OpenAI Collaborates with The Atlantic and Vox Media for Innovative Content Solutions

Another week brings exciting content partnerships between OpenAI and notable media publishers.

Today, The Atlantic, a distinguished American magazine, and Vox Media, the parent company of The Verge, Vox.com, New York Magazine, Thrillist, SB Nation, and more, announced their collaborations with OpenAI to license content for ChatGPT's responses.

OpenAI will also license content and data to enhance its large language models (LLMs) and multimedia AI models, such as GPT-4o and Sora.

Disclosure: I was previously employed by both The Atlantic and Vox.

While full financial details of the agreements were not revealed, both companies will gain access to OpenAI's technology alongside licensing fees for their content and data.

Expanding Partnerships with Media Publishers

This development follows OpenAI's recent partnership with News Corp., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, reportedly valued at $250 million over five years. Some journalists, including Jessica Lessin, CEO of The Information, have criticized swift agreements, suggesting publishers are hastily granting OpenAI access to their valuable content.

Current Licensing Agreements with OpenAI:

- The Atlantic (deal announced May 2024)

- Vox Media (deal announced May 2024)

- Meredith Dotdash (deal announced May 2024)

- The Financial Times (deal announced April 2024)

- Axel Springer (publisher of Politico and Business Insider in the U.S. and various European titles) (Dec. 2023)

- The Associated Press (July 2023)

- The American Journalism Project (July 2023)

Statement from Vox Media President Pam Wasserstein:

Today, I'm thrilled to announce Vox Media's partnership with OpenAI, which aligns with our broader approach to AI. Our roadmap emphasizes audience loyalty and editorial differentiation in the generative AI era. We strive to engage audiences and cultivate meaningful relationships, competing in an ecosystem where platforms often commoditize factual information and sometimes present misinformation disguised as fact.

To achieve these goals, we focus on what makes Vox Media and its brands unique: authority, voice, reporting, valuable content, community, creative partnerships, and earned audience trust. As we navigate this rapidly evolving landscape, we remain committed to innovation and creativity while prioritizing human judgment and our intellectual property.

Key Focus Areas in Our AI Strategy:

- Innovation: We’re committed to developing innovative media products. Our AI-enabled services, like The Strategist’s Gift Scout and features for our data platform, illustrate our commitment to enhancing audience experiences.

- Elevating Creativity: We leverage AI to enhance productivity and creativity. Employees are encouraged to experiment with AI tools, and we will soon provide company-wide guidelines to ensure consistent and responsible usage.

- Protecting Intellectual Property: Vox Media's content is safeguarded by copyright laws and terms of service. We maintain that scraping our sites or plagiarizing our work without permission violates these laws. Clear contracts and compensation for content usage are vital in this AI landscape, and we will explore various strategies to safeguard our work.

Vox Media’s OpenAI Partnership:

- Ensures compensation for the use of our published content, setting an industry precedent.

- Increases brand visibility by exposing Vox Media to ChatGPT’s vast user base.

- Protects our content by requiring proper attribution, limiting summaries, and including links to our sites.

- Positions Vox Media to collaborate with OpenAI on innovative products for our audience and advertising partners.

We will issue a press release soon announcing this important deal. We’re excited about the agreement, which aims to enhance and amplify our work as AI reshapes information consumption and entertainment. In this transformative moment, our trusted journalism and storytelling are more essential than ever.