Meta is bringing more international news to its AI
Meta AI should soon be more effective at surfacing international news content thanks to a set of new deals with publishers. The company announced new deals with international media outlets and provided additional details on its recent deal with News Corp.
The latest offers bring a French newspaper Le Figarothe Spanish media company Prisa and the German newspaper South German Zeitung in the fold. Together with News Corp, which runs a number of media outlets in the UK, these sources should give Meta AI greater access to current information on world events. Meta did not disclose terms of the deals — The Wall Street Journal previously reported that the deal with News Corp was worth up to $50 million a year – but it said it intended to link to relevant news sources.
“These integrations will also facilitate easier access to information by linking to articles, allowing you to visit these partners’ websites for more details while providing value to partners, allowing them to reach new audiences,” Meta wrote in an update. The company has a long and sometimes fraught history with publishers, as its priorities have changed over the years. In the past, Meta struck deals to pay publishers to produce live videos and “instant articles,” but later changed course as news content became less of a priority for Facebook.
Now that Meta is struggling to compete with its AI rivals, it appears the social media company is once again interested in news content. As the company notes in its blog post, Meta AI isn’t always good at surfacing accurate and timely information. I noticed this in 2024, when the company’s assistant was repeatedly unable to accurately answer seemingly simple questions like “who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives?” »
By entering into multiple agreements with publishers, the company should be better equipped to handle these types of queries (and hopefully more complex ones). However, it remains an open question what benefits publishers will derive from these arrangements. Although Meta claims it will link to relevant information sources, many external data points raise serious questions about the effect of AI search tools on web traffic.
