OpenAI Partners with News Corp to Enhance ChatGPT's Capabilities

OpenAI has secured a significant partnership with News Corp to access its extensive content for training AI models, as announced on Wednesday. This multiyear agreement, valued at up to $250 million, grants OpenAI access to materials from News Corp’s wide array of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, The New York Post, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Australian, news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, and the Herald Sun.

The agreement allows OpenAI to present News Corp’s content in response to user inquiries and to utilize its vast database to enhance AI training for products like the ChatGPT chatbot.

“Our partnership with News Corp signifies an important moment for both journalism and technology,” stated OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a release. “We greatly appreciate News Corp’s longstanding role in delivering breaking news globally and are excited to improve user access to its high-quality reporting.” Altman emphasized, “Together, we are laying the groundwork for a future where AI honors, enriches, and maintains the standards of premier journalism.”

News Corp chief Robert Thomson described this collaboration as a “historic agreement” poised to “set new benchmarks for truthfulness, ethics, and worth in the digital landscape.” OpenAI’s announcement follows similar partnerships with the U.K.-based Financial Times, German publisher Axel Springer, and the Associated Press.

Such collaborations are increasingly common as companies developing generative AI technologies aim to mitigate potential legal issues and copyright disputes when training their models on existing content. OpenAI had previously extracted data from the web for model training, but growing concerns from creators whose work was used without consent prompted the company to pursue agreements with publishers for authorized access to material.

In a competitive response, Google, also vying in the generative AI space, reportedly finalized a similar deal with News Corp last month and announced an agreement with Reddit in February. These partnerships typically result in tech companies creating new AI-driven tools and features that publishers can integrate into their platforms.