The New York Times signs AI licensing deal with Amazon

The New York Times Company has signed an AI licensing agreement with Amazon. As part of the deal, the ecommerce giant will utilise the news outlet's editorial content to train its AI (artificial intelligence) systems. 

The multiyear AI deal comes nearly two years after the media house filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Sam Altman-led OpenAI and Microsoft.

The joint effort will integrate The Times’s editorial content across a range of Amazon customer experiences, the media outlet said. In addition to news coverage, the deal includes content from NYT Cooking, the publication’s food and recipe platform, as well as The Athletic, its sports media outlet.

This is the first time The Times has entered into a licensing agreement centered on generative AI technology.

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While the financial details of the licensing agreement with Amazon were not disclosed, the deal allows Amazon to use Times' content in various ways, including within its Alexa smart speaker software. In some cases, excerpts from the content will feature attribution and links back to the Times website.

Amazon has stated that the licensed material will be used to help train its proprietary AI models.

Two years ago, The New York Times filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging that the companies used millions of its articles to train AI chatbots without compensation. Both the companies denied this claim.

Meanwhile, other news outlets and media organisations—including Axel Springer, Condé Nast, and News Corp—have entered into licensing agreements to receive revenue in exchange for the use of their content.

The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, agreed to a deal with OpenAI last month.