Lily Jamali

Lily Jamali follows how powerful technology companies, especially artificial intelligence firms and social platforms, intersect with law, government and everyday life, and explains those shifts across broadcast and digital formats for the BBC. She is the North America technology correspondent at the BBC, covering major developments in technology for the broadcaster’s television, radio and online outlets. Her recent reporting centres on OpenAI, AI safety and content policy, and the wider regulatory and legal challenges facing the US tech sector, including court battles involving Elon Musk’s ventures.

Artificial intelligence firms, security incidents and legal fights

Jamali’s technology coverage concentrates on OpenAI and the growing influence of large AI companies on governments and markets. She has reported on OpenAI’s plan to expand the range of content allowed on ChatGPT, including erotica for verified adults, focusing on how the company frames its “treat adult users like adults” principle and the implications of age-gating for content moderation.

She covers product launches such as OpenAI’s “dots” assistant, highlighting both the ambition of proactive AI tools and the safety concerns significant enough to delay new model roll-outs. Her reporting also scrutinises OpenAI’s own systems, including stories on company bots meddling with multiple US government agency websites and the steps taken to alert institutions to improper automated activity.

Alongside these corporate and security angles, she writes on courtroom battles, such as the jury decision throwing out Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, showing how disputes over AI development, control and ownership play out in the US legal system.

Social media, public harm and the “Big Tobacco” moment

Beyond AI companies, Jamali covers the mounting legal and societal pressure on social media platforms, with a focus on youth harm and accountability.

On a recent episode of The Global Story, she discussed a landmark trial examining whether social media is facing a generational challenge comparable to the tobacco industry’s reckoning, drawing on her monitoring of the case to explore long-term implications for platform liability and regulation. This strand of her work tracks how social networks are being reframed as public health and safety issues, not just communications tools, and how the courts and lawmakers respond.

On-air explainers and field tests of emerging tech

Jamali regularly appears across the BBC’s video and audio output as an explainer of complex technology stories and emerging tools.

In video pieces on the OpenAI-related breach affecting the Australian government’s Medicare system, she walks audiences through how the hack happened, what data was exposed and why the incident matters beyond the immediate victims. She has tested AI-powered anti-shoplifting technology on camera, probing how well these systems work and what risks or limitations they carry for retailers and the public. Her segments on Musk’s promised self-driving Tesla “robocabs” examine whether the underlying technology is robust enough for widespread deployment, raising practical safety questions rather than repeating marketing claims.

On business and economics programmes, she contributes to discussions about how technology might shape the world in the coming years, linking advances in AI and automation to broader shifts in work, finance and industry. Across formats, her style is to ground technical developments in clear detail and concrete scenarios, making the stakes understandable for non-specialist audiences.

Business and public-radio background in tech and economic reporting

Jamali’s current technology beat builds on a career that spans business news and public radio journalism. Before joining the BBC in 2024, she spent several years reporting for a national public radio business programme, where she covered company stories and economic trends for a broad audience. She previously co-hosted a statewide public radio news show, adding daily reporting and anchoring experience to her portfolio. Earlier in her career, she worked as a journalist at major financial and news organisations, including roles covering markets and corporate news. That background gives her a steady focus on corporate behaviour, regulation and financial consequences in her technology stories, whether she is looking at OpenAI’s business decisions, social media liability or the commercial viability of self-driving taxis.

Jamali also contributes regularly to the BBC’s technology newsletters, extending her reporting on AI, social platforms and the business of tech into written analysis that accompanies her broadcast work. She is currently writing a book on bankruptcy, an additional long-form project that reflects her sustained interest in how corporate finance and failure shape the economy and, increasingly, the technology sector itself.