The New York Times Strikes Landmark AI Licensing Deal with Amazon

The New York Times and Amazon ink AI licensing deal | TechCrunch

Nearly two years after suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, The New York Times has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon to train the tech giant's AI platforms. The agreement will "bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the outlet said in a statement. That includes content like news articles, material from NYT Cooking, a site dedicated to food and recipes, and The Athletic, its sports-focused site. The company also noted that Amazon's use of The Times's editorial content could extend to Alexa software on its smart speakers. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it's the first of such agreements for Amazon. OpenAI has signed multiple similar deals with publishers, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, NewsCorp, Axel Springer, and more. This is also the first time The Times is agreeing to a generative AI-focused licensing agreement, and it comes after the outlet sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 after accusing the companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train its AI models without consent or compensation. Both OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected accusations of wrongdoing. TechCrunch has reached out to The New York Times for more information.

The New York Times' first generative AI deal is with Amazon

Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. The New York Times has struck a multi-year AI licensing deal with Amazon that will bring its "editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the outlet announced on Thursday. Under the agreement, Amazon will include summaries and short excerpts of The Times' content in products like Alexa, and will also use Times articles to help train its AI models. "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," Meredith Kopit Levien, the CEO of The New York Times Company, said in a statement to the Times. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights."

New York Times Agrees to License Content to Amazon for AI Use

The New York Times Co. has reached a deal to license its editorial content to Amazon.com Inc. for use across its artificial intelligence platforms, marking the first such agreement the newspaper company has struck after years of battles between the media and a new, disruptive technology. The multiyear collaboration "will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the news outlet said in a statement Thursday. In addition to editorial content, the deal will include recipes from NYT Cooking and The Athletic, which focuses on sports.

New York Times, Amazon sign AI licensing deal

May 29 (Reuters) - The New York Times (NYT.N), opens new tab said on Thursday it would license its editorial content to Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab for use in the tech giant's artificial-intelligence products, marking the publisher's first licensing deal tied to generative AI. The multi-year agreement allows Amazon access to its news articles and content from NYT Cooking and sports website The Athletic. "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," the publisher said. NYT recorded $4.4 million in pretax litigation costs in the first quarter related to its copyright lawsuit against Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which it filed in 2023. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

New York Times agrees first AI deal with Amazon

The New York Times has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon, marking the first time the news giant will allow its stories to train a tech company's artificial intelligence models. The deal allows for summaries and short excerpts of NYT stories and cooking recipes to be used by Amazon products, such as Alexa speakers, and to train its proprietary AI models. The companies did not give financial terms of the deal. The agreement comes as the NYT continues its legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft after the paper sued them in 2023 for "massive copyright infringement". The NYT is seeking billions of dollars in damages from the tech groups for allegedly using millions of their articles to build the models underlying OpenAI's ChatGPT. In an internal memo to staff on Thursday, NYT chief executive Meredith Kopit Levien said the deal with Amazon "is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for". "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights," she said. Shares in the New York Times initially rose more than 3 per cent on Thursday morning. Shares are up 8 per cent this year, outperforming the wider stock market. Media groups have grown increasingly wary that generative AI models -- which can churn out humanlike text, images and code in seconds -- use their content without permission or payment. Amazon's proprietary models lag behind the technical capabilities of OpenAI's equivalent, though it has focused on lowering cost. The ecommerce giant has also invested around $8bn in start-up Anthropic, whose Claude models compete more directly with those from OpenAI. The company is releasing an array of AI-enabled products including its Alexa Plus voice-enabled assistant. In recent years several media groups have struck licensing deals with OpenAI -- including News Corp, Axel Springer and the Financial Times. These agreements have brought in tens of millions of dollars for publishers. However, in private conversations, some news executives say they view these deals as temporary measures as they wait for a long-term legal framework to be established. OpenAI said the NYT suit was "without merit" and that the newspaper was not "telling the full story". Copyright is a problem for AI companies such as OpenAI, whose models depend on gobbling up massive amounts of information from across the internet.

