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By Chris Spiker From Daily Voice

The New York Times has agreed to let Amazon use the prestigious newspaper's coverage in its artificial intelligence products.

The Times announced its new licensing agreement with Amazon in a news release on Thursday, May 29. The deal allows Amazon to use Times content like news reporting, NYT Cooking stories, and The Athletic's sports coverage for AI features like real-time summaries and excerpts.

That content will appear across Amazon services, including direct links to Times platforms.

"This broadens the companies' existing relationship, and will bring additional value to Amazon customers and bring Times journalism to wider audiences," the Times said.

The agreement permits Amazon to use Times journalism to train its foundation models. The goal, the companies said, is to make trusted news more accessible across Amazon's growing lineup of generative AI tools.

Amazon's logo displayed on a smartphone screen.

Amazon's logo displayed on a smartphone screen.

Unsplash - Christian Wiediger

Amazon has increased its AI efforts in recent months, launching a new version of Alexa called Alexa+ in February, CNBC reported. It also rolled out its Nova language models, Trainium chips, a shopping assistant, and a model marketplace called Bedrock.

The partnership comes as the Times continues legal action against Microsoft and OpenAI. The lawsuit filed in 2023 accused the companies of misusing the paper's content to train language models like ChatGPT. 

The tech companies were unable to have the suit dismissed. Other news outlets have also sued Microsoft and OpenAI, including the New York Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

OpenAI reached a separate agreement in April with The Washington Post to display and summarize its content in ChatGPT. The AI company now has deals with more than 20 publishers representing about 160 news outlets.

The terms of the Amazon-Times deal weren't disclosed.