OpenAI and Time Announce Content Partnership

On June 27th, OpenAI and Time announced a “multi-year content deal” that will see OpenAI incorporate Time articles into its ChatGPT chatbot. The use of Time’s content will improve the quality of the generative AI outputs while providing users with citations to the original articles. In addition, the partnership will allow Time to access OpenAI’s proprietary technology, for the purpose of developing new products for Time readers.

In response to worries over the academic and journalistic quality of ChatGPT outputs to user queries, OpenAI has sought to partner with media organizations. On May 16th, Reddit announced that it had entered into a partnership with OpenAI. As part of the deal, OpenAI will obtain access to unique content from Reddit, which will be incorporated into ChatGPT. On May 22nd, News Corp and OpenAI announced a new multi-year global partnership, that will allow OpenAI to display content from News Corp’s news and information publications in response to user queries and to enhance its products.

The growing list of partnerships between OpenAI and prominent media organizations reflects the goals of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who believes that his company is “setting the foundation for a future where AI deeply respects, enhances, and upholds the standards of world-class journalism.” In addition, the partnership agreements will allow OpenAI to freely cite high quality journalism in its chatbot model outputs without the risk of legal action. In December, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that articles written by The Times were appearing in ChatGPT training data, without the consent of the media publication.