Amazon and The New York Times enter AI-related licensing agreement

The deal allows AI training on the outlets content and brings NYT to Alexa. The New York Times and Amazon have entered into a that will allow Amazon access to much of the publication's editorial content for AI-related uses. In a press release announcing the deal, The New York Times shared that this agreement will bring new features for customers like accessing summaries or excerpts of Times content using Alexa. It will also allow Amazon to train its AI models on The New York Times content. In , The New York Times shared, "The collaboration will make The New York Times' original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services including direct links to Times products and underscores the companies' shared commitment to serving customers with global news and perspectives within Amazon's AI products." Access to content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic is also included in the deal. AI models require training on vast amounts of data, and many of the companies building them are likely by training on protected materials. OpenAI and Google went so far as to to copyright laws for their models to train freely. The New York Times OpenAI and Microsoft for training their models on the company's content without permission back in 2023, though the case . Licensing agreements can offer additional revenue streams for companies willing to hand over user data or allow AI models to train on content created by their employees. The Washington Post is one of that have with OpenAI earlier this year. The specific contents of today's deal, such as how much Amazon is paying, have not been disclosed. Amazon has been on a tear releasing AI-powered tools for , and .

The Times and Amazon Announce A.I. Licensing Deal

The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant's artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The agreement "will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement also encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times's food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is the first instance of The Times agreeing to a licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations. Financial terms of the licensing deal with Amazon were not disclosed. "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of The Times, said in a statement. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights." Amazon's use of editorial content from The Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. Material from The Times will also be used to train Amazon's proprietary A.I. models, the company said. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Amazon inks deal with New York Times to license newspaper's content for AI platforms

Amazon and The New York Times have agreed to a new deal in which the newspaper's editorial content will be licensed by the tech giant for use on its artificial intelligence platforms. The multi-year licensing agreement will bring Times editorial content "to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the Times said in a news release on Thursday. Content will include "real-time display of summaries and short excerpts" of content such as news articles and material 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. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. An Amazon spokesperson directed GeekWire to the Times news release. The generative-AI focused licensing arrangement is a first for the Times. 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, according to TechCrunch. "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, said in a note to staff. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights."

The New York Times Strikes AI Content Licensing Deal With Amazon - Decrypt

Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal comes as Amazon expands Alexa+ and ramps up its AI efforts. The New York Times has signed its first-ever content licensing deal focused on generative artificial intelligence, granting Amazon access to news, recipes, and sports reporting for use across its AI platforms, including Alexa and its proprietary machine learning models. Announced Thursday, the multi-year agreement includes material from the title's flagship news operation, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic. The deal allows for real-time display of summaries and excerpts on Amazon devices and services, and permits Amazon to use the content to help train its foundation models. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights," Meredith Kopit Levien, chief executive of the New York Times, said in a note to the staff. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and neither company has publicly shared details on the scope or duration of content usage. The deal marks a significant moment for the media industry as publishers including the Times themselves respond to the rise of generative AI. In December 2023, the New York Times filed a copyright lawsuit against tech giants OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using millions of Times articles without permission to train their AI models. "OpenAI and Microsoft have built a business valued into the tens of billions of dollars by taking the combined works of humanity without permission" The New York Times said in the lawsuit. In April, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruled that the lawsuit could proceed, denying OpenAI and Microsoft's motions to dismiss key claims, including those related to direct and contributory copyright infringement. For Amazon, the agreement with the media platform supports its broader effort to catch up in the AI race. Earlier his month, the company began rolling out Alexa+, a generative AI-powered version of its assistant, to over 100,000 early users. The system, powered in part by Anthropic's Claude AI, is designed to be more conversational and aware, and will soon feature curated Times journalism as part of its offering.

Amazon, New York Times make deal for AI content

The New York Times Co. has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant's artificial intelligence platforms, the company said Thursday. The agreement "will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement also encompasses material from NYT Cooking, the Times' food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is the first instance of the Times agreeing to a licensing arrangement with a focus on generative AI technology. In 2023, the Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by the Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations. Financial terms of the licensing deal with Amazon were not disclosed. "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," Meredith Kopit Levien, chief executive of the Times, said in a statement. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights." Amazon's use of editorial content from the Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. Material from the Times will also be used to train Amazon's proprietary AI models, the company said.

New York Times agrees to license its material for Amazon's AI

The New York Times announced on Thursday it would partner with Amazon and allow the company to use its content as part of its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. The multi-year licensing agreement will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences and "broadens the companies' existing relationship, and will bring additional value to Amazon customers and bring Times journalism to wider audiences," they said in a statement. The agreement will allow Amazon to use editorial content from The New York Times, NYT Cooking and The Athletic for AI-related uses, including a 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. "The collaboration will make The New York Times's original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services, including direct links to Times products, and underscores the companies' shared commitment to serving customers with global news and perspectives within Amazon's AI products," the Times said in announcing the deal. The partnership comes as the Times is locked in litigation with OpenAI over what the news outlet says is copyright infringement the tech company is engaged in through its usage of Times content in ChatGPT. In March, a judge ruled the Times case against OpenAI can proceed while dismissing smaller elements of the newspaper's copyright suit. Amazon was founded by billionaire tech tycoon Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, one of the Times' top business competitors.

New York Times to let Amazon use its stories to train AI models

The New York Times has entered into a licensing agreement with Amazon for an undisclosed amount, allowing the tech giant to utilise its editorial content for training AI models. This deal, the first for The Times, arrives amidst an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.The New York Times for the first time has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon which the tech major can use to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Amazon products, like the Alexa smart speakers, could use the summaries and short excerpts of NYT stories and cooking recipes, while and the company's AI models, could now learn from them. The deal comes even as NYT continues its legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft after suing them in 2023 for copyright infringement. The renowned news publication is seeking billions of dollars in damages from the tech giants for allegedly using millions of its articles to build the AI models underpinning OpenAI's ChatGPT. "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," NYT chief executive officer (CEO) Meredith Kopit Levien wrote in an internal memo Thursday. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights." Media companies are increasingly concerned that AI models are using their content without proper authorisation or compensation. These AI models can quickly generate text, images, and code that resemble human work. Several media organisations, including News Corp, Axel Springer, and the Financial Times, have entered into licensing agreements with OpenAI. These deals have provided publishers with millions of dollars. However, some news executives consider these agreements temporary, awaiting the establishment of a more permanent legal structure. OpenAI faces copyright challenges because its models rely on vast amounts of data collected from the internet. In response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times, OpenAI stated the suit was "without merit" and that the newspaper was not "telling the full story". Amazon is also developing AI products, including its Alexa Plus voice assistant. The company has invested significantly in Anthropic, a startup whose Claude models compete with OpenAI. While Amazon's AI models currently lag behind OpenAI's in technical capabilities, the company is focused on reducing costs.

The Times and Amazon announce an AI licensing deal

Amazon's use of editorial content from the Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. In some instances, excerpts from Times reporting will include attribution and a link back to the Times' website. Material from the Times will also be used to train Amazon's proprietary AI models, the company said.The New York Times Co. has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant's artificial intelligence platforms, the company said Thursday. The multiyear agreement "will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from Cooking, the Times' food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is the Times' first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative AI technology. In 2023, the Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by the Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations. Financial terms of the licensing deal with Amazon were not disclosed. "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for," Meredith Kopit Levien, the CEO of the Times, said in a note to staff. "It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights." Amazon's use of editorial content from the Times could extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. In some instances, excerpts from Times reporting will include attribution and a link back to the Times' website. Material from the Times will also be used to train Amazon's proprietary AI models, the company said. Amazon declined to comment beyond what was in the statement issued by the Times. News organizations have wavered on how to contend with the rapid emergence of AI technology, elements of which have been developed by software programs that ingest the content of millions of online news stories. Even as the Times pursued litigation against OpenAI, other news outlets -- including Axel Springer, Condé Nast and News Corp -- entered into licensing agreements to receive revenue in exchange for the use of their materials. The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, agreed to a deal with OpenAI last month. Amazon itself has been playing a bit of catch-up in the AI race. When OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, kicking off the AI boom, Amazon was caught flat-footed, much like Google, Meta and Apple. Chatbots like ChatGPT are driven by what scientists call neural networks, mathematical systems that can learn skills by analyzing huge amounts of digital data. By pinpointing patterns in vast troves of Wikipedia articles, news stories and chat logs, for instance, these systems can learn to generate humanlike text on their own, including poems, term papers and computer programs. Like Google, Microsoft and Meta, Amazon had the computing power needed for the task. As the world's largest cloud computing company, it ran a vast network of data centers filled with the specialized computer chips used to train AI systems. But it lacked some of the talent needed to build the most sophisticated systems, and the company had not prioritized the technology to the degree of OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft. Last June, Amazon inked a deal with a key AI startup called Adept, bringing on many of its employees, including its founder, David Luan. Amazon paid Adept at least $330 million to license its technology, three people with knowledge of the transaction said. Amazon later inked a similar deal with another important startup called Covariant, bringing on its top talent including its co-founder Pieter Abbeel, a professor of robotics at the University of California, Berkeley, who previously worked for OpenAI. Luan and Abbeel are now leading an Amazon research lab that aims to build "artificial general intelligence," or AGI, shorthand for a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. This ambitious goal is also the stated aim of OpenAI and other leading research labs, such as Google DeepMind. Data licensed from the Times could help fuel the efforts of Amazon's AGI lab. In addition to its own AI work, Amazon has established a close partnership with Anthropic, one of OpenAI's chief rivals. Over the past two years, the tech giant has invested $4 billion in the startup. Amazon's investment in Anthropic is not just a simple equity stake. Much like Microsoft's investment in OpenAI, it gives Amazon access to Anthropic's AI systems -- and commits Amazon computer power to the startup. Amazon also receives an early shot at making Anthropic's AI models available to customers of its cloud computing service.

