This report contains six chapters. In Chapter 1, the authors present a brief overview of how interviewees characterized the status of the relationship between news publishers and technology companies as of mid-to-late 2024. While they sought to avoid repeating the well-documented history of when, how, and why the relationship between platforms and publishers disintegrated, this chapter provides important context about the extent to which news workers’ dealings with AI companies are being shaped by past experiences.
In Chapter 2, they begin their exploration of how generative AI has started making its mark on news organizations. Rather than duplicate excellent work that has already been done exploring specific use cases and workflows, they focus instead on interviewees’ attitudes toward the utility of generative AI; the extent to which they felt it was delivering on its promise; the levels of understanding about the technology in their organizations; and the manner in which that understanding shapes strategic decisions and demands.
In Chapter 3, the authors offer a detailed discussion of how interviewees are thinking about some of the key issues stemming from the rise of new and emerging third-party platforms that use generative AI to summarize journalism, such as Perplexity; OpenAI’s search tool, which was integrated into ChatGPT in October 2024 after the conclusion of our interviews; and the AI Overviews that Google has begun integrating into its market-dominating search platform. They begin the chapter by addressing the elephant in the room: the extent to which unresolved issues around copyright and intellectual property cast a shadow over every aspect of our conversations. In particular, they discuss an aspect of this knotty debate that recurred throughout our interviews: the speed at which the respective parties may want to seek a resolution. This is followed by a discussion of other common themes pertaining to disintermediation, the new value exchange, audience traffic, and data.
Chapter 4 is dedicated to a discussion of licensing deals, one of the foremost ways in which AI companies, most notably OpenAI, have started to formalize relationships with news organizations and indicated that they see some financial value in journalism. Having discussed the broadly positive view that, for all their limitations, these early deals set an important precedent in regard to journalism’s financial worth and the need to pay for access, we explore interviewees’ attitudes toward these arrangements, which run the gamut from “a really scary moment for journalism” to “it could be free money.” To round off Chapter 4, they touch on some of the nonfinancial aspects that interviewees identified as key considerations in any formal arrangements with AI companies.
In Chapter 5, the authors delve into some of the deeper issues that emerged regarding the relationship between AI companies and news organizations, such as a lingering sense of betrayal and resentment among publishers exhausted by earlier dealings with technology companies; the extent to which disruption from the highly competitive arms race around generative AI is already having real-world implications for some interviewees and unsettling others; how incompatibilities between platforms and publishers could spell trouble if they go unaddressed before the AI era hits full swing; concerns about wider issues on the horizon; and recurring calls for greater collaboration both within journalism and across the two industries.
Finally, in Chapter 6, they reflect on their findings and unpack the key areas that seem primed to determine the next phase in the uneasy marriage between platforms and publishers.
