👉 Background: The New York Times is one of the world’s most influential newspapers in the world, with over 11.6 million subscribers. In December 2023, New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft and accused them of training their AI models on NYT content without permission.

👉 What happened: While other news outlets have signed commercial partnerships with the big dogs of AI, the New York Times held off until now because The New York Times has signed its first AI deal with Amazon. As part of the deal, Amazon will be able to train its large language models on New York Times content, including Alexa.

👉 What else: This partnership will mean Alexa could soon read out NYT summaries when you ask about global politics or tonight’s dinner plans. And this is a huge step for the New York Times who has been very resistant to dabbling in the AI world.

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What's the key learning?

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💡If you're not at the AI table, you're probably on the menu. While some media companies are dragging tech giants into court, others are licensing their content... and cashing in.

💡Over the past few years, it’s become clear that the media industry is waking up to AI. And they’ve realised that partnerships are the next big monetisation lever for content-rich businesses.

• NewsCorp signed a 5 year, $250 million USD deal with OpenAI
• And others like The Atlantic, Conde Nast and Axel Springer have also signed deals with Open AI

💡It’s not like the New York Times needs this money desperately from Amazon right now. In fact, the NYT’s operating profit jumped 22% in the most recent quarter and added 250,000 new digital subscribers during the same period. But they know that AI is becoming the first point of contact for information, so they just don't want to miss that future revenue.