The NYT paradox: Suing OpenAI, then signing with Amazon

The timing of the development is notable and even ironic: it comes even as the NYT continues a legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. However, other media groups, such as News Corp -- the owner of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, and The New York Post -- struck similar deals with OpenAI in May last year.The New York Times (NYT) has signed a licensing agreement with Amazon, allowing the tech giant to use its editorial content to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. But this is not something new. Other media groups, such as News Corp -- the owner of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, and The New York Post -- struck similar deals with OpenAI in May last year. What makes this development notable or even ironic is the timing: it comes even as the NYT continues a legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The beginning In 2023, the NYT alleged that millions of its articles had been used without consent to help train their AI technologies. Back then, it was the first major US news outlet to sue OpenAI and Microsoft. "Defendants seek to free-ride on NYT's massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment," the lawsuit stated, as filed in Manhattan federal court. While the NYT didn't specify a damages figure, it estimated that the unauthorised use of its content had caused "billions of dollars" in harm. Additionally, the media company had spent $10.8 million by February this year on legal costs related to the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) litigation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. NYT's case for collaboration "The collaboration will make The New York Times's original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services, including direct links to Times products," said NYT in a statement to CNN. It further noted that the partnership highlights both companies' shared commitment to delivering global news and perspectives through Amazon's AI offerings. In addition, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said, "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for. It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights." Domino effect The NYT's move paved the way for other publishers to follow suit. Publications such as the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, and Florida's Sun Sentinel also filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft. They claimed the tech companies had "purloined millions of the publishers' copyrighted articles without permission and without payment." However, the backlash wasn't limited to the United States. In November 2024, Indian news agency ANI launched legal action against OpenAI for using its published content without permission. It also alleged that ChatGPT falsely attributed fabricated stories to the agency. Just two months later, Indian media houses, including Gautam Adani's NDTV and Mukesh Ambani's Network18, also approached a New Delhi court, seeking to join the ongoing legal battle against the AI firm. Indian book publishers and their international counterparts joined in, too. Rising anxiety News organisations are increasingly anxious about the impact of AI on their workforce. One of the most recent examples is Business Insider, which announced layoffs affecting around 21% of its staff, according to Fox News Digital. Explaining the decision, CEO Barbara Peng said, "The company is fully embracing AI," noting that 70% of the team already uses Enterprise ChatGPT. She added that the goal is to achieve full adoption. Beyond journalism, creative professionals in writing, acting, and related fields also fear that AI will exploit their online work to produce competing content without fair compensation. AI models can already generate human-like text, images, and code in seconds. Speaking on the Amazon licensing deal, New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said, "The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for. It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or the enforcement of our intellectual property rights."

The New York Times Strikes AI Licensing Deal With Amazon

The agreement will also allow Times content to be used to train Amazon's proprietary foundation AI models. The agreement covers news editorial, cooking, and The Athletic, and would bring that content to devices such as Alexa. "The collaboration will make The New York Times' original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services, including direct links to Times products, and underscores the companies' shared commitment to serving customers with global news and perspectives within Amazon's AI products," the company said in announcing the deal. The deal is a surprise because the Times has mostly pushed back against AI firms looking to leverage the news outlet's content. The company is in a legal battle with OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of its content for AI training. OpenAI, meanwhile, has been cutting deals left and right with news outlets, including The Washington Post (owned, of course, by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos), News Corp., Hearst, Time, Condé Nast, and others. As with those deals, the Times deal includes new revenue for the company, but is also meant to expose its work for a wider audience, especially with many users increasingly using AI tools in favor of search options like Google. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

