Summary
The Financial Times (FT) has announced a strategic partnership and licensing agreement with OpenAI to enhance ChatGPT with attributed FT content, help improve OpenAI's models by incorporating FT journalism, and collaborate on developing new AI products and features for FT readers. Through this partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes, and links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries.
The FT became a customer of ChatGPT Enterprise earlier this year, providing access to all FT employees to ensure its teams are well-versed in the technology and can benefit from the productivity gains made possible by OpenAI's tools. FT Group CEO John Ridding emphasized the importance of this agreement in recognizing the value of FT's award-winning journalism and gaining early insights into how content is surfaced through AI.
Ridding also highlighted the broader implications for the industry, stating that it's essential for AI platforms to pay publishers for the use of their material and that OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation. The FT is committed to human journalism and believes this agreement will broaden the reach of their work while deepening their understanding of reader demands and interests.
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap expressed enthusiasm about the evolving relationship with the FT, stating that the partnership is about finding creative and productive ways for AI to empower news organizations and journalists, and enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism for millions of people around the world.
The FT has also released a generative AI search function called "Ask FT," powered by Anthropic's Claude large language model, which allows subscribers to find information across the publication's articles.
OpenAI has made several deals with news organizations to license content for training AI models, including Axel Springer and the Associated Press. However, some news organizations, such as The New York Times, The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet, have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement.
The licensing agreement between OpenAI and the Financial Times (FT) is likely to give ChatGPT an edge over other large language models (LLMs) like Claude when it comes to providing investment guidance. Here's how:
- Access to high-quality financial journalism: The FT is known for its in-depth coverage of financial markets, companies, and economies. By incorporating FT content into its training data, ChatGPT will have access to a wealth of expert analysis and reporting on investment-related topics.
- Improved accuracy and relevance: With the addition of FT content, ChatGPT's responses to investment-related queries are likely to be more accurate, up-to-date, and relevant compared to LLMs that do not have access to this high-quality financial journalism.
- Attribution and trust: As ChatGPT will provide attributed summaries, quotes, and links to FT articles in response to relevant queries, users can trust the information provided and easily verify it by accessing the original FT content. This level of transparency and attribution may not be available with other LLMs.
- Ongoing collaboration: The strategic partnership between OpenAI and the FT involves collaboration on developing new AI products and features for FT readers. This suggests that ChatGPT's capabilities in the domain of investment guidance may continue to improve over time.
However, it's important to note that while the FT partnership gives ChatGPT an advantage in the investment domain, other LLMs like Claude may have their own strengths and partnerships that make them better suited for other areas. Additionally, the quality of investment guidance provided by any AI tool should be evaluated critically, and users should always consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions.
We’re bringing the Financial Times’ world-class journalism to ChatGPT
Editor’s note: This news was originally shared by the Financial Times and can be read here.
The Financial Times today announced a strategic partnership and licensing agreement with OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence research and deployment, to enhance ChatGPT with attributed content, help improve its models’ usefulness by incorporating FT journalism, and collaborate on developing new AI products and features for FT readers.
Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and rich links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries.
In addition, the FT became a customer of ChatGPT Enterprise earlier this year, purchasing access for all FT employees to ensure its teams are well-versed in the technology and can benefit from the creativity and productivity gains made possible by OpenAI’s tools.
“This is an important agreement in a number of respects,” said FT Group CEO John Ridding. “It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI. We have long been a leader in news media innovation, pioneering the subscription model and engagement technologies, and this partnership will help to keep us at the forefront of developments in how people access and use information.”
“The FT is committed to human journalism, as produced by our unrivalled newsroom, and this agreement will broaden the reach of that work, while deepening our understanding of reader demands and interests,” Ridding added. “Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material. OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation – all essential for us. At the same time, it’s clearly in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources.”
Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, expressed enthusiasm about the evolving relationship with the Financial Times, stating: “Our partnership and ongoing dialogue with the FT is about finding creative and productive ways for AI to empower news organisations and journalists, and enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism for millions of people around the world.”
"We're keen to explore the practical outcomes regarding news sources and AI through this partnership,” said Ridding. “We value the opportunity to be inside the development loop as people discover content in new ways. As with any transformative technology, there is potential for significant advancements and major challenges, but what’s never possible is turning back time. It’s important for us to represent quality journalism as these products take shape – with the appropriate safeguards in place to protect the FT’s content and brand.
We have always embraced new
technologies and disruption, and we’ll continue to operate with both
curiosity and vigilance as we navigate this next wave of change.”
FT opens the door to ChatGPT
The Microsoft-backed OpenAI has struck a deal with the Financial Times to allow its ChatGPT artificial intelligence program to access the newspaper’s archived content.
Although details of the tie-up, described as a “strategic partnership and licensing agreement”, were not made public, it is known that the FT will receive an undisclosed sum for its journalists’ work and that the businesses will collaborate on developing new AI features for the paper’s readers.
Users of ChatGPT will be able to see short summaries of the FT’s journalism and links to articles, which will be given in response to queries to the chatbot.
