On Wednesday, Google revealed a new partnership with The Associated Press (AP) aimed at enhancing the capabilities of its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings. Central to this collaboration is Google’s Gemini AI models, which will benefit from a continuous stream of real-time information provided by the not-for-profit news organization, based in the United States. This initiative is expected to enable the Gemini platform to access up-to-date information more efficiently.
Google Unveils AI-Focused Collaboration With AP
This announcement follows similar moves by Google’s competitor OpenAI, which has established partnerships with numerous media organizations, including Condé Nast, Vox Media, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), and News Corp, the parent company of the Wall Street Journal.
The rationale behind these partnerships lies in the evolving needs of AI companies. The pool of publicly accessible data is rapidly diminishing for training advanced AI models. Consequently, firms are seeking high-quality data to further develop large language models (LLMs).
Collaborating with news organizations allows AI firms to access content that is typically protected behind paywalls, which makes it inaccessible to standard web crawlers. These agreements also serve as a safeguard against potential copyright infringement claims. Furthermore, such partnerships simplify the process of managing structured data, which is crucial for efficiently enhancing AI systems.
Although Google did not disclose specific financial terms of the agreement, the company emphasized that AP’s provision of real-time information would bolster the relevance of the results generated by the Gemini app. The announcement also indicated that Google is pursuing targeted partnerships to pinpoint particular types of information and data.
In an additional statement, Google outlined that its AI-focused collaborations aim to gather content in specific areas, including closed and offline datasets, metadata, and real-time structured information for verification. The objective of these efforts is not only to acquire high-quality data but also to utilize that data to significantly enhance its AI products and services.
