The New York Times Signs An AI Deal With Amazon After Suing OpenAI And Microsoft

As artificial intelligence (AI) quickly transforms industries, journalism stands at a pivotal crossroads.

News organizations are wrestling with how to protect and share their carefully created content amid the rise of generative AI technologies.

This tension recently led to a major move as The New York Times licensed its editorial content to Amazon for use in AI platforms.

Let’s take a closer look at what this deal means and why it matters.
 

The New York Times Enters An AI Licensing Agreement With Amazon

In 2023, The Times took a firm stand, suing OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement. The lawsuit claimed that these tech giants used millions of Times articles to train their chatbots without offering any compensation.

Now, the Times has taken a different route: entering a “multiyear licensing agreement” with Amazon, which would allow the tech giant to use its extensive editorial content, including articles, recipes from NYT Cooking, and sports coverage from The Athletic, across its AI platforms.


For The Times, this represents its inaugural licensing arrangement specifically focused on generative AI technology, signaling a strategic shift in its approach to the evolving digital landscape.

While OpenAI and Microsoft have consistently refuted the allegations, The Times's chief executive, Meredith Kopit Levien, stated in a note to staff that “The deal is consistent with our long-held principle that high-quality journalism is worth paying for.”

“It aligns with our deliberate approach to ensuring that our work is valued appropriately, whether through commercial deals or through the enforcement of our intellectual property rights,” Levien added.
 

How Amazon Is Racing To Catch Up In AI

Meanwhile, Amazon has been trying to catch up in the fast-growing AI race. When OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, kicking off the AI boom, Amazon—like Google, Meta, and Apple—wasn't fully prepared.

Even as the world’s largest cloud computing company with powerful data centers, Amazon initially fell behind because it lacked the top talent needed to build cutting-edge AI systems.

Amazon also hadn’t prioritized AI development as much as OpenAI and Microsoft.

However, it quickly began to catch up. In June, it struck a deal with AI start-up Adept, bringing in many of its employees, including co-founder David Luan.

Amazon later made a similar deal with Covariant, another major AI start-up, bringing in top talent such as co-founder Pieter Abbeel—a well-known robotics professor and former OpenAI researcher.

Luan and Abbeel now lead an Amazon research lab (The Amazon AGI SF Lab) focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI)—machines that can do anything the human brain can.

This ambitious goal is shared by other top research labs such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind. The data licensed from The Times will help Amazon’s AGI lab by providing valuable content to train its advanced models.

Beyond its internal AI development, Amazon has partnered with Anthropic, a major rival to OpenAI, investing $4 billion in the start-up over the past two years.


This investment isn’t just a financial stake. Like Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI, it gives Amazon direct access to Anthropic’s AI technology and lets the start-up use Amazon’s powerful computing resources.

Amazon also gets early access to offer Anthropic’s AI models to its cloud service customers, strengthening its role in the AI market.
 

The Impact Of The Times-Amazon Deal

Returning to the Times-Amazon deal, the impact is significant. Amazon could use The Times’s content in its Alexa smart speakers, with proper credit given and direct links back to The Times’s website.

Importantly, this content will also help train Amazon’s own AI models. Although Amazon hasn’t said more than what appears in The Times’ statement, the deal highlights the growing and complex connection between content creators and AI companies.

As news organizations face the fast rise of AI, the deal between The Times and Amazon sets an important example—balancing protecting intellectual property with creating new ways to earn revenue in the AI era.

Do you think deals like this could help news outlets protect their work in the age of AI?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!