More newsrooms are opening up to the idea of working with artificial intelligence companies. The Financial Times announced today (April 29) that it has inked a deal with OpenAI to allow the tech company access to its content for training GPT large language models. In a statement, John Ridding, CEO of FT Group, said that this decision will have “broader implications for the industry.”
“OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation—all essential for us,” Ridding said. “At the same time, it’s clearly in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources.” In return, OpenAI will develop A.I. features for the Financial Times, according to a joint release from the two companies today.
In recent months, other news organizations including Associated Press and Axel Springer, the publisher of Politico and Business Insider, decided to embrace OpenAI in hopes that its technology will benefit their content products. The tech news site Semafor also recently employed A.I. in a breaking news offering through a partnership with both OpenAI and its investor Microsoft (MSFT). The technology acts like a human editor and synthesizes multiple news sources into a single story for readers.
The media industry is still split on how it will address A.I., and many media companies are hesitant to strike up collaborations with tech companies. Some organizations have decided to collaborate despite being dubious. For example, Getty Images has signed a partnership with Nvidia that allows it to train A.I. models using Getty’s image library. But at the same time, Getty CEO chief Craig Peters recently expressed concerns around the rapid growth of the technology without regulation. “Not everybody wants to eliminate the societal issues that can come from this technology,” he told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
Executives at the Financial Times and OpenAI are optimistic that the two companies’ partnership will empower journalists and journalism. “As with any transformative technology, there is potential for significant advancements and major challenges, but what’s never possible is turning back time,” Ridding said in a statement. “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.”
