Meta AI will soon become better at surfacing international news content thanks to a set of new deals with publishers. The company announced new agreements with international outlets and offered additional details on its recent deal with News Corp.
Latest deals bring French newspapers le figaroSpanish media company Prisa and German newspaper pseudodeutsche zeitung In the bottom. Together with News Corp, which runs several outlets in the UK, these sources should give Meta AI better access to timely information about world events. Meta did not disclose the terms of the deal – wall street journal It was previously reported that the arrangement cost News Corp up to $50 million a year – but it said it intended to link to relevant news sources.
“These integrations will also facilitate easier access to information by linking articles, allowing you to visit these partners’ websites for more information while providing value to the partners, enabling them to reach new audiences,” Meta wrote in an update. The company has had a long and sometimes conflicted history with publishers as its priorities have changed over the years. In the past, Meta has made deals to pay publishers to create live videos and “instant articles”, only to change course as news content became a lower priority for Facebook.
Now, as Meta struggles to compete with its AI rivals, it seems the social media company is once again interested in news content. As the company wrote in its blog post, Meta AI is not always good at providing accurate and timely information. I noted this in 2024 when the company’s assistant was repeatedly unable to accurately answer seemingly simple questions like “Who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives?”
By making multiple deals with publishers, the company should be better equipped to handle these types of queries (and hopefully more complex queries). However, how much these arrangements will benefit publishers is an open question. While Meta says it will link to relevant news sources, there are plenty of external data points that raise serious questions about the impact of AI search tools on web traffic.
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