Microsoft × Informa plc
Informa, the parent company of academic publisher Taylor & Francis, revealed it expects to earn $75 million (£58 million) from AI partnerships in 2024. [38] This includes a multi-year deal with Microsoft, announced in May 2024 and worth over $10 million in its first year, plus a deal with a second, undisclosed AI company. [36, 38, 44] The partnerships grant access to the publisher's content archive to train large language models.
The asset
Non-exclusive access to the Taylor & Francis division's archive of advanced learning content, data, and research publications to train and improve AI systems. [38, 41, 44]
The record
- Seller status
- Going concern
- Sector
- academic publishing
- Modalities
- text
- Jurisdiction
- UK
- Personal data
- Authors were not provided with an opt-out for the use of their work in the AI training data, which prompted criticism from the academic community. [41, 44]
What it means if you hold data
This pair of deals establishes a significant market price for high-quality academic content, with Informa securing a substantial new revenue stream from two separate AI developers. The backlash from authors over the lack of an opt-out highlights the ongoing conflict between publisher rights and creator consent in the AI era. [41]