Meta signs AI licensing deal with News Corp valued at up to $50 million a year

New Delhi: Meta Platforms has entered into a multiyear artificial intelligence content licensing agreement with News Corp that could be worth up to $50 million a year, according to a news report.

The agreement, which is expected to run for at least three years, gives Meta access to news content produced by News Corp publications in the United States and the United Kingdom. The material can be used to train the company’s AI systems and to retrieve information for users of its artificial intelligence tools, according to people familiar with the arrangement cited in the report.

The deal reflects the growing importance of licensed news content for technology companies developing AI models. Such agreements allow firms to incorporate reliable reporting into training datasets and provide real-time information to users through chatbots and other AI-driven services.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson referenced the arrangement during a presentation at a Morgan Stanley conference, noting that the company had concluded a publicly known “horizontal deal” and indicating that discussions with other potential partners were at an advanced stage.

News Corp had previously signed a content licensing agreement with OpenAI in 2024. That agreement was reported to be valued at more than $250 million over five years.

Meta began approaching media organisations about AI licensing partnerships in 2025. The company has stated that it has concluded similar agreements with several publishers, including People Inc., USA Today, CNN and Fox News, although financial terms of those arrangements have not been disclosed.

News organisations have responded to the expansion of generative AI with a combination of partnerships and legal challenges. Some publishers have chosen to license their content to technology companies to secure payment for its use, while others have pursued litigation over alleged unauthorised use.

Two subsidiaries of News Corp have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against the AI search company Perplexity AI. Separately, The New York Times Company has sued OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright violations linked to AI training data.

The New York Times has also entered into an AI licensing agreement with Amazon. Previous reports indicated that the deal was valued at between $20 million and $25 million annually.