Amazon seals AI content distribution agreement with The New York Times
The New York Times has inked a multi-year agreement with tech behemoth Amazon, granting the e-commerce giant access to its news, cooking, and sports content for use across Alexa and Amazon's AI platforms, effective immediately. The deal marks the paper's first-ever licensing agreement focused on generative artificial intelligence.
On Thursday, the newspaper announced the partnership, which places the Times' flagship news operation, NYT Cooking, and sports site, The Athletic, under Amazon's purview for deployment across its AI systems. This includes real-time summaries and excerpts showcased on Amazon devices and services, as well as utilizing the content to help train the company's foundation models.
In a staff memo, Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of the New York Times, mentioned that the deal underscores the company's commitment to ensuring that its work is rightfully valued. The financial terms of the partnership were undisclosed.
The deal comes as Amazon scales up its AI efforts, particularly with the expansion of Alexa+ and the rollout of a generative AI-powered version of its assistant, Alexa. The system, bolstered by Anthropic's Claude AI, aims to deliver a more conversational and aware user experience and will soon feature curated Times journalism.
Notably, the Times is currently embroiled in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the tech giants of using its articles without permission to train their AI models. This lawsuit, filed in December 2023, is ongoing, with U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruling in April that the case can proceed.
Amazon's agreement with the media platform could signify an effort to catch up in the AI race amid the rise of generative AI and the media industry's evolving response to it. Similar deals struck by other publishers with AI firms also support this notion.
As the landscape of AI and news content licensing continues to evolve, news companies are vying to monetize their content in the digital age. The Times' approach reflects a balancing act between partnering with AI firms and enforcing its intellectual property rights to ensure fair compensation for its content.
The New York Times' partnership with Amazon extends its content, including news, cooking, and sports, to Amazon's AI platforms, such as Alexa. This partnership, a first-ever licensing agreement focused on generative artificial intelligence, could be a strategic move by the Times to capitalize on the rise of generative AI in the media industry and secure fair compensation in the digital age. Meanwhile, the Times is embroiled in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that their AI models use its articles without permission.
