The world’s biggest tech companies are in talks with leading media outlets to strike landmark deals over the use of news content to train artificial intelligence technology, reports the Financial Times.

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Adobe have met news executives in recent months to discuss copyright issues around their AI products such as text chatbots and image generators, according to several people familiar with the talks.

These people, states the Financial Times, “said that publishers including News Corp, Axel Springer, The New York Times and The Guardian have each been in discussions with at least one of the tech companies. Those involved in the discussions, which remain in the early stages, added that the deals could involve media organisations being paid a subscription-style fee for their content in order to develop the technology underpinning chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

“The talks come as media groups express concern over the threat to the industry posed by the rise of AI, as well as fears over the use of their content by OpenAI and Google without deals in place. Some companies such as Stability AI and OpenAI are facing legal action from artists, photo agencies and coders, who allege contractual and copyright infringement.”

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