Amazon Inks $20-25 Million Annual AI Licensing Deal with The New York Times

The New York Times and Amazon's AI licensing deal is reportedly worth up to $25 million per year

It's a rare insight into how much AI companies are paying publishers. Amazon's AI licensing deal with The New York Times is worth $20 million to $25 million per year, according to . The two companies did not disclose the fiscal terms of the agreement back when it was announced in . The Journal's reporting provides a rare insight into the value of a media company licensing its content for AI training. In the case of The Times, Amazon's annual payments to the publisher would amount to nearly one percent of its total revenue in 2024. In return, the agreement allows Amazon to train its AI models on content from The Times, including content from auxiliary arms of the company like The Athletic and NYT Cooking. It also allows Amazon to offer summaries and excerpts from the paper through Alexa. In light of that, $20 million to $25 million per year seems a small payout when the threat AI poses to publishers is so great, and other media companies have been able to negotiate bigger payouts. For instance, OpenAI's five-year licensing deal with News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, is reportedly worth more than . The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for training their models on the company's content without permission back in 2023. That case is still ongoing.

Report: Amazon to pay at least $20M a year in AI content deal with New York Times

Amazon's deal to license some content from The New York Times for use on the tech giant's artificial intelligence platforms will cost at least $20 million annually, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The Journal cited "people familiar with the matter" in reporting the figure, which hadn't been publicly disclosed since the two companies announced their plans in May. The report said the yearly payment -- as high as $25 million -- amounts to nearly 1% of the Times's total 2024 revenue. The multi-year licensing agreement will bring Times editorial content "to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the Times previously said. Content will include "real-time display of summaries and short excerpts" of news articles and items from NYT Cooking (food and cooking) and The Athletic (sports). Amazon could also use Times original content in the Alexa software on its smart speakers and to train its proprietary AI models. The generative-AI focused licensing arrangement is a first for the Times. "The [Amazon] deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," Meredith Kopit Levien, chief executive of the Times, previously said in a note to staff. The New York Times Co. filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against both OpenAI and its partner Microsoft in December 2023, accusing the tech companies of "using The Times's content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it." The suit alleges that the companies wrongly used vast amounts of copyrighted material from the newspaper to train the large language models that power ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence models. A federal judge rejected parts of OpenAI and Microsoft's motion to dismiss the suit in April, writing that the Times' produced "numerous" and "widely publicized" examples of ChatGPT producing material from its articles. OpenAI has licensing deals with other publishers, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and NewsCorp.

Amazon inks deal to train AI on New York Times articles

The deal gives Amazon access to news, cooking, and sports coverage from the Times for use in its AI systems Amazon and The New York Times Co. have finalized an agreement granting Amazon the right to utilize The New York Times' journalistic content for training its artificial intelligence models. The financial terms, fully disclosed recently, involve Amazon paying The New York Times Co. a minimum of $20 million. This agreement, initially revealed in May, allows Amazon to access a range of content produced by The New York Times. This includes not only the editorial content from its daily news publications but also extends to specialized content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic. The intended purpose of this content integration is to enhance Amazon's AI capabilities. The collaboration intends to bring real-time summaries and brief excerpts of The New York Times articles into Amazon's ecosystem of products and services, including voice assistant Alexa. A joint statement issued this summer outlined how Amazon plans to use the licensed content for training its own proprietary foundation models. While the $20 million payment represents a relatively small fraction of Amazon's overall financial scale, given its market capitalization exceeding $2 trillion, it constitutes a notable portion of The New York Times Co.'s operational budget. Sources indicate that the $20 million amounts to roughly 1% of the company's operating budget for the 2024 fiscal year. This agreement unfolds against the backdrop of ongoing legal disputes involving The New York Times and other technology companies. Specifically, The New York Times has initiated litigation against Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement related to the unauthorized use of its content within ChatGPT. A judge recently ruled that The New York Times' case against OpenAI can proceed, marking a notable development in the legal landscape surrounding AI and copyright. It is worth noting that Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, maintains a separate connection to the news industry through his ownership of The Washington Post.

