In a significant move within the technology and media industries, the Financial Times (FT) has entered into a strategic partnership and licensing agreement with OpenAI.
Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries. The agreement also involves developing new AI-driven products and features specifically tailored for FT readers.
This integration is intended to ensure that users can access reliable information while acknowledging and compensating the publisher for their content.
John Ridding, the CEO of FT Group, underscored the strategic significance of this alliance in a press statement. He emphasized that the partnership not only acknowledges the value of FT’s award-winning journalism but also positions the company to gain early insights into the future of AI-driven content distribution. “We have long been a leader in news media innovation, pioneering the subscription model and engagement technologies, and this partnership will help keep us at the forefront of developments in how people access and use information.”
Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, expressed his optimism about the partnership’s potential to innovate how news organizations operate and enhance the ChatGPT experience with timely, authoritative journalism. He noted in a press release, “Our partnership and ongoing dialogue with the FT is about finding creative and productive ways for AI to empower news organizations and journalists and enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism for millions of people around the world.”
What was the need for the partnership?
In November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT brought generative AI into the limelight. However, there have been debates over whether AI companies should pay to license training data for their models instead of scraping it off the web without permission.
The evolving landscape also poses challenges. Several news organizations, including The New York Times, Raw Story, AlterNet, and The Intercept, have taken legal actions against OpenAI, citing copyright infringement. These cases highlight the delicate balance between leveraging AI for innovation and respecting copyright and intellectual property laws.
Despite this, many AI organizations continue to scrape data to improve their products. France’s competition watchdog recently fined Google for training its Gemini chatbot on content from publishers and news agencies without notifying them.
Now, OpenAI is taking proactive steps to address these concerns by partnering with reputable publications like FT to enhance ChatGPT’s capabilities. “Our partnership and ongoing dialogue with the FT is about finding creative and productive ways for AI to empower news organizations and journalists, and enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism for millions of people around the world,” said Lightcap in a statement.
FT, on its part, emphasized its commitment to human journalism and sees this partnership as an effort to broaden the reach of its work. “We value the opportunity to be inside the development loop as people discover content in new ways. As with any transformative technology, there is potential for significant advancements and major challenges, but what’s never possible is turning back time. It’s important for us to represent quality journalism as these products take shape – with the appropriate safeguards in place to protect the FT’s content and brand,” noted Ridding in a press release.
OpenAI’s partnerships with publishers
It’s not the first time that OpenAI has partnered with publishers. It has partnered with the Associated Press (AP), a well-known newswire service with a vast archive of content, to train its large language models (LLMs). OpenAI has also signed similar deals with Axel Springer, a German media company that owns popular brands like Politico and Business Insider, and European properties BILD and WELT.
Last year in July, OpenAI entered into an agreement with the American Journalism Project (AJP), a venture philanthropy organization dedicated to supporting local news in the US. Under this agreement, OpenAI pledged to provide $5 million to the AJP to help expand its initiatives. Additionally, OpenAI also offered up to $5 million in API credits to enable AJP’s grantee organizations to explore and implement emerging AI technologies in their operations.
To expand its international news coverage further, OpenAI partnered with Le Monde and Prisa Media last month to bring French and Spanish news content to ChatGPT.