Amazon May Launch Marketplace for Publishers to Sell Content to AI Firms
Amazon is reportedly in discussions with publishers about launching a marketplace where media sites could sell and license their content directly to AI firms.
According to a report by The Information, Amazon has told publishing industry executives that it is considering launching a marketplace that would allow publishers to offer articles, data, and other material to companies developing AI products.
Two people who spoke with Amazon about the project described the discussions to the news outlet. Ahead of an Amazon Web Services (AWS) conference for publishers held Tuesday, the company “circulated slides that mention a content marketplace.”
The proposed platform would act as a central hub where AI companies could formally license content instead of relying on information scraped from the open web. Currently, many AI systems gather data online without clear agreements or fair payment arrangements.
An Amazon spokesperson tells The Information that the company has “nothing specific to share” about the report. The spokesperson added: “Amazon has built long-lasting, innovative relationships with publishers across many areas of our business, including AWS, Retail, Advertising, AGI, and Alexa. We are always innovating together to best serve our customers, but we have nothing specific to share on this subject at this time.”
The reported talks come as publishers and AI companies continue negotiating how AI firms can access and use online content, whether to train models or generate answers for users. Publishers say the growth of AI chatbots and AI-generated search summaries is reducing traffic to their websites. Lower search referrals can translate into declines in readership and advertising revenue. For instance, The Washington Post partly attributed falling search traffic and the rise of generative AI to recent staff layoffs.
Several major AI companies have signed agreements with established media organizations in an effort to address concerns about copyrighted material appearing in training datasets. OpenAI, for example, has entered into content-licensing partnerships with the Associated Press and News Corp, among others.
While the discussions appear to be at an early stage, any eventual marketplace might not be limited to written articles and datasets. If it were expanded to include licensed photos and other visual material, it could also affect photographers and other creators who have raised concerns about their work being used to train AI systems without clear consent or payment.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
