The Financial Times has made a groundbreaking move by entering into a content licensing agreement with OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot. This partnership will allow OpenAI to utilize the FT’s archived content to train its AI models and incorporate excerpts from FT articles in ChatGPT’s responses.
John Ridding, the chief executive of the Financial Times Group, emphasized the significance of this agreement, stating that it recognizes the value of the FT’s award-winning journalism and provides valuable insights into how content is surfaced through AI.
For ChatGPT users, this deal means they will now have access to attributed summaries, quotes, and links from relevant FT articles when interacting with the AI system. This not only enhances the user experience but also drives new readers to the FT’s subscription-based journalism, ensuring that OpenAI’s language models are backed by reliable, fact-based sources.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, highlighted the importance of empowering news organizations and journalists through AI technology. The partnership aims to enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism while upholding principles of transparency, attribution, and compensation.
This agreement with the Financial Times adds to a series of similar deals OpenAI has made with other prominent publishers like The Associated Press, Axel Springer, Le Monde, and Prisa Media. The FT’s decision to closely study generative AI’s impacts and applications in journalism underscores the publication’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in the industry.