Anthropic pays a news publisher for the first time, striking a deal with AP

Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude, has paid a digital news publisher for the first time. It struck a licensing deal with the Associated Press just before the midterm elections, according to two people familiar with the matter. On Election Night, Claude could answer questions about polling with up-to-the-minute updates credited to the AP.

What the deal is

A licensing deal means one company pays to use another company's content. Here, Anthropic gets access to AP content and data. Neither side has shared the price or how long the deal will last. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment, and the AP did not give a comment on the record.

Why Anthropic changed course

Until now, Anthropic had not signed a licensing deal with any digital publisher. Its main rival, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has signed more than a dozen, including with Axel Springer, News Corp. and The Atlantic. In August, media executives said Anthropic believed that using publisher content is legal under fair use, a legal idea that allows some use of material without permission.

There was a catch. Many premium news sites block Anthropic's crawlers, the programs that collect web pages. That left Claude with what AI researcher Deana Burke calls the "unlocked web." Those sources may be fine for low-stakes questions. They cannot say who won a Senate seat 10 minutes ago.

Publishers blocked AI tools on purpose. The tactic works like a digital embargo: withhold the content and hope AI companies come to the table to pay. In this case, it worked.

Why the AP

The AP is a special case. It earns most of its revenue from licensing and wire deals with other publishers, so this kind of arrangement is already how it works. It was also the first publisher to sign with Google and OpenAI. And it is known as non-partisan, more like a service than a publisher with an editorial slant.

What it means for you

If you ask AI chatbots for breaking news, answers may get more reliable as publishers who block them start getting paid. For now, it is one deal with one wire service. When a chatbot credits a source, such as the AP, that is a useful sign of where the answer came from.

What happens next

One deal does not mean a new strategy. The likely read is that Anthropic will use this test to decide whether to go further. The company is also preparing to go public in a matter of weeks. Still unknown: what it paid, how long the deal runs, and whether other publishers follow.