NYT Licenses Content to Amazon for AI Products & Alexa Training
The New York Times (NYT) has entered into a significant multi-year licensing agreement with Amazon to allow the tech giant to use its editorial content for various artificial intelligence (AI) products, including Alexa, as reported by Reuters. This marks the newspaper's first licensing deal focused on generative AI.
Under the deal, Amazon will use news articles, as well as content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic, for AI training purposes and in applications like Alexa.
This partnership enables Amazon to incorporate real-time summaries and excerpts of Times content within its AI-powered products. However, the financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
AI's Growing Need for Reliable Content
The collaboration comes at a time when AI companies are striving to enhance their large-language models, which have faced challenges due to the depletion of readily available data. To improve their models, companies like OpenAI have been turning to media companies for licensed content, creating new partnerships with news outlets for datasets. T
According to Reuters, this move also comes after OpenAI and Microsoft were involved in legal disputes with The New York Times over the unauthorized use of the newspaper’s articles to train AI models, which led to litigation costs for NYT.
Strategic Business Move for NYT
This new licensing deal with Amazon represents a valuable opportunity for The New York Times to expand its digital reach, especially among potential customers who have not yet subscribed to its services. By partnering with Amazon, NYT gains exposure to a broader audience via Amazon's established products and services, such as Alexa.
Also read: Edge Cortix Secures ¥3 Billion Grant to Advance Edge AI Chips
A New Revenue Stream for News Outlets
As AI technologies continue to grow, news publishers like NYT are increasingly exploring new revenue streams from content licensing, as they look to adapt to the digital transformation. Other prominent outlets, including Reuters, have also entered similar deals, with Reuters licensing articles to Meta Platforms in 2024.
The NYT's decision to embrace generative AI opportunities comes at a time of positive growth for the company. The publisher recently won four Pulitzer Prizes and exceeded its digital subscriber goals for the first quarter of the year, with its bundled offerings and a busy news cycle helping to drive readership.