NY Times Inks AI Licensing Agreement With Amazon | PYMNTS.com

The New York Times (NYT) Company has signed a multiyear, artificial intelligence-focused licensing agreement with Amazon. The new arrangement will bring NYT editorial content to a "variety of Amazon customer experiences," the media company said in a news release Thursday (May 29). "This broadens the companies' existing relationship and will bring additional value to Amazon customers and bring Times journalism to wider audiences," the release said. The agreement will see Amazon license editorial content from the NYT, its NYT Cooking feature and The Athletic for AI-related uses, according to the release. "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," the release said. "The collaboration will make The New York Times's original content more accessible to customers across Amazon products and services, including direct links to Times products, and underscores the companies' shared commitment to serving customers with global news and perspectives within Amazon's AI products," the release said. The partnership is happening as Amazon is rapidly incorporating AI to improve the shopping journey. "In a move that signals a future beyond visual browsing, the company recently began testing AI-generated audio summaries for products in its mobile app, a clear signal Amazon wants to reduce friction in product discovery, especially on mobile and voice-enabled platforms," PYMNTS reported Wednesday (May 28). "This dovetails with the broader strategy of turning the shopping experience into a more passive, streamlined and personalized interaction, keeping users within its ecosystem." Amazon is also investing in AI-enhanced developer tools through Amazon Q Developer, a move that suggests that innovations such as the audio summaries are the first steps in a greater internal transformation. "Still, not all AI-powered experiences are providing early wins for Amazon," the report said. "The company's deal with the automaker Stellantis to create software that the companies hoped would transform the in-car driving experience has reportedly fizzled."

New York Times Partners with Amazon to Power AI with Editorial Content | PYMNTS.com

Amazon has secured a multi-year agreement with The New York Times, granting the tech giant access to the publisher's editorial content for use in its artificial intelligence platforms, including Alexa. This marks the first time the esteemed news outlet has entered into a licensing deal specifically tailored to generative AI, according to Reuters. As part of the arrangement, Amazon will be allowed to use not only news articles but also content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic, a sports publication owned by the Times. The deal enables Amazon to display real-time summaries and excerpts from Times content through its products and services, as well as use the materials to train its proprietary foundation models, per Reuters. Financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed. This partnership comes amid increasing challenges faced by AI developers in sourcing high-quality training data. With much of the internet's freely available information already harvested, companies are turning to premium publishers to feed the next generation of large-language models. Amazon's collaboration with the Times reflects a growing trend of formal content licensing, as legal scrutiny around data usage intensifies across the tech industry. Read more: Amazon Challenges France's Book Delivery Fee at EU Court In 2023, The New York Times filed a high-profile lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, accusing both companies of using millions of its articles without authorization to train AI chatbots. The lawsuit led to $4.4 million in pretax litigation costs for the Times in the first quarter of that year. According to Reuters, OpenAI has since made strides to avoid further legal entanglements by forging agreements with various media organizations, including the Financial Times, Axel Springer, Le Monde, Prisa Media, and Time magazine. Meta also joined the wave of licensing activity earlier in 2024, entering into a content agreement with Reuters. Analysts view the deal with Amazon as a strategic move for the Times to expand its reach. EMARKETERs Max Willens noted that it presents a valuable chance for the publisher to engage potential subscribers who may not otherwise interact with its content. The Times continues to build momentum in the digital space, recently securing four Pulitzer Prizes and surpassing expectations in digital subscription growth during the first quarter.

Amazon licenses New York Times content for AI platforms By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has reached an agreement with The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) Company to license its editorial content for use in Amazon's artificial intelligence platforms, according to a statement from the news organization. The arrangement marks the first time The Times has agreed to a licensing deal with a focus on AI technology. The deal will enable Amazon to incorporate The Times' editorial content into various customer experiences. In addition to news articles, the agreement also includes material from NYT Cooking, The Times's food and recipe site, and The Athletic, a sports-focused section. This licensing agreement comes after The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in 2023 for copyright infringement. The Times accused the tech firms of using millions of its articles to train automated chatbots without offering any compensation. Both OpenAI and Microsoft have denied these accusations. The financial details of the agreement with Amazon were not made public. However, Meredith (NYSE:MDP) Kopit Levien, The Times' chief executive, stated that the deal aligns with the company's long-standing principle that high-quality journalism should be paid for. She added that it also aligns with their strategy to ensure their work is valued appropriately, either through commercial deals or by enforcing their intellectual property rights. Amazon's use of The Times' editorial content could potentially extend to the Alexa software found on its smart speakers. Furthermore, Amazon stated that the licensed content will be used to train its proprietary AI models.

New York Times, Amazon sign AI licensing deal

(Reuters) -The New York Times said on Thursday it would license its editorial content to Amazon.com for use in the tech giant's artificial-intelligence products, marking the publisher's first licensing deal tied to generative AI. The multi-year agreement allows Amazon access to its news articles and content from NYT Cooking and sports website The Athletic. "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," the publisher said. NYT recorded $4.4 million in pretax litigation costs in the first quarter related to its copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which it filed in 2023. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)