Meta partners with media outlets to expand AI assistant content

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The agreement, which comes in the context of concern about the future of journalism in the era of generative artificial intelligence, stipulates that Meta AI users will have, among answers to questions about current affairs, links to articles on the websites of the associated media.

Licensing negotiation

Throughout this year, Meta has been in talks with media companies, including Axel Springer, Fox and News Corp, with the aim of licensing news and other journalistic content for use in its AI tools. This information was published in a Wall Street Journal report in September this year.

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The report highlighted that this is a change for Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which in recent years has reduced its focus on paying for journalistic content and highlighting it in its artificial intelligence tools. And remember, Fox and News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal itself, share the same ownership.

According to the Wall Street Journal, years ago, the social media giant struck deals worth tens of millions of dollars to include content from various media companies, such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and others, in the news tab. However, in 2022, it announced that it would stop paying such publications for their content.

The report notes that Meta’s decision to give less priority to journalistic content has caused a decline in Facebook traffic for many outlets, adding that in recent months, some publishers have reported that they have noticed an increase in traffic coming from the platform.