/the-times-publisher-deploys-ai-legaltech-support-lawyers-and-reporters/
