2LT International News

SEATTLE, Washington: Amazon has struck a significant deal with The New York Times to license its journalism for use in AI tools like Alexa—marking the first such agreement between the news outlet and a tech company in the generative AI space.

The multi-year partnership will allow Amazon to integrate real-time summaries and excerpts from The Times, including content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic, across its products and services. It will also support training of Amazon’s proprietary foundation models, the publisher said this week. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“This will include real-time display of summaries and short excerpts of Times content within Amazon products and services, such as Alexa, and training Amazon’s proprietary foundation models,” NYT stated.

The move comes amid mounting pressure on AI developers to secure licensed, high-quality data. OpenAI and others face legal scrutiny for using copyrighted content without consent. In 2023, The Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for allegedly using its journalism to train their models.

NYT reported US$4.4 million in pretax legal costs tied to that suit in the first quarter.

OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has since announced licensing deals with multiple media groups, including the Financial Times, Le Monde, and Time.

Emarketer analyst Max Willens noted the Amazon deal “creates a valuable opportunity to market the Times to people who do not yet subscribe.”

The Times recently won four Pulitzer Prizes and reported stronger-than-expected digital subscriber growth, driven by bundled offerings and a busy news cycle.