Read full article about: Meta in talks with major publishers over AI content licensing
Meta is in negotiations with publishers including Axel Springer, Fox Corp., and News Corp. about licensing deals that would allow the company to use news articles in its AI products, such as chatbots. The talks were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The company has already secured a licensing agreement with Reuters, but its broader discussions with media companies have only recently begun. For Meta, the move marks a shift: in 2022 it shut down Facebook’s News Tab and stepped back from directly funding journalism.
Other tech companies have moved earlier in this area. OpenAI has inked content deals with publishers such as Hearst, while Amazon has also pursued licensing agreements. Rising resistance from publishers over the use of their material for AI training has become the backdrop for these negotiations.
Read full article about: Google introduces open protocol for AI agent payments
Google has introduced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), a new open standard aimed at enabling AI agents to carry out secure payments across different platforms. AP2 builds on the existing Agent2Agent protocol and supports a wide range of payment methods, including credit cards, stablecoins, and bank transfers.
A key element of the design is digital mandates, which are cryptographic authorizations that lock in user intent. These mandates are intended to ensure that transactions remain verifiable and secure, whether for real-time purchases or automated transactions when the user is not directly involved.
The initiative is already backed by more than 60 companies, among them Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, and Adobe. By creating a unified framework, the goal is to establish a standardized and trustworthy system for agent-driven commerce. Google has made the documentation available on GitHub.
Read full article about: OpenAI hires ex-xAI CFO Mike Liberatore
OpenAI has hired Mike Liberatore, the former finance chief of Elon Musk's AI startup xAI, as its new head of business finance.
According to the company, Liberatore will oversee OpenAI's rapidly growing budget for data centers and infrastructure. He will report to CFO Sarah Friar and work closely with Greg Brockman's team, which manages contracts and investments tied to OpenAI's compute strategy.
At xAI, Liberatore helped organize a $10 billion funding round and led efforts to expand its data center footprint before leaving the company in July. OpenAI, recently valued at $500 billion, also signed a cloud deal worth $300 billion with Oracle.