By C. J. De Mel, Jadetimes News
OpenAI is partnering with Condé Nast, the global magazine powerhouse, to inject Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, and others into its AI-powered platforms, including ChatGPT and the newly launched search engine, SearchGPT. The multiyear deal is one of several agreements between technology companies and media companies to license premium content used to enrich and train AI models.
Specific terms of the arrangement were not disclosed, but the deal signifies one more way in which OpenAI is trying to keep AI-powered news discovery pure and free of fake news. Quality journalism is part of what's fundamental to ensuring that AI is switching into a more prominent mode of news discovery, said Brad Lightcap, OpenAI chief operating officer. "We're committed to working with Conde Nast and other newsmakers to make sure that AI, as it gets more involved in news discovery and delivery, stays accurate, keeps integrity, and respects the quality reporting," Lightcap affirmed.
Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch chimed in on the importance of the deal for the media company's challenged business model in the face of the rise of social media and digital platforms. This partnership with OpenAI will provide a new source of revenue that Condé Nast can use to continue underwriting the whole portfolio of journalism and creative projects: "Our partnership with OpenAI starts to offset some of that revenue, so we can keep shielding and investing in our journalism and our creative businesses," Lynch stated.
This deal follows similar partnerships OpenAI has secured with media powerhouses like Time Magazine, the Financial Times, and the Associated Press. These collaborations are critical because AI chatbot technology has given the world a glimpse into what may be a transformative future for internet search engines. Google, the reigning monarch of search, is also furiously upscaling the integration of AI tools into its products to remain ahead of the competition.
But the advent of AI-driven search results—the ones with conversational answers, not links—has alarmed newsgroups. Most media businesses, which siphon portions of their revenue from search traffic, have voiced concerns over how such change might alter the fundamentals of their businesses. The BBC last year took steps to safeguard its content from unauthorized use by AI outfits such as OpenAI, even as it reassessed the potential gains generative AI held for audiences.
With AI as a game changer in the landscape of news discovery and delivery, partnerships like that between OpenAI and Condé Nast would be significant to assure the future of quality journalism.
