According to a new report from The Information, OpenAI has recently approached various media companies with proposals to license their news content for training its advanced language models.
Two executives involved in recent negotiations with the AI startup reported that the offers from OpenAI ranged between only $1 million to $5 million per year, which would be considered modest even for small publishers. This would potentially complicate OpenAI’s efforts to secure agreements with these firms.
One executive said that tech giant Apple is also trying to catch up to OpenAI and Google in the race for generative AI development. The iPhone maker is reportedly busy striking deals of its own with various publishers to use their content. Apple’s offers are financially more attractive compared to OpenAI’s, but Apple’s terms also entail broader rights for content usage.
A source with knowledge of the matter revealed that Apple intends to leverage the content for a range of future AI products, utilizing it in ways the company finds essential for its strategic goals. This information aligns with previous reports which revealed that Apple is offering up to $50 million to secure multiyear deals for publisher data.
The financial figures proposed in recent AI-related licensing deals bear a resemblance to some past non-AI agreements. For instance, Meta offered publishers a $3 million deal for their news stories, headlines, and previews. This was when the social media giant launched the Facebook News tab, which has been discontinued in Europe.
Similarly, Google also announced a $1 billion total investment in 2020 while partnering with news organizations. However, due to regulatory pressure, the search engine maker had to pay Canadian publishers a total of $100 million to link their articles.
But this was not the only time Google sought to partner with media organizations. The search engine giant has previously worked on Genesis, a new AI tool for journalists that can take input in the form of facts and create a complete news story out of it. Google has partnered with major media organizations for this purpose including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Genesis garnered mixed results from its users, with some saying that the AI tool is not quite ready yet, while others expressed that it can be great as an assistive tool.
