OpenAI To Train AI Models Using Content By Financial Times

The Financial Times is the latest news company to collaborate with AI startup OpenAI, having signed an agreement to license its content and create AI tools. 

According to a news release from The Financial Times, ChatGPT users will access summaries, quotes, and links to its stories. Any request that yields data from the Financial Times will be credited to the newspaper. 

OpenAI will collaborate with the news outlet to create new AI products in exchange. The Financial Times claims to be a ChatGPT Enterprise user and now utilizes OpenAI technologies. The FT unveiled a test version of a generative AI search feature last month that uses Anthropic’s Claude big language model. Subscribers can search for information across all articles in the journal by using Ask FT.

According to Financial Times Group CEO John Ridding, the newspaper is dedicated to “human journalism” despite its collaboration with OpenAI. Naturally, AI platforms should compensate publishers for the exploitation of their content, according to Ridding. “It’s evidently in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources,” he continues.

With several news sources, OpenAI has negotiated licensing agreements for content that is used to train AI models. Axel Springer, the publisher of Politico, Bild, and Welt in Europe, as well as Business Insider, has a similar deal with OpenAI to extract data from its articles. Additionally, OpenAI is permitted to use Associated Press data to train its algorithms. But according to reports, OpenAI pays between $1 million and $5 million to license material from publications—a substantial reduction from what other businesses, including Apple, are charging. 

The way that other news outlets interact with OpenAI differs greatly. In December 2023, the New York Times filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, claiming that ChatGPT “recites Times content verbatim.” Similar claims were made in a separate complaint filed in February against Microsoft and OpenAI by The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet.