Google's News AI deals: the signing-versus-suing split widens

Google said more than 400 publications now participate in its News AI pilot, a licensing program that pays publishers for the delivery and use of their content in AI features, with Axios, CNN, the Financial Times, Forbes and several US local titles among the newest partners. Reach CEO Piers North told Digiday his two-year Google deal, covering expanded rights to Reach's UK and Ireland portfolio, sets "the rules of the game" that other AI firms should follow, while the publisher has sent OpenAI a cease-and-desist after logging well over 100 million successful scrapes in six months. Press Gazette's running round-up of AI deals and lawsuits lists OpenAI's first India deals, worth roughly $5 million a year with the Times of India group and $3 million with the Indian Express Group, alongside new suits from US local publishers and a News Corp action against the browser Brave.

The crux

AI licensing has moved from experiment to a two-track market where the publishers who sign get paid and visibility while those who refuse escalate to litigation, and Google is writing the template both sides will copy.

Sell-side read

The value exchange has flipped from referral traffic to direct payment for content, which is a durable new revenue line for the publishers who can get a seat at the table, and a compliance risk for those who cannot. North was explicit: "you are the new monopolies," he said of the AI firms, and publishers "need there to be a fair and equitable conversation."

Watch

Whether OpenAI and the other holdouts sign, and whether Google's carousels and "Preferred Sources" links actually rebuild the referral traffic publishers lost to AI Overviews.