Amazon Strikes A.I. Licensing Deal With The New York Times

Amazon will now use New York Times content to power Alexa and train A.I. models, thanks to a new multi year licensing agreement.

The New York Times Company has announced a major licensing agreement with Amazon to enable the technology company to use Times content throughout its platforms including Alexa and its A.I. training models. The Times has established its first partnership with a company for using their content in generative A.I. applications.

In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using its articles to train chatbots without permission. OpenAI and Microsoft denied wrongdoing. While that lawsuit continues, this new partnership signals a different approach.

“This deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for,” said Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO of 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.”

The of the multiyear agreement remain undisclosed to the public. In addition to news articles, the deal includes access to content from NYT Cooking and The Athletic, expanding Amazon’s use of reliable editorial material.

The Times content will serve to improve customer experiences through Alexa voice summaries. The material will serve as input for training Amazon’s proprietary A.I. models.

A.I. developers have already obtained content licenses from media companies including Condé Nast and News Corp. OpenAI received a content licensing agreement from The Washington Post through its ownership by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in April.

Amazon started with a delayed pace in A.I. development until it began accelerating its efforts recently. The company has invested $4 billion in Anthropic and recruited talent from start-ups Adept and Covariant. Amazon’s acquisition of Times content represents a key move toward achieving its objective of developing artificial general intelligence which means creating machines that reason like humans.