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Buyer type

AI labs

Model developers that license data directly, mostly from publishers and named data partners, and buy through vendors. This page compares the 8 companies we profile.

Last verified November 3, 2026

What an AI lab is

AI labs are model developers. They license or buy data directly, mostly content from publishers and named data partners, and they also buy through the vendors and marketplaces listed in these profiles.

Labs list a company here only for a named deal, program or data source confirmed by the lab or by credible press. Reported deals are marked as reported.

How it pays

Disclosed lab deals are usually multi-year licenses with a fixed annual fee, or usage-based payments made when content is used. Many terms are not published, and the amounts that are known often come from press reports rather than from the lab.

Companies compared

Every value below is as published or reported, with its source. "Not published" means we found no figure. Open a profile for the full record.

CompanyWhat they buyPriceDeal structureStatus
AmazonPublisher content[1]$20 million to $25 million per year (NYT, per WSJ) (reported)[2]Not publishedActive[1]
AnthropicNon-public data from third parties, Data from data-labeling services and paid contractors[3]RL environments (reported)[4]Datasets obtained through commercial agreements with third-party businesses[5]Not publishedNot publishedActive[3]
ApplePublisher content[6]Images[6]Images (reported)[7]At least $50 million, multiyear (offers to news publishers, reported Dec 2023)[8]Possible nine-figure budget discussed for payments to publishers when their content is used (proposed Siri AI deals, reported Aug 2026)[9]Content license (multiyear licenses of news archives proposed) (reported)[8]Active (reported)[9]
GoogleEmail, Slack/Teams, Revenue records, Aircraft operations records, Employee productivity records, Audit and fraud records (reported)[10]Docs/wiki, Code (reported)[11]Code (reported)[12]Publisher content[13]Closed and offline datasets; Datasets in science, mathematics and learning contexts (prioritized)[14]$10.0 million (Spirit deidentified data; successful bid at the August 14, 2026 auction) (reported)[15]$60 million per year (Reddit content, reported 2024)[16]Sale of deidentified data under a bill of sale between Spirit Airlines, LLC and Google LLC (Spirit)[17]Non-exclusive license; developer retains IP rights to their code (code pilot) (reported)[12]Active[13]
MetaPublisher content[18]Up to $50 million per year (News Corp, per WSJ) (reported)[19]Not publishedActive[18]
MicrosoftPublisher content[20]Books (nonfiction backlist) (reported)[21]$5,000 per nonfiction title, split evenly between author and HarperCollins (reported)[21]Publisher-defined license terms; voluntary participation (PCM)[20]Active[20]
NVIDIAText, Images, Video, Audio[22]Translation memories; Exam/reasoning items; Competitive-programming problems and solutions; Speech; Agentic task, tool-use and dialogue datasets[22]Not publishedNot publishedActive[22]
OpenAILong-form writing, Conversations, Images, Audio, Video[23]Publisher content[24]Could be worth more than $250 million over five years (News Corp, reported by WSJ)[24]At least $16 million per year (Dotdash Meredith; fixed component only, payout could rise) (reported)[25]Not publishedActive[26]

What to check before you sign

  • Whether the license covers training, display in products, or both.
  • The term, renewal terms, and what the lab may keep doing with models trained during the term after it ends.
  • How usage-based payments are measured and reported to you.
  • Limits on how much of your content a product may reproduce.
  • Whether the deal is made directly with the lab or through an intermediary.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Your counsel should review any license before you sign.

Sources

  1. New York Times partners with Amazon for first AI licensing deal (Reuters via Hawaii Tribune-Herald), hawaiitribune-herald.com. Published May 30, 2025. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  2. New York Times Seals $20 Million AI Deal With Amazon | Report (TheWrap), thewrap.com. Published July 30, 2025. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  3. Anthropic Transparency Hub, anthropic.com. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company statement)
  4. Silicon Valley bets big on 'environments' to train AI agents | TechCrunch, techcrunch.com. Published September 16, 2025. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  5. Anthropic Privacy Policy, anthropic.com. Published September 10, 2026. Accessed November 3, 2026. (company statement)
  6. Updates to Apple’s On-Device and Server Foundation Language Models - Apple Machine Learning Research, machinelearning.apple.com. Published June 9, 2025. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company statement)
  7. Apple struck deal with Shutterstock to license millions of images for AI training - 9to5Mac, 9to5mac.com. Published April 6, 2024. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  8. Apple explores AI deals with news publishers (Reuters, via DT Next), dtnext.in. Published December 23, 2023. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  9. Report: Apple seeks publisher deals to give Siri AI better access to current events - 9to5Mac, 9to5mac.com. Published August 12, 2026. Accessed October 30 and November 3, 2026. (press)
  10. Google Aims to Boost AI With Purchase of Spirit Airlines Data (Bloomberg Law), news.bloomberglaw.com. Published August 17, 2026. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  11. Google’s $10 million Spirit data bid draws union objection over employee records | MLQ News, mlq.ai. Published August 20, 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  12. Google Is Quietly Buying Code From Play Store Developers to Train AI (404 Media), 404media.co. Published June 2, 2026. Accessed October 30 and November 3, 2026. (press)
  13. 400 publications are now partnering with us on our News AI pilot program. (Google blog), blog.google. Published October 15, 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company's own site)
  14. Content partnerships to improve our AI products — Google AI, ai.google. Accessed November 3, 2026. (company statement)
  15. Spirit Airlines Case Update: The Data Sale Slips to November as Spirit Moves to Unwind the HFS Aircraft Deal (Stretto), chapter11cases.com. Published October 14, 2026. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  16. Reddit Inks $60 Million-a-Year Deal To Train Google AI Ahead of Expected IPO | Report - TheWrap, thewrap.com. Published February 22, 2024. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  17. The Spirit Airlines deidentified data sale: auction results, objections, and the September 30 hearing (Stretto), chapter11cases.com. Published September 13, 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  18. Bringing More Real-Time News and Content to Meta AI (Meta Newsroom), about.fb.com. Published December 5, 2025. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company's own site)
  19. Meta signs multi-year AI deal with News Corp worth up to $50 million a year (The Decoder), the-decoder.com. Published March 4, 2026. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  20. Building Toward a Sustainable Content Economy for the Agentic Web | Microsoft Advertising, about.ads.microsoft.com. Published February 3, 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company statement)
  21. HarperCollins Book Catalog To Train Microsoft AI Models For The Next 3 Years | eWeek, eweek.com. Published December 7, 2024. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  22. Public Summary of Training Content for NVIDIA Nemotron (PDF; section 'Public Summary of Training Content for NVIDIA Nemotron 3 and 3.5 Family', Version 1.0, Last update: 10/08/2026), developer.download.nvidia.com. Accessed October 30, 2026. (company statement)
  23. OpenAI wants to work with organizations to build new AI training data sets | TechCrunch, techcrunch.com. Published November 9, 2023. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)
  24. News Corp Inks OpenAI Licensing Deal Potentially Worth More Than $250 Million (Variety via Yahoo), malaysia.news.yahoo.com. Published May 22, 2024. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  25. OpenAI will pay DotDash Meredith at least $16 million per year to license its content (Engadget), engadget.com. Published November 19, 2024. Accessed November 3, 2026. (press)
  26. Meta Reportedly Signs $50 Million News Corp Deal As Big Tech's AI Content Arms Race Heats Up (Benzinga via Yahoo Finance), finance.yahoo.com. Published March 6, 2026. Accessed October 30, 2026. (press)

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