OpenAI, Condé Nast and the future of the media

Magazine publishing giant Condé Nast has signed a deal with OpenAI, the latest tie-up between a major media organisation and the artificial intelligence start-up.

The deal will “expand the reach of Condé Nast’s content”, CEO Roger Lynch told staff. OpenAI said its products, such as ChatGPT, would be able to use content from Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and other Condé Nast-owned titles, to give “fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources”, according to its blog post.

Publishers are “increasingly” signing deals with AI companies to license the use of their content, said Press Gazette – despite “early doubts” and the high-profile legal action by The New York Times against OpenAI and its main backer, Microsoft. Such deals “commonly include” access to and use of news publishers’ content, with a citation “currently promised”. But others are more sceptical, and even litigious.

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Not if history is anything to go by, said Jessica Lessin, the founder of The Information, in The Atlantic. News firms “strike deals to try and ride out the next digital wave”, and make “concessions” to platforms that attempt to “take all of the audience (and trust) that great journalism attracts” – without having to do the “complicated and expensive work” of the journalism. “And it never, ever works as planned.”

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