Amazon to pay New York Times $20 million to feed company's AI

Amazon has agreed to pay at least $20 million to the New York Times Company for the right to use its journalism to feed the tech giant's artificial intelligence capabilities. The deal between the two companies was first announced in May but the Wall Street Journal reported the details of the payment plan on Wednesday. As part of the agreement, the Times will allow Amazon to use editorial content from its daily journalism, NYT Cooking and The Athletic for AI-related uses. These include plans for a real-time display of summaries and short excerpts of Times articles within Amazon products and services, such as Alexa, and training for Amazon's proprietary foundation models, the companies said in a joint statement earlier this summer. A payment of $20 million is a drop in the bucket for Amazon, one of the largest tech and media companies in the world with a market cap of more than $2 trillion. For the times, $20 million represents around one percent of the company's operating budget for 2024, the Journal noted. News of the payment comes as the Times remains in litigation with Microsoft and OpenAI over what the news outlet says is copyright infringement related to use of its content in ChatGPT. A judge ruled this spring the Times' case against OpenAI can proceed. Amazon was founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.

New York Times Gets New AI Partner For $20-$25 Million - New York Times (NYSE:NYT), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Amazon.com AMZN has agreed to pay The New York Times NYT between $20 million and $25 million annually under a multiyear content licensing deal, according to people familiar with the terms. Though the companies announced the agreement in May, this is the first time financial details have come to light. The annual payout represents nearly 1% of the Times's 2024 revenue and offers insight into how major tech firms are valuing journalism in an AI-driven information landscape, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Also Read: Google's AI Search - A Double-Edged Sword for Publishers Like the Atlantic The deal gives Amazon access to a wide range of New York Times content including material from its core news site, cooking section, and The Athletic, which Amazon can use to train AI models and power features like Alexa responses, including summaries or snippets from Times stories. This marks Amazon's first AI-related licensing agreement with a news publisher and The Times's first deal with a tech giant for AI training purposes, the WSJ writes. Trending Investment OpportunitiesAdvertisementArrivedBuy shares of homes and vacation rentals for as little as $100. Get StartedWiserAdvisorGet matched with a trusted, local financial advisor for free.Get StartedPoint.comTap into your home's equity to consolidate debt or fund a renovation.Get StartedRobinhoodMove your 401k to Robinhood and get a 3% match on deposits.Get StartedOther AI-Content Partnerships As AI tools increasingly compete with traditional search engines and draw traffic away from publisher websites, licensing deals have emerged for media companies to monetize their content. OpenAI, for instance, has signed similar pacts, including one with News Corp NWS that could be worth more than $250 million over five years, and another with Axel Springer valued at $25 million to $30 million over three years. OpenAI and Reddit RDDT formed a partnership that granted ChatGPT access to Reddit threads and introduced new AI-powered features for Reddit users. According to the May 2023 report, the New York Times earned nearly $100 million over three years from a deal with Alphabet GOOGL Google that allowed the tech giant to feature Times content across its platforms. The expanded agreement covered content distribution, subscriptions, and using Google tools for marketing and ad testing. It helped offset lost revenue after Meta Platforms META chose not to renew its Facebook News tab deal, which previously paid the Times over $20 million annually. Meanwhile, News Corp also struck a multiyear deal with Google in 2021, estimated to bring in over $100 million annually. Both media companies have criticized Google and Facebook for using news content without fair compensation. Price Actions: NYT shares are down 0.18% at $51.91 at the last check Wednesday. AMZN is down 0.36%. Also Read: Google Parent Alphabet's Legal Woes May Create Buying Opportunity: Analyst Photo by Tada Images via Shutterstock AMZNAmazon.com Inc$230.07-0.40%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum69.00Growth97.31Quality66.69Value49.39Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewNYTNew York Times Co$51.91-0.18%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$196.540.40%METAMeta Platforms Inc$700.890.13%NWSNews Corp$33.57-%RDDTReddit Inc$147.171.60%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Amazon to Pay NYT Up to $25 Million for AI Licensing | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The tech giant will pay the news company between $20 million and $25 million per year for content to train its AI models, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (July 30), citing unnamed sources. The previously undisclosed terms of the multiyear deal provide a glimpse into how publishers and AI companies are valuing news content amid a sea change in the way readers seek out information online, the report said. The yearly payments equal almost 1% of the Times' total revenue for 2024. Amazon and the Times announced the AI licensing deal in May, saying the agreement would give Amazon access to content from the Times' news, cooking and sports products to train its AI models. It was the Times' first AI-related licensing agreement and the first such arrangement Amazon had inked with a publisher. At the same time, several publishers have sued AI firms for copyright infringement, including The New York Times, which accused OpenAI and Microsoft of improperly using its material in a legal battle that began in 2023. More recently, AI firm Cohere was accused by a group of media companies in a lawsuit of improperly using at least 4,000 copyrighted works to train its AI model. Cohere called the suit "misguided and frivolous." Two other firms, Meta and Anthropic, won court victories in June when judges decided the companies' use of copyrighted content qualified as fair use. However, several legal experts told PYMNTS that the overall fight isn't over.