AI Executives Fret About Existential Threat AI Poses—to Publishers

It’s not just humanity that AI folks worry the new technology could wipe out—it’s publishers as well! (Publishers are, of course, people!) That’s what we learned from a court filing today by a group of news publishers including The New York Times Co. in a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The filing cited an OpenAI executive writing—presumably in an internal memo—that publishers face “an existential threat” from AI products.

We knew the publishers worried that AI threatened their existence—The New York Times Co. made that point when it sued OpenAI and Microsoft back in 2023 (the case has since been consolidated with similar lawsuits filed by other publishers). What’s striking is that OpenAI and Microsoft internally acknowledge the threat—and recognize the implications for them as well. “Our AI content strategy has started a ‘doom loop’ that will hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time. It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers,” according to a Microsoft document cited in the filing.

In other words, if news publishers go out of business, one vital source of content for AI chatbots will disappear. This is a conundrum for tech companies, you might say.

Of course, many news outlets have already disappeared over the past two decades, as digital advertising has pulled money from older forms of ad-based media. AI chatbots threaten to kill off what’s left. One problem, as OpenAI folks acknowledge—according to the filing—is that chatbots are just really good at delivering news. OpenAI’s Nick Turley was cited in the filing saying that once ChatGPT “gives an answer, there is ‘no good reason to click’ on a link to the underlying source, such as a news website.” Another OpenAI executive, Greg Brockman, is cited saying, “we are excellent at news btw.”

The lawsuit is about whether OpenAI breached copyright rules by taking the publishers’ content without permission. But winning the case won’t change the fact that consumers might find chatbots a more convenient way to get their news. If AI firms need publishers to provide content, perhaps they should do something about it. We can’t see OpenAI, Anthropic and Google buying publishers (sorry, but OpenAI’s purchase of the video show TBPN doesn’t count). The logical solution is for AI firms to pay news outlets enough for their content to ensure the publishers can get a decent return on the heavy costs of news gathering.

While OpenAI has licensed content from some publishers, there’s no sign it’s paying anywhere near enough to make up for the damage chatbots have done to the news business. It’s clearer than ever that even the tech firms realize that’s a problem for them.

OpenAI’s New Enterprise Sales Team

OpenAI is trying again to build a team to sell its products to businesses. The Information’s Kevin McLaughlin on Thursday reported that OpenAI had hired Brian McCarthy from SpaceX’s Cursor unit as its new global sales chief, reporting to Dali Rajic, newly hired from Google’s Wiz unit.

Moreover, two veterans from Snowflake are joining, Kevin scooped. Hopefully the new team will last longer than the old one, led by Denise Dresser, who left Salesforce in December as chief revenue officer. A bunch of others from Salesforce, including Kaylin Voss, followed her. But last month Dresser left OpenAI, followed by some of the other Salesforce alumni—many of whom may return to Salesforce. Voss, for instance, already has.

• CoreWeave said on Thursday that it could sell up to 35 million shares, worth roughly $3 billion based on the prior day’s closing price, through a new at-the-market offering. At the same time, the company announced plans to raise $3 billion in a convertible note issue, with an option for another $500 million.

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday issued a temporary order allowing certain types of tokenized stocks—crypto tokens that represent equities—to trade in the U.S., a crypto-friendly move that has drawn pushback from some traditional financial firms.

• Huawei Technologies plans to launch its new AI chip in the first quarter of 2027, nine months earlier than planned, as it steps up its efforts to challenge Nvidia.

Today on The Information’s TITV

Check out today’s episode of TITV in which we discuss some of the most interesting themes coming out of our 50 Most Influential List.