AI Companies Forge Media Partnerships: What’s the Motive Behind It?

In recent developments, AI firm OpenAI has signed a multiyear licensing deal with Axel Springer, a prominent German media conglomerate. This partnership, worth tens of millions of Euros, is set to enrich the user experience of OpenAI’s ChatGPT by providing authoritative content summaries from various global news sources. This collaboration is indicative of a trend where AI companies are teaming up with media organizations to leverage their resources. But what drives these partnerships, and what implications do they hold for the future of media and AI?

OpenAI’s growing partnerships with media giants

Axel Springer’s deal with OpenAI is the latest in a series of collaborations between AI companies and media entities. OpenAI had previously partnered with the Associated Press, showcasing the increasing interest of AI firms in media collaboration. However, the Axel Springer deal stands out as one of the most comprehensive of its kind, possibly setting a precedent for future partnerships.

Expanding AI capabilities and the role of training data

Over the past few years, AI tools like ChatGPT and Dall-e have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in natural language understanding, image generation, and more. These tools often downplay the significance of the training data they rely on, emphasizing creativity over mimicry. They also provide interpretive functions for web content, summarizing and contextualizing information from the internet.

Now, as AI products from various companies converge in terms of capabilities, the focus is shifting back to the importance of training data. Alex Graveley, creator of GitHub CoPilot, highlights the need to demystify large language models (LLMs) and recognize their potential for tasks like content generation and, potentially, copying.

Axel Springer’s deal and content enrichment

Axel Springer’s partnership with OpenAI is aimed at training OpenAI’s models to create content in styles similar to those found within Axel Springer’s portfolio. This includes straight news in both German and English, magazine features, breaking news, investigative reports, and more. This collaboration is a step towards automating news production, from contextualizing fresh reporting to summarizing wire stories.

The value of partnerships for OpenAI

While the financial aspect of such deals is undoubtedly important for OpenAI, there are other significant advantages. These partnerships ensure that OpenAI’s products don’t exist in isolation. Unlike some competitors, OpenAI products rely on web access to provide up-to-date content, including news. However, businesses are becoming more cautious about sharing their content, leading to access restrictions for AI crawling.

Moreover, the proliferation of AI-generated low-quality content is threatening the open web. Platforms where users contribute content are inundated with AI-generated spam, prompting some platforms, like Google, to consider AI-generated summaries over top search results. OpenAI’s partnerships with publishers serve as a safeguard against potential challenges like legal restrictions on data scraping, rising training costs, and dwindling real-time data availability.

The role of media companies in the AI landscape

These partnerships raise questions about the evolving role of media companies in an AI-driven world. If AI companies aim to automate news distribution while leaving the labor-intensive aspects to media partners, what should media companies expect in return?

In a landscape where AI companies might potentially harvest the web without contributing meaningful content and media companies could become mere wire services, it becomes crucial for media organizations to evaluate the value they receive from such partnerships.

The Axel Springer deal with OpenAI exemplifies the evolving landscape of AI-media partnerships. It reflects OpenAI’s strategic vision and its preparedness to navigate potential challenges in the AI domain. These collaborations also raise questions about the future roles and expectations of media companies in a world increasingly shaped by AI. As AI technology continues to advance, the dynamics between AI companies and media organizations are likely to undergo further transformation, with the ultimate goal of delivering richer and more valuable experiences to users.