Apple is exploring AI deals with news publishers
Apple has opened negotiations in recent weeks with major news and publishing organizations seeking permission to use their material in the company’s development of generative artificial intelligence systems, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
The tech giant has launched multi-year deals worth at least $50 million to license the archives of news articles, said the people with knowledge of conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. News organizations contacted by Apple include Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker; NBC News; and IAC, owner of People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens.
The negotiations represent one of the first examples of Apple trying to overtake rivals in the race to develop generative AI, which would allow computers to create images and chat like a human. The technology, which artificial intelligence experts call neural networks, is built by using large amounts of photos or digital text to recognize patterns. For example, by analyzing thousands of cat photos, a computer can learn to recognize a cat.
Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta and other companies have released chatbots and other products built with the technology. The tools could change the way people work and generate billions of dollars in revenue.
But Apple has been absent from the public discussion about AI. Its virtual assistant, Siri, has largely stagnated over the past decade since its release.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. On a call with analysts last month, company CEO Tim Cook said Apple is “making progress” on AI, but declined to elaborate.
Some publishers contacted by Apple were lukewarm about the overture. After years of commercial deals with tech companies like Meta, the owner of Facebook, publishers have become wary of doing business with Silicon Valley.
Several publishing executives were concerned that Apple’s terms were too loose, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. The initial pitch was for broad licensing of publishers’ archives of published content, potentially exposing publishers to any legal liability that might arise from Apple’s use of their content.
Apple was also vague about how it wanted to apply generative AI to the news industry, the people said, a potential competitive risk given Apple’s significant audience for news on its devices.
Still, some news executives were optimistic that Apple’s approach could ultimately lead to a meaningful partnership. Two people familiar with the discussions were positive about the long-term prospects of a deal, contrasting Apple’s approach to seeking permission with the behavior of other artificial intelligence-based companies, which have been accused of striking licensing deals with news organizations after they already uses their content to train its generative models.
In recent years, Apple executives have debated how to collect the data needed to build generative AI products, according to two people familiar with the work. Some of its rivals have been accused of taking written material from the Internet without the consent of the artists, writers and programmers who created it, leading to several copyright lawsuits.
Apple is reluctant to get information from the Internet, partly because of its commitment to privacy. After acquiring social analytics startup Topsy in 2013, Apple executives asked Topsy to stop collecting information from Twitter, saying it violated the company’s policy against collecting data about Apple customers, who may also post on the social media site. two people said.
The explosion of artificial intelligence has raised alarms among news executives, many of whom are concerned that generative AI products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT could attract readers who would otherwise consume their news on platforms for their own subscribers and advertisers.
Print news organizations, which saw their lucrative advertising businesses destroyed by online competitors decades ago, have been particularly wary of making deals with AI organizations and have moved cautiously with an eye to preserving their existing businesses.
In a statement, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company “respects the rights of content creators and owners and believes they should benefit from AI technology,” citing recent agreements with the American Journalism Project and German publisher Axel Springer.
“We are optimistic that we will continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together to support a rich news ecosystem,” the OpenAI spokesperson said.