Financial Times partners OpenAI to enhance AI platform

The Financial Times (FT) is entering into a strategic partnership and licensing agreement with ChatGPT developer OpenAI.

The partnership aims to enhance ChatGPT's features with attributed content from the FT, help improve its models’ usefulness by incorporating the FT's quality journalism, and collaborate on developing new AI products and features for FT readers. 

Additionally, ChatGPT users will be able to see select content from the FT in response to relevant queries. 

Don't miss: Will ChatGPT replace search engines as we know them right now?

ChatGPT, a generative AI platform, uses information and text from data across the internet, to produce text, image, or audio, from basic hand-typed inputs.  

The question of ChatGPT's transparency on what data it uses, and from where, is a key concern that the partnership aims to remediate by providing users more reliable streams of information. 

"This is an important agreement in a number of respects. It recognises the value of journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI," said John Ridding, CEO of FT Group.

As a leader in news media innovation and engagement technologies, this partnership ensures the FT's commitment to maintaining high-quality, human-led journalism, and reliable sources, while exploring a changing technological landscape that impacts reader demands and interests.

Ridding added that it is important for AI platforms to pay publishers for the use of their material, and that OpenAI "understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation."

"As with any transformative technology, there is potential for significant advancements and major challenges, but what’s never possible is turning back time. 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," said Ridding. 

The FT became a customer of ChatGPT Enterprise earlier this year, purchasing access for all FT employees to ensure its teams are well-versed in the technology and can benefit from the creativity and productivity gains made possible by OpenAI’s tools.

In an open letter about the FT's use of generative AI, FT editor Roula Khalaf said that the FT will "experiment responsibly" with the feature, and continue to be transparent within the publication and with its readers on its use of AI in its journalism.

Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, added that the company's growing partnership with the FT will allow creative and productive ways for AI to empower news organisations and journalists, and enrich the ChatGPT experience with real-time, world-class journalism for millions of people around the world.

Beyond the FT, similar agreements between news publications and Open AI have been made with the US's Associated Press, Germany's Bild tabloid, France's Le Monde, and Spain's El País. 

Join us on 12 June 2024 for an exciting experience as Content360 makes its debut in Malaysia! Brace yourself to join the crème de la crème of the content marketing industry hailing from across the region. Immerse yourself in a dynamic atmosphere, and uncover the latest trends with thought leaders and solution providers from the realm of content.

Related articles:
Microsoft and Coca-Cola partner to accelerate Gen AI initiatives
Claude for dummies: 101 on the new AI platform that might challenge ChatGPT
Constitutional AI for dummies: 101 on what it is and why marketers should care