Media Briefing: Associated Press deal cements Microsoft’s quiet rise in AI licensing

Associated Press (AP) has joined Microsoft’s fledgling AI content marketplace, becoming the latest media company — after People Inc. and USA Today Co.— to confirm a licensing deal with the tech giant.

The news agency has revealed it’s a partner of the pay-per-use content marketplace, having signed a deal last week, Kristin Heitmann, chief revenue officer of Associated Press, told Digiday.

“We think it’s really important that organizations of all sizes and shapes are paying for premium content,” she said. Publishers have said that it’s very early days in the content marketplace. People Inc.’s chief innovation officer Jon Roberts said that the company is looking forward to working closely with Microsoft to help build it “from the ground floor.” 

Heitmann echoed that sentiment. She said Microsoft has been clear that it wants publisher input to develop the marketplace. “I would characterize it as very early days and experimental. But we want a seat at that table. We want to be able to input and object when we need to object in terms of both representing the AP but also representing our broader customer base in these conversations — that’s really important for us,” she said. 

Whenever there’s a framework that protects intellectual property and ensures fair value, AP wants to be part of it, she stressed. “Microsoft’s publisher content marketplace checks both of those boxes. It’s still experimental, but we’re glad to be involved in shaping how it develops,” added Heitmann. 

AP struck its first licensing deal with OpenAI in 2023 and signed an agreement with Google to license AP content to Gemini at the start of 2025.

Microsoft’s move to create an AI marketplace is a positive signal generally to the market that it respects copyright law and wants to pay for IP it doesn’t own, stressed Jason Kint, CEO of publisher trade group Digital Content Next. “Even the a la carte model of buying piecemeal based on what people want is the kind of experimenting with the new marketplace that is healthy. And shows that there is actual bargaining happening between both sides,” he said.

Whether it works or is the right model is yet to be determined. But publishers are taking it as a welcome signal of intent for how Microsoft plans to pursue its own AI licensing journey. 

“The signal was Microsoft just acknowledging that publishers deserve to be paid. If you don’t accept that there are centuries of copyright law and rules that protect that intellectual property. And instead go with like, steal the content, ask for forgiveness later, then you’re never going to get to the place of experimenting around a healthy marketplace,” added Kint. 

Naturally, Microsoft’s motives are unlikely to be altruistic. Many market observers and publishers believe it doesn’t want to be left in the cold, having already lost out to Google in the search market. It won’t want to make that same mistake. 

Microsoft has recognized that traditional search — effectively the world’s largest software market — is powered by advertising, making strong ties with media companies essential, noted Brian Wieser, CEO and principal at Madison and Wall. As AI products increasingly depend on high-quality content to fuel large language models (LLMs) and related tools, those publisher relationships have become even more strategically valuable, he stressed. “The main thing is that they [Microsoft] see an opportunity to re-establish themselves as a dominant, if not the dominant, software company. They’re sparing no effort there,” said Weiser.

“Then you have willing partners [publishers] who recognize they may have some leverage in the negotiations and the combination of those factors creates opportunity,” he added. 

Publishers are open to experimenting with AI licensing, but only if their IP and brand integrity are safeguarded. Take People Inc.’s “Sexiest Man Alive” franchise and “The Intern”, a popular scripted social media series launched by People Inc.’s InStyle magazine — both of which were big enough deals to be referenced by People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel as “huge hits” among young audiences, during parent IAC’s earnings call on Nov. 4. “We are pivoting our resources to where the audiences are, and you’re going to see much more from us here,” said Vogel.

Imagine a scenario where a publisher like People Inc. wants to create an AI-driven extension of its “Sexiest Man Alive” franchise, noted Wieser. Protecting that brand and its underlying IP would be essential — they wouldn’t want AI models replicating or imitating it without permission. “That’s where a partner [like Microsoft] that is willing to find ways to work with publishers, presumably not give away the bank but also recognize that publishers may be reluctant to make deals unless their concerns are addressed, matters,” he said. — Jessica Davies

What we’ve heard

“Now damages will be proved in the litigation, but we seek to recover hundreds of millions of dollars and damages… The timing of our case was accelerated by our judge, which we view as a positive. So we now expect to spend about $4 million in the quarter and continue to spend in the coming quarters after that.”

– Christopher P. Halpin, evp, CFO & COO of IAC, on the litigation costs People Inc. has incurred in the ongoing Google ad tech antitrust trial, and its ROI expectations.

Numbers to know

20.3%: The year-over-year digital ad revenue growth at The New York Times, according to its third quarter earnings.

$4 million: The amount People Inc. spent on Google litigation in Q3 2025 on litigation for the Google antitrust trial, and the amount it will continue to spend in the coming quarters.

2.9%: The year-over-year digital ad revenue growth at USA Today Co. (formerly Gannett) in Q3.

$10,000: The daily cost of the security detail for Bari Weiss, CBS News’ new editor-in-chief.

What we’ve covered

People Inc. strikes Microsoft AI licensing deal

• People Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith) has struck an AI licensing deal with Microsoft to be part of the tech giant’s pay-per-usage AI content marketplace. 
• Microsoft is working with a group of major publishers to plug into its two-sided content marketplace to compensate publishers for their use of content by AI companies and products.

Get the details on the deal here.

Ranking is out, visibility is in as publishers chip away at AI search optimization

• The AI search era is rewiring the goal from ranking to visibility for publishers.
• That means optimizing for citations, tracking and interpreting assistant referrals, and clean feeds – structured data to make it easy for LLMs to read, not just blue links. 

Read about the AI optimization tactics publishers are deploying here.

How Reach plc is diversifying traffic sources amid zero-click threat

• The U.K. news group is looking to news aggregation platforms to diversify traffic sources amid the threat of a zero-click future – all while making more money from Facebook.
• Reach’s audience strategy is focused on promoting original content on channels like MSN, Apple News and Yahoo (as well as SmartNews and NewsBreak in the US).

Read about the strategy here.

How Forbes is using ChatGPT referral data to create audience cohorts

• AI platforms account for a single-digit percentage of Forbes’ monthly referral traffic – nowhere near enough traffic to offset the 40% year-over-year search referral traffic decline Forbes has seen this year.
• But Forbes has access to data related to the AI referral traffic — such as the prompts that led to a Forbes article being cited in an AI answer — and is using that information to create audience cohorts of the people coming to its site from AI platforms.

Read more here.

AI slop myths, debunked 

• Whether additional AI tools are seen as a breakthrough or just another slop factory depends less on the tool itself and more on how people use it. 
• This mythbuster looks at what’s harmful, what’s hype – and what’s just “meh.”

Read more here.

What we’re reading

Gannett rebrands to USA Today Co.

Gannett, which publishes more than 200 local newspapers across 42 states, is taking on the name of its flagship publication, following other big media name changes like MS Now and People Inc this year, according to The New York Times.

Condé Nast merges Teen Vogue into Vogue

Teen Vogue’s website will be absorbed by Vogue.com, and Teen Vogue’s top editor Versha Sharma is leaving the company, The New York Times reported.

Hundreds of thousands of videos from news publishers have trained AI models

YouTube videos from major news publishers like The New York Times and Vox were in video data sets used by AI models to build products, according to an investigation by The Atlantic, reported on by Nieman Lab.

Business Insider struggles to pivot away from SEO

Despite Business Insider announcing earlier this year that it will lessen its reliance on search traffic, the company continues to publish SEO-driven stories, A Media Operator reports.

Vox Media discussed spinning out podcast network

Vox Media’s board discussed possibly spinning out its podcast network and separating it from the publishing business, Axios reported.