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Users of ChatGPT will be able to ask questions of the chatbot NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP |
Copyright is a source of contention between the technology and creative industries. Generative AI, which creates content such as text or images from prompts, requires
OpenAI inks strategic tie-up with UK’s Financial Times, including content use | TechCrunch
OpenAI, maker of the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, has netted another news licensing deal in Europe, adding London’s Financial Times to a growing list of publishers it’s paying for content access.
As with OpenAI’s earlier publisher licensing deals, financial terms of the arrangement are not being made public.
The latest deal looks a touch cozier than other recent OpenAI publisher tie-ups — such as with German giant Axel Springer or with the AP, Le Monde and Prisa Media in France and Spain, respectively — as the pair are referring to the arrangement as a “strategic partnership and licensing agreement.” (Though Le Monde’s CEO also referred to the “partnership” it announced with OpenAI in March as a “strategic move.”)
However, we understand it’s a non-exclusive licensing arrangement — and OpenAI is not taking any kind of stake in the FT Group.
On the content licensing front, the pair said the deal covers OpenAI’s use of the FT’s content for training AI models and, where appropriate, for displaying in generative AI responses produced by tools like ChatGPT, which looks much the same as its other publisher deals.
The strategic element appears to center on the FT boosting its understanding of generative AI, especially as a content discovery tool, and what’s being couched as a collaboration aimed at developing “new AI products and features for FT readers” — suggesting the news publisher is eager to expand its use of the AI technology more generally.
“Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and rich links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries,” the FT wrote in a press release.
The publisher also noted that it became a customer of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise product earlier this year. It goes on to suggest it wants to explore ways to deepen its use of AI, while expressing caution over the reliability of automated outputs and potential risks to reader trust.
“This is an important agreement in a number of respects,” wrote FT Group CEO John Ridding in the statement. “It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI.”
He went on: “Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material. OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation — all essential for us. At the same time, it’s clearly in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources.”
Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT, which powers the ChatGPT chatbot, are notorious for their capacity to fabricate information or “hallucinate.” This is the polar opposite of journalism, where reporters work to verify that the information they provide is as accurate as possible.
So it’s actually not surprising that OpenAI’s early moves toward licensing content for model training have centered on journalism. The AI giant may hope this will help it fix the “hallucination” problem. (A line in the PR suggests the partnership will “help improve [OpenAI’s] models’ usefulness by learning from FT journalism.”)
There’s another major motivating factor in play here too, though: Legal liability around copyright.
Last December, the New York Times announced it’s suing OpenAI, alleging that its copyrighted content was used by the AI giant to train models without a license. OpenAI disputes that but one way to close down the risk of further lawsuits from news publishers, whose content was likely scraped off the public internet (or otherwise harvested) to feed development of LLMs is to pay publishers for using their copyrighted content.
For their part, publishers stand to gain some cold hard cash from the content licensing.
OpenAI told TechCrunch it has “around a dozen” publisher deals signed (or “imminent”), adding that “many” more are in the works.
Publishers could also, potentially, acquire some readers — such as if users of ChatGPT opt to click on citations that link to their content. However, generative AI could also cannibalize the use of search engines over time, diverting traffic away from news publishers’ sites. If that kind of disruption is coming down the pipe, some news publishers may feel a strategic advantage in developing closer relationships with the likes of OpenAI.
Getting involved with Big AI carries some reputational pitfalls for publishers, too.
Tech publisher CNET, which last year rushed to adopt generative AI as a content production tool — without making its use of the tech abundantly clear to readers — took further knocks to its reputation when journalists at Futurism found scores of errors in machine-written articles it had published.
The FT has a well-established reputation for producing quality journalism. So it will certainly be interesting to see how it further integrates generative AI into its products and/or newsroom processes.
Last month it announced a GenAI tool for subscribers — which essentially shakes out to offering a natural language search option atop two decades of FT content (so, basically, it’s a value-add aimed at driving subscriptions for human-produced journalism).
Additionally, in Europe legal uncertainty is clouding use of tools like ChatGPT over a raft of privacy law concerns.
Financial Times signs licensing deal with OpenAI
The Financial Times has struck a deal with OpenAI to license its content and develop AI tools, the latest news organization to work with the AI company.
The FT writes in a press release that ChatGPT users will see summaries, quotes, and links to its articles. Any prompt that returns information from the FT will be attributed to the publication.
In return, OpenAI will work with the news organization to develop new AI products. The FT already uses OpenAI products, saying it is a customer of ChatGPT Enterprise. Last month, the FT released a generative AI search function on beta powered by Anthropic’s Claude large language model. Ask FT lets subscribers find information across the publication’s articles.
Financial Times Group CEO John Ridding says that even as the company partners with OpenAI, the publication continues to commit to “human journalism.”
“It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material,” Ridding says. He adds that “it’s clearly in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources.”
OpenAI has made several deals with news organizations to license content to train AI models. Axel Springer, which publishes Business Insider, Politico, and the European publications Bild and Welt, signed a similar agreement with OpenAI to pull data from its articles. The Associated Press also allows OpenAI to train its models on their data. However, OpenAI reportedly offers between $1 million and $5 million to license content from publications, significantly less than what other companies like Apple are offering.
Other news organizations have a much different relationship with OpenAI. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement in December 2023, alleging that ChatGPT “recites Times content verbatim.” The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet filed a separate lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft with similar allegations in February.
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