Meta AI to deliver real-time news from CNN, Fox News
What's the story
Meta has announced a new feature for its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Meta AI. The social media giant will integrate content from major news organizations into the service, providing Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users with real-time information. The feature will provide breaking news as well as entertainment and lifestyle stories when users ask news-related questions.
Strategic alliances
Partnerships with major news outlets
Meta AI will draw content from partnerships with major news organizations such as CNN, Fox News, Le Monde, People, and USA Today. The feature is designed to provide users with "more diverse content sources" and links to partner websites for deeper exploration of stories. This expansion is part of Meta's effort to make its AI assistant "more responsive, accurate, and balanced" by incorporating diverse viewpoints.
Expansion strategy
Global reach and future plans
Meta AI is already available across the company's platforms, serving billions of users worldwide. The company plans to continue adding partnerships and developing new features as competition heats up among tech companies to improve their AI assistants. The announcement comes as other AI companies such as OpenAI and Google are also moving toward integrating live web content and news feeds into their services.
Industry developments
Perplexity's subscription service and ongoing lawsuits
Recently, start-up Perplexity launched a subscription service called Comet Plus, providing access to partnered media content for $5 per month. The company has pledged to redistribute 80% of the revenue generated by Comet Plus to news publishers. However, despite these collaborations, several lawsuits filed by media outlets against AI companies are still pending, including one from The New York Times against OpenAI over unauthorized use of its articles without compensation.
Media relations
Meta's complex relationship with news media
Meta has had a complicated relationship with the news media over the years. The company announced that news constituted a very small share of user engagement on its platforms and started shutting down the Facebook News tab in countries like the US, UK, and France. This also led to the termination of multi-million-dollar deals with major news organizations.