One of Europe’s most powerful media houses has said it is going to use chatbots to promote its content.
Axel Springer, the Berlin-based publisher, said it is partnering with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to deliver summaries of its output to people engaging with the chatbot. It is said to be a first deal of its kind by a mainstream publisher.
Axel Springer is the company behind the German news brands Bild and Die Welt. Among the brands known to UK consumers is Politico, the political news service it has owned since 2021.
ChatGPT is a language-processing form of artificial intelligence — a so-called chatbot using AI — whose capabilities are much vaunted in its ability to change the world and doing business.
The deal means that when a ChatGPT device is asked a relevant question, it will be able to deliver summaries of news being carried by Axel Springer media brands and provide a digital link. It means that in business promotional terms, the consumer will be able to ascertain information that otherwise might be hidden behind an Axel Springer paywall and needing a subscription to access.
OpenAI said the deal will give consumers a “breaking news” experience that will be available at some time in the first quarter of next year. It said the content will be given a “favourable position” amid the other information that the chatbot might impart or in other words it will enable Axel Springer to bring in traffic to its inline sites and win subscribers.
No financial details of the arrangement were disclosed. “We want to explore the opportunities of AI-empowered journalism, to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level,” Mathias Doepfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, said.
The deal comes amid a maelstrom of conflicting views about how AI and chatbots might change the mainstream media from those who are embracing the technology as a means of promoting their material or want to replace human journalists generating content to those fighting against the violation of copyright with the threat of litigation. Many media chiefs are concerned that AI technology or computer-generated news contains inaccuracies or is simply suboptimal column fodder.
Axel Springer is one of the post-Second World War giants of, initially, West German media whose products range from the heavyweight traditional press of Die Welt to the sensationalist tabloid Bild.
OpenAI is a leading company in the development of mass-consumer artificial intelligence and a business that is barely eight years old. It is 49 per cent owned by the US giant Microsoft.