Platforms by Meta will use content from Reuters news in AI chatbot

The company’s chatbot, Meta AI, is available across its services, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

On Friday, Meta platforms said that its Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot will use Reuters content to answer real-time user questions about news and current events. This comes as the latest AI tie-up between a vast tech giant and a top news publisher. However, neither Meta nor Reuters-parent Thomson Reuters disclosed the financial details of the partnership.

Meta platforms will use content from Reuters news in the AI chatbot.

Though neither Meta platforms nor Reuters-parent Thomson Reuters have confirmed anything about the financial details of this partnership, it is reportedly said that Meta platforms will be using content from the top news platform in AI chatbot. This serves as a one-of-its-kind arrangement, making it its first news deal in years. It also comes when Facebook parent has been reducing news content on its services after criticism from regulators and publishers over misinformation and disagreement about revenue-sharing.

Meta AI did not confirm if it plans to use Reuters content to train its large-language model.

The company’s chatbot, Meta AI, is available across all its services, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. The social media giant did not disclose whether it plans to use Reuters content to train its large-language model. A Reuters spokesperson said, “We can confirm that Reuters has partnered with tech providers to license our trusted, fact-based news content to power their AI platforms. The terms of these deals remain confidential.” On Friday, as per a report from Axios, which first published the news, Reuters will be compensated for access to its journalism under a multi-year deal. The spokesperson said in a statement sent by email that through its partnership with Reuters, “Meta AI can respond to news-related questions with summaries and links to Reuters’ content.”

Reuters has had a fact-checking partnership with Meta since 2020. Other companies, including Jeff Bezos-backed startup Perplexity and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, have struck similar AI partnerships with news organizations.