OpenAI, maker of viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, has closed another news licensing deal in Europe, adding London’s Financial Times to a growing list of publishers it pays for access to content.
As with previous OpenAI publisher licensing agreements, the financial terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.
The latest deal seems more comfortable than other recent OpenAI publisher engagements — such as with the German giant Axel Springer or with the AP, Le Monde and Prisa Media in France and Spain respectively — as the pair refer to the deal as a “strategic collaboration and licensing agreement.” (Although Le Monde’s CEO also referred to the “collaboration” he announced with OpenAI on March as a “strategic move”.)
However, we understand that this is a non-exclusive licensing agreement — and OpenAI does not receive any stake in the FT Group.
In terms of content licensing, the pair said the deal covers OpenAI’s use of the FT’s content to train AI models and, where appropriate, to display AI genetic responses produced by tools such as ChatGPT, which closely resembles other publisher agreements.
The strategic element appears to focus on the FT enhancing its understanding of generative AI, especially as a content discovery tool, and what is being pitched as a partnership aimed at developing “new AI products and features for FT readers” — suggesting the news publisher is keen to expand its use of AI technology more generally.
“Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see selected summaries, excerpts and rich links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries,” wrote FT ina Press release.
The publisher also noted that it became a customer of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise product earlier this year. She then suggests that she wants to explore ways to deepen the use of artificial intelligence, while expressing caution about the reliability of automated results and potential risks to reader trust.
“This is a significant deal in many respects,” FT Group chief executive John Ridding wrote in a statement. “It recognizes the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content emerges through AI.”
He continued, “In addition to the benefits for the FT, there are wider implications for the industry. It is correct, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material. OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, performance and compensation — all essential to us. At the same time, it is clearly in the best interest of users that these products contain reliable sources.”
Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot, are notorious for their ability to fabricate information or “hallucinate”. This is the polar opposite of journalism, where journalists work to verify that the information they provide is as accurate as possible.
So it’s not surprising that OpenAI’s first moves toward licensing content for model training focused on journalism. The AI giant may be hoping this will help it fix the “illusion” problem. (A line in the PR suggests the partnership will “help improve [OpenAI’s] the utility of models learning from FT journalism.”)
However, there is another important motivating factor: Legal responsibility regarding copyright.
Last December the New York Times announced that it was suing OpenAI, alleging that its copyrighted content was being used by the artificial intelligence giant to train models without permission. OpenAI contends that the only way to close the risk of further lawsuits from news publishers whose content was likely plucked from the public Internet (or otherwise harvested) to fuel LLM development is to pay the publishers for its use their copyrighted content.
For their part, publishers stand to make some hard cash from content licensing.
OpenAI told TechCrunch that it has signed “about a dozen” publisher agreements (or “upcoming”), adding that “many” more are in the works.
Publishers could also potentially gain some readers — such as if ChatGPT users choose to click on referrals linked to their content. However, genetic AI could also cannibalize search engine usage over time, diverting traffic away from news publisher websites. If this kind of disruption breaks down, some news publishers may feel a strategic advantage in developing closer relationships with the likes of OpenAI.
Dealing with Big AI carries some reputational pitfalls for publishers as well.
Tech publisher CNET, which last year was quick to adopt Generative AI as a content production tool — without making the use of technology very clear to readers — further damaged her reputation when Futurism reporters found out dozens of mistakes in motorized articles he had published.
The FT has an established reputation for producing quality journalism. So it will certainly be interesting to see how it further incorporates genetic AI into newsroom products and/or processes.
Last month was announced a GenAI tool for subscribers — which essentially offers a natural language search option over two decades of FT content (so, basically, it’s a value-add aimed at increasing subscriptions for human-generated journalism).
Additionally, in Europe legal uncertainty limits the use of tools such as ChatGPT due to a number of privacy law concerns.
