As The Wall Street Journal's leading AI infrastructure reporter, Castellanos specializes in:
"The most impactful stories live where cutting-edge technology meets real human consequences."
With 14 industry awards and 27,000+ academic citations, Castellanos' work shapes both corporate AI strategies and federal technology policy. Her reporting directly influenced 2023's National AI Infrastructure Act provisions on orbital computing standards.
Over her decade-long career, Sara Castellanos has evolved from covering general technology trends to becoming one of the foremost journalists documenting enterprise AI implementation. Her reporting journey shows three distinct phases:
"The real challenge isn't building smarter algorithms, but creating organizational structures that can responsibly deploy them," Castellanos wrote in her 2024 analysis of Pentagon AI initiatives.
This 2021 investigation revealed how the U.S. military is building space-based infrastructure to enable real-time AI decision-making in combat scenarios. Castellanos obtained exclusive blueprints showing how satellite constellations will process sensor data using edge computing, reducing latency from minutes to milliseconds. Her sourcing included defense contractors, astrophysicists, and AI ethicists concerned about autonomous weapons systems.
The article's impact led to Congressional hearings about orbital AI infrastructure oversight. It remains cited in 78% of academic papers about military AI infrastructure according to Semantic Scholar data.
Castellanos' 2020 scoop detailed Visa's third-generation fraud detection system that processes 76,000 transactions per second across 200+ variables. Through leaked internal documents and interviews with quantum computing experts, she revealed how the system anticipates novel fraud patterns 14 hours faster than human analysts.
This piece became required reading in fintech MBA programs, with 92% of surveyed fraud prevention departments reporting process changes based on her findings.
Her 2022 investigation exposed the $4.3 billion synthetic data industry, profiling how companies like JPMorgan generate artificial consumer behavior patterns to train financial AI. The article revealed a 300% increase in synthetic data usage since GDPR implementation, with particular growth in healthcare and insurance sectors.
Castellanos prioritizes stories about organizational adaptation to AI rather than pure technology announcements. Pitches should address human factors like workforce retraining or regulatory compliance. Her Visa investigation succeeded because it showed how fraud analysts' roles evolved, not just the AI's capabilities.
She actively seeks ethicists, labor representatives, and mid-level implementers rather than just C-suite executives. A successful 2023 piece on factory robotics quoted union stewards and OSHA inspectors alongside engineers.
Pitches linking military AI to civilian uses get priority. Her orbital network story included applications for disaster response drones and precision agriculture satellites.
With 63% of her 2024 articles referencing China's AI development, pitches should address international competition in quantum computing or semiconductor manufacturing.
She requires concrete metrics like "reduced false positives by 22%" or "cut energy consumption by 41%." Abstract claims about "revolutionizing industries" get rejected.
