Meta strikes AI deals with news publishers
The owner of Facebook has signed data agreements with publishers to use their content to create artificial intelligence products focused on live news.
Meta Platforms has struck commercial agreements with news publishers including USA Today, People, CNN, Fox News and Le Monde, among others, as it pushes into content generated by AI.
The tech group said that it was signing deals with media companies as part of its efforts to “offer a broader range of real-time content”, including global news and entertainment stories. Meta AI will be trained to send links to users when responding to questions about world events.
The company said that it wanted to make its AI models “more responsive, accurate, and balanced”, adding: “Realtime events can be challenging for current AI systems to keep up with, but by integrating more and different types of news sources, our aim is to improve Meta AI’s ability to deliver timely and relevant content and information with a wide variety of viewpoints and content types.”
Meta has been regarded as a laggard in AI because its projects fall short of developments from rivals such as Microsoft, which has partnered with Open- AI, the developer of ChatGPT. Mark Zuckerberg’s tech group has committed billions of dollars to AI but the company’s Llama language model has not been as successful as products produced by Silicon Valley peers.
The Facebook owner is said to be considering cuts to its budget for Metaverse, a virtual reality project announced in 2021. Analysts at Bank of America said that “re-allocating spend to bigger perceived opportunities is positive for the stock”, mentioning AI assistants and creative tools.
Publishers have been critical of AI technologies that scrape data from their websites and reduce online traffic.
Google has scraped data from publishers’ websites to create what it calls “AI overviews”. These allow users to see content on the Google search page, rather than clicking through to another site. Enders Analysis, the research group, has warned publishers that “search traffic is no longer a given” in the age of AI. DMG Media, the owner of brands including Mail Online and Metro, has complained about AI overviews leading to a drop in referrals to its websites of 89 per cent.
Meta Platforms has struck commercial agreements with news publishers including USA Today, People, CNN, Fox News and Le Monde, among others, as it pushes into content generated by AI.
The tech group said that it was signing deals with media companies as part of its efforts to “offer a broader range of real-time content”, including global news and entertainment stories. Meta AI will be trained to send links to users when responding to questions about world events.
The company said that it wanted to make its AI models “more responsive, accurate, and balanced”, adding: “Realtime events can be challenging for current AI systems to keep up with, but by integrating more and different types of news sources, our aim is to improve Meta AI’s ability to deliver timely and relevant content and information with a wide variety of viewpoints and content types.”
Meta has been regarded as a laggard in AI because its projects fall short of developments from rivals such as Microsoft, which has partnered with Open- AI, the developer of ChatGPT. Mark Zuckerberg’s tech group has committed billions of dollars to AI but the company’s Llama language model has not been as successful as products produced by Silicon Valley peers.
The Facebook owner is said to be considering cuts to its budget for Metaverse, a virtual reality project announced in 2021. Analysts at Bank of America said that “re-allocating spend to bigger perceived opportunities is positive for the stock”, mentioning AI assistants and creative tools.
Publishers have been critical of AI technologies that scrape data from their websites and reduce online traffic.
Google has scraped data from publishers’ websites to create what it calls “AI overviews”. These allow users to see content on the Google search page, rather than clicking through to another site. Enders Analysis, the research group, has warned publishers that “search traffic is no longer a given” in the age of AI. DMG Media, the owner of brands including Mail Online and Metro, has complained about AI overviews leading to a drop in referrals to its websites of 89 per cent.
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