In the summer of 2024, an important announcement was made by OpenAI that somewhat went under the radar. Or, at the very least, it might be something that we one day look back upon one day and see as a significant milestone. OpenAI signed a deal with Condé Nast, the publisher of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Variety, Vogue, Tatler, Pitchfork, Wired, and several other major publications spanning the cultural spectrum, often characterized by high-end journalism.
The deal works in both ways. OpenAI will use Condé Nast's vast sets of data (its written content going back decades) to train ChatGPT and (importantly) its upcoming answer engine, SearchGPT. It will also get sources to back its answers, offering authority to the AI bot’s answers. Condé Nast, meanwhile, will get a pile of money and a discovery point for its platforms, i.e., the bot’s answers will nudge users to websites like Wired and The New Yorker.
Publisher deals will benefit AI models
It's a win-win situation, then. But what does it tell us about the wider impact on the open web? This is not the first deal that OpenAI has struck, as it has also signed similar deals with News Corp and TIME magazine. OpenAI’s main rivals, Perplexity and Google Gemini have also made deals. Some are exclusive, some aren’t, but it arrives at a situation where we may have some AI bots knowing stuff that others do not. And that’s an issue for the ideals of the open web, especially if, as some have predicted, AI chatbots supplant traditional search engines.
So, what do we mean by this supplantation? Many experts believe that the likes of Perplexity AI, which is essentially an AI answer engine, and the soon-to-be-released SearchGPT will gradually phase out Google Search and Bing. If you google something, you will find links to websites where you might find the answer, as well as a bunch of ads; if you use an AI search engine, you will be given the answer – or at least an attempt to give the answer – period. That’s the difference.
Many tech insiders have claimed that search engines have been ‘broken’ for a long time. Too many adverts, too much click-bait, too much engineered content that knows how your search, and little in the way of improvements: Can anyone say with authority that Google Search has improved over the last decade?
Search engines provided the keys to discovery
And yet, search engines put us on a journey. They are the ticket to the open web, Allowing us to explore everything from breaking news stories to technical know-how blogs on the mechanics of Megaways slots. It follows, therefore, that if a brilliantly written New Yorker piece about 1950s ballet in Poland is housed online, I can use Google to find it. But what if there were barriers put up to finding it?
That’s a question that should be posed at the moment. As we mentioned earlier, there is a chance that we will reach a situation where SearchGPT knows all about Polish ballet in the 1950s because it has been trained on New Yorker articles covering it and has real-time access to those articles. But what if rival bots didn’t? What if your AI Gemini search had gaps in its knowledge?
As we said, not every deal is an exclusive one. Moreover, as has been pointed out, some AI companies take liberties when training their models, so it is possible that some bots will have trained on Condé Nast content without permission. Indeed, several lawsuits are in the works on this very subject. Yet, the possibility of guardrails on knowledge remains distinct.
Add to the mix are the holdouts – The New York Times, Reuters, the Guardian, and (to an extent) the BBC. These media outlets hold vast amounts of knowledge, yet they are very skeptical about handing over that knowledge to AI companies. The New York Times is even pursuing a massive legal action against OpenAI. Whether the rights and wrongs of copyright when it comes to training AI models, the fact remains that there could be gaps in knowledge, either across all bots or between competing bots.
Of course, we should finish by saying that it is not guaranteed that AI search becomes the only game in town. Moreover, if some of the issues we have brought up here are recognized, then the AI companies will have to find some solutions. The worry, though, is that we end up with some kind of closed web, where we have to visit one AI answer engine to find out about sports, another for hard news, and another for music. Google Search has many flaws, but it remained a gatekeeper for the open web.
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This deal seems like a major move for both companies, with access to valuable content and a new way to deliver information. It’ll be interesting to see how it impacts search results and user experience. By the way, do you have a favorite type of casino game that you enjoy playing?