Meta is holding discussions with major media companies, including Axel Springer, Fox Corp, and News Corp, to license news content for integration into its artificial intelligence products, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.
The talks represent a strategic pivot for Meta, which has previously reduced its focus on news content. After striking multimillion-dollar agreements to feature stories from outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times in its News tab, the company began scaling back its financial support for publishers in 2022.
This earlier decision contributed to steep traffic declines from Facebook for many publishers, with the long-term effects still being debated.
Meta’s initiative follows similar moves by competitors in the AI space. Google has also begun recruiting news organizations for AI-related licensing projects.
AI search company Perplexity has already allocated $42.5 million for a revenue-sharing program that compensates publishers when their content is used by the company’s Comet browser or AI assistant.
Expanding AI Investment
The news licensing talks occur as Meta significantly increases its AI investments. The company recently finalized a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, acquiring a 49% stake in the data-labeling service provider, a deal that valued the startup at about $29 billion.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has designated AI as Meta’s top priority, with the company projecting $66-72 billion in total capital expenditures this year, much of it tied to infrastructure that supports AI development. Meta recently reorganized its AI efforts under Superintelligence Labs following senior staff departures and after its latest Llama 4 model received a mixed reception.
Nii A. Ahene is the founder and managing director of Net Influencer, a website dedicated to offering insights into the influencer marketing industry. Together with its newsletter, Influencer Weekly, Net Influencer provides news, commentary, and analysis of the events shaping the creator and influencer marketing space. Through interviews with startups, influencers, brands, and platforms, Nii and his team explore how influencer marketing is being effectively used to benefit businesses and personal brands alike.
