The New York Times has entered into a multi-year agreement with Amazon, enabling the tech giant to incorporate the newspaper's editorial content into its artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, including Alexa. This partnership will extend beyond the flagship newspaper to include content from other Times properties such as NYT Cooking and The Athletic.
According to a statement from The Times, the collaboration will allow Amazon to provide real-time summaries and brief excerpts of Times content across its products and services. Additionally, the content will be utilized to train Amazon’s proprietary foundation AI models, enhancing the intelligence and responsiveness of their AI systems.
While financial and specific terms of the licensing deal were not publicly disclosed, the agreement represents a significant step as more news organizations seek collaboration with AI technology companies amid the ongoing debate over content usage and copyright.
This development comes amid a broader industry context, where The New York Times has previously filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged unauthorized use of its content for AI training purposes. Several other news outlets, including the New York Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, have taken similar legal actions.
In contrast to litigation, many news organizations are now opting to negotiate licensing deals with AI developers, prioritizing content monetization and control. Amazon itself has accelerated its AI initiatives, recently unveiling an enhanced version of Alexa integrated with generative AI capabilities. Other Amazon AI projects include proprietary Nova language models, custom Trainium chips, a shopping chatbot, and the Bedrock marketplace for third-party AI models.
This partnership highlights the evolving intersection of traditional journalism and emerging artificial intelligence technologies.
