Agreement includes access to news articles, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic content

Amazon has signed a multiyear content licensing agreement with The New York Times, granting the tech giant access to a wide range of editorial material for use across its AI platforms.

The agreement includes access to news articles, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic, marking The Times’s first deal specifically focused on generative AI. This move reflects a growing trend among AI companies to secure high-quality, licensed data as the supply of freely available online content diminishes.

The partnership arrives at a critical moment in the AI industry, as major players work to enhance their large language models amid legal scrutiny. In 2023, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging unauthorized use of its content to train AI models. Both companies denied the claims.

Under the new deal, Amazon may integrate New York Times content into its AI offerings, including Alexa-enabled devices. Portions of the content will feature attribution and direct links to The Times’s website. In addition to enhancing user experiences, the content will also help train Amazon’s proprietary AI models, potentially supporting its broader ambitions around Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

This agreement adds to Amazon’s growing AI portfolio. Over the past two years, the company has invested $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, forming a strategic relationship similar to Microsoft’s alliance with OpenAI. This partnership allows Amazon to access Anthropic’s models, incorporate them into its cloud infrastructure, and provide computing power for the startup.

The deal with The New York Times strengthens Amazon’s position in the competitive AI race by giving it access to high-quality journalistic content to fuel its next-generation technologies.