Warning: Google Strikes Deal with AP to Enhance Gemini AI Chatbot with Real-Time News

Editor’s Commentary

This is a dangerous but inevitable advancement for Artificial Intelligence and a lifeline for legacy media. It’s been happening for a couple of years now but to have tech giant Google working with leftist legacy media giant AP takes the merging of news and AI to the next level.

With direct access to news, the real-time learning that powerful AIs can do will accelerate their integration into day-to-day life. Just as once we read newspaper and now we read screens, soon we will be replacing the various apps and websites with a single source: Our favorite AI newsreader. Why? Because it will be able to personalize our news ingestion experience and adjust to our preferences in real-time. Unfortunately, AI will make getting the news easier and the masses will likely embrace it.

The News

Google has entered into a groundbreaking agreement with The Associated Press (AP) to enrich its Gemini AI chatbot with up-to-date news content. This marks Google’s first partnership with a news organization specifically for integrating real-time news feeds into its AI platform.

Under this new collaboration, AP will supply Gemini with a continuous stream of current news, aiming to make the chatbot a more comprehensive and dynamic tool for users seeking the latest information. This move is part of Google’s broader strategy to integrate more real-world data into its AI systems, enhancing the chatbot’s ability to provide relevant, timely responses.

AP’s Chief Revenue Officer, Kristin Heitmann, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership, noting that it extends their long-standing relationship with Google, which has been based on providing accurate, timely news to a global audience. She highlighted the significance of Google recognizing AP’s commitment to nonpartisan journalism in the development of its AI products.

The financial details of the deal remain undisclosed, but the agreement underscores a growing trend where tech companies are seeking to license high-quality data from news organizations to train and improve their AI models. This comes at a time when news outlets are grappling with how to monetize their content in the digital age, especially with the rise of AI technologies that can potentially replicate or summarize news without direct compensation.

Google has not elaborated on how the AP content will be integrated into Gemini or whether there will be direct attribution back to AP’s original reporting. This aspect has been a point of contention in similar partnerships, as news organizations worry about losing traffic and revenue when their content is repurposed by tech giants.

The partnership also reflects AP’s ongoing efforts to diversify its revenue streams, especially after significant losses from traditional newspaper subscriptions. In 2023, AP had already forged a deal with OpenAI for similar purposes, indicating a strategic pivot towards leveraging AI and tech partnerships for sustainability.

However, this move has sparked debate about the ethics of AI using news content. Critics argue that AI companies might be underpaying for or unfairly using news data, which could threaten journalism by siphoning off advertising revenue and diminishing the incentives for quality reporting. Meanwhile, advocates see these partnerships as a way for news organizations to stay relevant in an AI-driven future.

As Gemini, formerly known as Bard, continues to evolve, this deal with AP could set a precedent for how tech and media industries interact, particularly concerning content rights, compensation, and the role of AI in disseminating news. The integration of real-time news into AI applications like Gemini is a step towards making AI not just a tool for answering questions but also for keeping users informed about the world around them.

According to Headline USA:

While some media platforms, including social-media giant Meta and the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post may be responding to the return of President Donald Trump by scaling back on their aggressively woke propaganda, others are doubling down.

Alarmingly, that may include newly emerging artificial intelligence, which users assume to be presenting factually accurate information. Instead, Google’s AI system, like its search engine, will manipulate users by promoting a radical agenda through the far-left Associated Press.

Google says its chatbot Gemini will now deliver up-to-date news from the AP in the tech giant’s first such deal with a news publisher.

Headline USA also uses the AP as an information source for articles (including this one) and photographs but typically curates and contextualizes those articles to eliminate the bias.

Not so for Google’s AI, which will be driven by the same algorithms and machine learning that Google controversially used to replace historical figures with underrepresented minorities.