OpenAI strikes search deal with Condé Nast
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OpenAI has struck a multiyear licensing deal with Condé Nast, the companies announced Tuesday.
Why it matters: Condé Nast is home to some of the world's biggest tech, lifestyle and culture brands, including Vogue, The New Yorker, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair and Wired.
Details: The arrangement gives OpenAI license to display content from Condé Nast brands within OpenAI's products, including ChatGPT and its SearchGPT prototype.
- While neither company disclosed deal terms, OpenAI's statement suggests the deal with Condé Nast is similar in structure to the search deals struck with The Atlantic and News Corp. last month.
- "We're collaborating with our news partners to collect feedback and insights on the design and performance of SearchGPT, ensuring that these integrations enhance user experiences and inform future updates to ChatGPT," the firm said.
Between the lines" In a note to staff, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch hailed the deal, saying, "It's crucial that we meet audiences where they are and embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property. This is exactly what we have found with OpenAI."
- Lynch said OpenAI has been "transparent and willing to productively work with publishers like us so that the public can receive reliable information and news through their platforms."
Flashback: Condé Nast may have struck a deal with OpenAI, but it's shown a willingness in the past to push back against what it feels are unfair uses of its content.
- Its tech publication, Wired, ran a story last month calling Perplexity "a bulls--t machine," and also found the company wasn't obeying websites' rules for what content could be accessed by site-scraping robots.
- Perplexity's CEO later said the problem stemmed from a third-party web-crawler, not Perplexity's own bot.
The big picture: OpenAI has taken the lead in Silicon Valley in striking collaborative deals with news publishers, while other firms figure out whether they want to invest in media partnerships.
- In addition to the SearchGPT deals with The Atlantic and News Corp. last month, OpenAI also reached deals with Vox Media, Time, News Corp. Axel Springer, Associated Press, Dotdash Meredith, Financial Times and others.
- "We're committed to working with Condé Nast and other news publishers to ensure that as AI plays a larger role in news discovery and delivery, it maintains accuracy, integrity, and respect for quality reporting," said OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap in a statement.
What to watch: More AI companies are starting to eye deals with news companies as they develop search engines that need accurate, real-time information to answer user queries.
