PRs raise concerns over Financial Times deal with OpenAI | PR Week
PR and comms professionals have expressed their concern about the potential impact of the Financial Times’ licensing agreement with OpenAI.
Business newspaper the Financial Times (FT) has announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence research and deployment owned by Microsoft. Under the partnership, FT said it will provide ChatGPT – the chatbot developed by OpenAI – with attributed content to improve OpenAI’s models by incorporating FT journalism and collaborating on developing new AI products and features for FT readers. Through the partnership, ChatGPT users will be able to see select attributed summaries, quotes and links to FT journalism in response to relevant queries. However, PRs have raised concerns on social media in response to the announcement.
PR Concerns
Flo Powell, joint managing director of b2b PR agency Midnight Communications, raised concerns about the impact the content licensing deal could have on media relations and PR. In a post on LinkedIn, she asked what the Open AI deal would mean for newspaper paywalls and whether people will continue to pay newspaper subscriptions if they can just get the info from AI. She also questioned: “How on earth does this work from an NLA [Newspaper Licensing Authority] perspective?!” Powell expressed her concern that other publishers may follow suit and discussed the implications of AI-generated content replacing human involvement in journalism.
A spokesperson for the FT clarified that journalist Madhumita Murgia is the 'AI Editor' who leads coverage about AI, and writes on data and emerging technologies for the business title.
In response to Powell’s post, Vicky Stoakes, comms director at Brighton-based PR agency Red Setter, described the FT partnership as “terrifying”. She acknowledged the value of human thought in creating original content and speculated on the implications of AI-generated content in the PR industry.
Strategic Partnerships and Future Implications
The FT's partnership with OpenAI is not the first of its kind, as both OpenAI and Microsoft have similar deals with other publishers such as Le Monde, Associated Press, and Axel Springer. The FT Group chief executive emphasized the value of journalism in the partnership, highlighting the need for transparency, attribution, and compensation for content use in AI platforms.
James Hewes, chief executive of the PRCA, acknowledged that such strategic partnerships are inevitable in the industry. He stressed the importance of authoritative sources in AI-generated content and the role of human touch in quality journalism to support effective PR and communications work.
PRWeek contacted the CIPR for comment on the issue, but the organization declined to provide a statement.
