Meta Reverses Course: Strikes Deals with CNN, Le Monde to Feed Licensed News to Meta AI

According to Axios, Meta has struck commercial agreements with multiple news publishers to supply Meta AI with legally licensed, real-time news content, enabling more accurate responses to ongoing events. The company had already established a multi-year paid licensing deal with Reuters in late October of last year, allowing its AI systems to cite Reuters reporting and link to relevant articles.

The roster of partners spans outlets such as USA Today, CNN, and People, as well as Le Monde, with the list also including Fox News, The Daily Caller, and The Washington Examiner to broaden ideological balance in AI responses. The arrangements are multi-year contracts, with Meta paying for the right to use the content, though financial details remain undisclosed.

A key requirement is that Meta’s chatbot must link out to the original articles when answering news-related queries, a provision viewed as offering publishers traffic and readers redirected to their sites. Meta’s 2022 actions—halting payments to U.S. publishers, shutting the Facebook News tab in several markets, and blocking news links in Canada—are noted as context for the shift to licensing deals.