Source : THE AGE NEWS
Microsoft’s AI chatbot Copilot will reference content from Nine’s mastheads in search results as part of a landmark deal by the global tech giant to pay for access to journalism from the largest Australian-owned media company.
Under the agreement, to be announced on Friday morning, Nine’s journalism will play a crucial role in AI outputs generated by Copilot users, who will be directed to the text of content from the media company’s mastheads – including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review – when they conduct searches on the chatbot.
Copilot will display snippets, headlines and summaries and will direct users to Nine’s mastheads, funnelling them toward a trusted news source.
Nine chief executive Matt Stanton said he was delighted to partner with Microsoft.
“As AI continues to evolve, the role of verified, premium journalism in grounding these outputs is essential,” Stanton said. “This collaboration is a win-win, delivering for users of AI while respecting copyright and protecting the long-term value of our intellectual property.”
Microsoft Australia and New Zealand president Jane Livesey said the partnership was a sign that technology and media companies could work together to ensure a thriving future for journalism.
“AI is transforming the way Australians connect with information, and access to trustworthy sources has never mattered more,” she said. “Our agreement with Nine will ground responses from Microsoft Copilot in trusted mastheads, giving people verified facts, a clear path to the full story, and confidence in what they read.”
The deal comes against the backdrop of a debate between AI companies and the creative and media sectors over fair use of content. Tech giants including Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have been lobbying the federal government to weaken copyright laws so they can more freely access content to train AI models, in return for greater local investment in data centre construction.
That push has been fiercely resisted by the creative sector, and media companies such as News Corp, and has divided senior figures within the Albanese government. This week, a group of authors and musicians appeared at Parliament House in Canberra to pressure the government not to create a copyright exemption for AI companies.
That group included author Andy Griffiths, who was part of a class action lawsuit against AI giant Anthropic, which settled for $US1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) last year after using pirated copies of authors’ books to train its models.
This week’s deal represented a milestone in relations between AI-focused big tech companies and the Australian media, said Nine’s managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire.
“Microsoft has been a proactive, engaged partner who is committed to attribution of sources. This continues to unlock new revenue opportunities for our mastheads as the media ecosystem continues to evolve, supporting local and trusted Australian journalism,” she said.
While the exact value of the deal remains commercially confident, it is expected to unlock a significant potential new revenue stream for Nine and its mastheads.
The deal is the first of its kind between a big tech player and a major news outlet in the Asia Pacific region.
In 2024, OpenAI and News Corp signed a five-year $US250 million global deal, allowing ChatGPT to display content from the company’s mastheads, and use it to train its systems.
Last year, Google inked a deal with the Australian Associated Press, meaning the newswire service’s articles would be available on the tech giant’s Gemini artificial intelligence platform.
Since the dawn of the internet age, media companies have at times pivoted to social media, video and youth publishing. None have proved a panacea for the challenges of digital disruption.
Unlike Google and Meta, Microsoft is not included in the government’s planned News Media Bargaining Incentive Laws that are intended to force tech giants to pay for journalism content.
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Kishor Napier-Raman is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X or email.
