Global News Publisher Partners with OpenAI in Landmark Deal Allowing AI Access to Real-Time News
Axel Springer, a leading German media group, has announced a groundbreaking partnership with OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, granting the AI platform access to its news media outlets. This deal includes popular publications like Bild, Politico, and Business Insider.
Under the agreement, Axel Springer will receive a substantial annual fee totaling tens of millions of euros. This payment will allow OpenAI to leverage the media group’s news content for the development of generative AI technology capable of producing text, images, and code indistinguishable from human creations.
One key aspect of the collaboration is the near real-time access provided by Axel Springer to its news stories. This will enable the AI platform to deliver current answers to user queries. The responses will be offered in the form of short summaries extracted from news articles, along with links to the original sources. Additionally, more comprehensive and fully developed answers will be provided, granting users direct access to Axel Springer’s news content through ChatGPT.
As part of the agreement, Axel Springer will also receive a one-off payment for its historical content, which will be used to train the AI technology. However, the primary focus of the partnership lies in an annual licensing arrangement, enabling OpenAI to access up-to-date information from the media group.
While the exact financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, an insider familiar with the matter revealed that it involves a substantial annual sum in the eight-digit range.
This landmark agreement represents a significant shift in the approach of major publishing groups towards generative AI products, which have the potential to disrupt the global media industry. Axel Springer’s CEO, Mathias Döpfner, described the deal as the first of its kind and emphasized the exploration of AI-empowered journalism to elevate the quality, societal relevance, and business models of journalism to new heights.
Axel Springer also highlighted its pride in becoming the first publishing group worldwide to establish an agreement with OpenAI that explicitly recognizes the publisher’s valuable contribution to the development of OpenAI’s products.
Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, expressed the organization’s deep commitment to collaborating with publishers and creators globally. OpenAI aims to ensure that these entities benefit from advanced AI technology while exploring new revenue models.
Earlier this year, OpenAI, alongside Google, Microsoft, and Adobe, engaged in discussions with news executives from prominent publishers, including News Corp, Axel Springer, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Financial Times. The meetings addressed concerns raised by media executives regarding the use of AI products. They expressed apprehension about technology companies accessing their data and content to train AI models without obtaining permission.
Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, highlighted the threat to media companies’ collective intellectual property, raising concerns that readers might bypass news websites and rely solely on AI-generated answers for information.
This partnership comes at a critical juncture for media groups, as they strive to identify appropriate ways to monetize their content. They are wary of repeating the mistakes of the past, wherein sharing articles freely with tech giants like Google and Facebook ultimately devalued their content and negatively impacted their business models.
Axel Springer emphasized the strategic importance of this agreement, stating that it establishes a revenue stream from an AI provider to the publisher. In contrast to previous experiences with Google, Facebook, and similar platforms, Axel Springer intends to approach this collaboration with caution and foresight, ensuring that publishers are not caught unaware.
Through this landmark partnership, Axel Springer and OpenAI have laid the foundation for exploring the immense potential of generative AI technology in journalism. By forging a mutually beneficial alliance that values the contributions of publishers, they aim to navigate the evolving media landscape and pave the way for innovative advancements in the industry.
