Meta’s on-again/off-again relationship with news publishers is evidently back on once again, with the company announcing a new slate of deals that will see several major news providers enable Meta to use their content to fuel real-time queries within Meta’s AI chatbot.
So Meta maybe needs news again, after years of saying that it doesn’t, and refusing to pay publishers for access.
As per Meta:
“We’re beginning to offer a wider variety of real-time content on Meta AI – from global, breaking news to entertainment, lifestyle stories, and more. When you ask Meta AI news-related questions, you’ll now receive information and links that draw from more diverse content sources to help you discover timely and relevant content tailored to your interests.”
This is a key advantage that X has touted with its Grok chatbot, that because Grok is ingesting X posts in real-time, it’s able to provide up-to-the-minute responses and info, as opposed to other AI bots that don’t have access to the same.
OpenAI is at the biggest disadvantage in this regard, as it doesn’t have a social network, or other data pool to draw from, so ChatGPT simply can’t answer queries about the latest news events. OpenAI is trying to create its own social network to account for this, while it’s also working to establish its own deals with publishers.
And with more and more publishers locking down their data, recognizing the value of such for this purpose, it’s become a new revenue source for providers, through licensing deals that give access to platforms, and facilitate real-time insight.
Which is what Meta is looking to tap into with this agreement.
“These integrations will also facilitate easier access to information by linking out to articles, allowing you to visit these partners’ websites for more details while providing value to partners, enabling them to reach new audiences.”
So again, Meta’s looking to play nice with publishers, despite years of telling them that it actually doesn’t need them at all, and won’t pay for access, after dumping past agreements.
It’s an ongoing dance, which Meta never seems to strike the exact right balance with.
So will it get it right this time?
Well, really, Meta’s approach to news content is entirely transactional: If it’s of benefit to Meta right now, it will be friends with publishers, but the second that Meta changes its mind, and no longer views this as a priority, it will drop them, and leave those that have built a reliance on its platform left holding the bag. We’ve seen this time and time again, with Meta emphasizing video, and pushing publishers to create content for Facebook TV, only to then switch priorities, which then forced those providers into layoffs of their video creation teams.
Meta has also given publishers access to audience, then restricted it (again and again), in order to force them to pay for ads, while sometimes offering them more reach, through projects like its separate news tab, only to then cut that off as well.
The lesson that publishers have learned is that you can’t rely on Facebook, in any way, and you can’t assume that any gains delivered by the platform are permanent. Which makes it hard to build a business around, but at the same time, Meta’s logically only concerned about its bottom line, and as such, its decisions won’t ever be based on what’s of benefit for partners.
Which, based on the history of its media partnerships, can be a short-sighted approach, but then again, Meta’s business has continued to grow, so it’s clearly doing things right from its own perspective. It’s just annoying publishing partners in the process.
That will likely mean that these new publishing partners will be taking a cautious approach, with CNN, Fox News, Le Monde Group, The Washington Examiner, USA TODAY and many more signing up to the new program.
So, more up-to-the-minute insights in Meta AI, while Meta will also get more text input to train its AI models on. Which will better inform its overall system, and will improve Meta AI, while it could also highlight how other publishers may be able to make money from Meta’s focus on AI development.
But how long will it be till Meta thinks it can use, say, Threads data for the same information and insight? How long will these agreements last before Meta changes tack?
It’s an interesting development, but you can bet that none of these publishers will be planning for a long-term future of ongoing Meta payments for such.
