Exclusive: OpenAI and Hearst strike content deal
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OpenAI has struck a content partnership deal with Hearst, one of the largest newspaper and magazine holding groups in the country, the companies said Tuesday.
Why it matters: OpenAI has already struck similar deals with Hearst's magazine rivals Condé Nast and Dotdash Meredith.
Zoom in: The deal allows OpenAI to integrate content from more than 40 of Hearst's local newspapers — including the Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle — as well as content from more than 20 of its magazine brands, such as Esquire, Cosmopolitan and Women's Health, into OpenAI's products, such as ChatGPT.
- Like its other recent publisher deals, OpenAI says Hearst content that's used to fuel answers to user queries in ChatGPT will feature "appropriate citations and direct links" to original Hearst sources.
- While deal terms weren't disclosed, it's safe to assume Hearst is being compensated millions for its intellectual property, in addition to credits.
- OpenAI confirmed it will extend credits for Hearst to leverage its AI technology.
What they're saying: "This agreement allows the trustworthy and curated content created by Hearst Newspapers' award-winning journalists to be part of OpenAI's products like ChatGPT— creating more timely and relevant results," Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson said.
- "Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content," Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella said.
The big picture: Deals between the tech and news industries over AI have mostly shifted from providing broad training for large language models (LLMs) to addressing narrower use cases, where news publishers may have more leverage.
- LLMs need access to smaller pools of vetted information in real time to address user queries about things like news or cultural events.
- The process by which LLMs provide answers based on specific datasets is called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). Most of the newer deals struck between generative AI firms and publishers are focused on RAG.
What to watch: Some publishers stopped blocking generative AI bots from crawling their sites as soon as they struck content-sharing deals, but others continue to block those bots even after deals have been struck, a recent Wired analysis found.
- OpenAI has so far taken the lead on striking publisher deals, but its biggest backer Microsoft is beginning to wade into them as well.
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