Meta Platforms has been in talks in recent months with media firms including Axel Springer, Fox Corp and News Corp to license news content for integration into its artificial intelligence products, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The talks mark a shift for the Facebook and Instagram parent, which has in recent years reduced payments to publishers and deprioritized news on its platforms. Some discussions are at an early stage and may not result in agreements.
Meta has previously had a turbulent relationship with news outlets, once striking multimillion-dollar deals with publishers such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, before ending those payments in 2022. The move contributed to declines in referral traffic for many publishers, though some outlets say traffic has recently ticked up again.
The negotiations come amid broader industry tensions over the use of news content to train AI models. Publishers have increasingly moved to block AI crawlers from accessing their sites without compensation. Meta signed a licensing deal with Reuters in 2024, while rivals including OpenAI and Amazon have secured agreements with News Corp, Axel Springer, Dotdash Meredith and The New York Times.
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