News Corp is essentially an AI ‘input company’, chief executive says, after US$150m deal with Meta
In a bold statement, News Corp's global chief executive has described news organizations as a valuable "input" for artificial intelligence, as the media empire signs an AI content licensing deal with Meta worth up to US$50 million (A$71 million) annually. This deal, revealed by the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, allows Facebook and Instagram's parent company to scrape News Corp's US and UK content to train its artificial-intelligence products. The outlets included in the deal are the Journal and the New York Post, but the Australian mastheads, such as the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, are not part of the agreement.
In an upbeat presentation, Robert Thomson, the chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's company, emphasized the "reliable" breaking news and information in publications like the Australian, the Times of London, and Dow Jones as an "input" for AI that is "hard to beat". Thomson, who signed a $250 million, five-year deal with OpenAI in 2024, believes the opportunities AI offers for news organizations outweigh the risks. He takes a "woo or sue" approach, welcoming deals with AI companies but threatening legal action if they use the publisher's content illegally. Thomson maintains a good relationship with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, conversing with them regularly.
However, News Corp Australia has taken a more adversarial stance towards social media companies, blaming them for social cohesion issues. Michael Miller, the executive chair of News Corp Australia, has called for a united front against platforms and AI companies seeking content for free. Despite this, News Corp has embraced AI in its journalism, introducing an in-house AI tool called "NewsGPT" that has raised concerns among some journalists. The news media has seen AI and its integration into search engines as a threat to the sustainability of professional journalism, as Google's AI integration has reduced clicks through to news websites. The 2024 deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI brought news content from the Journal, the Post, the Times, and the Sunday Times to the AI platform. Other publications, like the New York Times, have sued OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of their content to train generative AI and large-language model systems.
Meta's multi-billion-dollar investment in AI infrastructure last year included a deal worth up to $6 billion with Corning, a manufacturer of complex materials for telecoms and electronics, to supply fiber optic cables for the company's datacenters.
