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Most AI chatbots on the market today lack the ability to respond to queries about current affairs, but Meta aims to solve that problem through a new partnership with Reuters.
According to Axios, citing sources close to the matter, Meta has signed a multi-year deal with the news service that allows Meta AI to tap into the agency's news repository and fetch answers to user queries about current events. Starting today in the US, Meta's AI chatbot—integrated into Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger—will answer news queries, citing Reuters as the source and providing a link to the original story.
A source tells Axios that Meta will pay Reuters for the information, but it is unclear if its content will be used to train Meta's AI model, Llama.
A Meta spokesperson tells Axios the deal "will help ensure a more useful experience for those seeking information on current events."
Reuters has been part of Meta's fact-checking program since 2020. Partners review and rate the accuracy of stories to help Meta rank them across its apps, but Reuters is Meta's first AI news partner, Axios says.
Amid high-profile lawsuits from the likes of the New York Times and News Corp over unauthorized content scraping by AI companies, some have turned to partnerships. Publications that may not have enough money to fight the likes of OpenAI, Google, or Microsoft in court have instead teamed up with them, pocketing a little cash for their trouble.