In a groundbreaking deal, OpenAI collaborates with global news publisher Axel Springer to provide summaries of Axel Springer’s content in response to ChatGPT queries.
Whenever a question is posed to ChatGPT, the chatbot will offer summaries of news stories related to brands owned by the global publishing company Axel Springer, such as Politico, Business Insider, Bild, and Welt.
These summaries include excerpts from stories that may require a subscription to read. The summaries attribute to Axel Springer as the source and also provide a link to the full article being summarized.
The summaries are made available through ChatGPT upon article publication, making breaking news a part of the user experience, with Axel Springer’s content starting to appear in the first quarter of 2024.
Content plays a significant role in search results in ChatGPT, aiming to help increase traffic and subscription revenues for the brand Axel Springer.
OpenAI also commits to paying for the use of Axel Springer’s content to train the large language models that support ChatGPT, including archived materials.
The financial details of the multi-year deal between the two companies, which also involve other firms, have not been disclosed.
In its statement, Axel Springer stated: “We aim to explore opportunities for AI-supported journalism to enhance quality, social importance, and push the journalism business model to the next level.”
This agreement comes at a time when publishers are considering legal action against tech companies for copyright infringement by training large language models using publisher content without permission.
Publishers threaten legal action concerning potential copyright infringement and seek compensation for content used to train AI models, in addition to striking deals with AI companies.
AI companies rely on training their models on accurate and up-to-date information, making news content an ideal source of training data.
The Axel Springer deal marks the second agreement between OpenAI and a major news publisher, following an agreement between OpenAI and the Associated Press in July.
The licensed deal, which includes a portion of the AP news archive, was made in favor of the Microsoft-backed tech company.
The Associated Press gains access to OpenAI technology and product knowledge as part of the agreement, the financial details of which have not been disclosed. OpenAI clarified that the AP deal does not involve content provision.
In November, Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, stated that the company is in advanced discussions to sign deals related to using its content in generative AI.
