Amazon’s AI licensing deal with New York Times, including The Athletic, garners at least $20m/year

In May, The New York Times announced it had agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in its artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.

The financial terms of the “multiyear agreement” were undisclosed.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the deal comes with quite the financial windfall. According to multiple sources, the Times is receiving $20 million to $25 million a year from Amazon.

Per WSJ, that would amount to nearly 1% of the Times’s total 2024 revenue.

The deal gives Amazon access to content from the NYT’s news department, NYT Cooking, and its sports arm, The Athletic. Amazon can take that editorial output and use it to train its AI models. They can also summarize the content and provide excerpts across their products and services.

Agreements between AI companies and news organizations can be very lucrative. OpenAI has a deal with News Corp that is potentially worth more than $250 million over five years. They also have a three-year agreement with Business Insider and Politico owner Axel Springer, which is worth between $25 and $30 million.

However, on the flip side of these deals are legal concerns over the use of copyrighted content without the permission of the publisher. The New York Times is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement, and News Corp subsidiaries Dow Jones and The New York Post are suing AI search engine Perplexity.

To say nothing of the copyright concerns that smaller companies and individuals have when it comes to their content being used by AI models without permission.

President Donald Trump recently dismissed copyright concerns when it comes to training AI, saying, “You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for. We appreciate that, but just can’t do it— because it’s not doable.”