New York Times chairman and publisher AG Sulzberger at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress on 1 June 2026. Picture: WAN-IFRA
New York Times chairman and publisher AG Sulzberger has urged publishers to do more to fight the oncoming “tsunami” from AI giants jeopardising the information ecosystem.
Sulzberger set out ways for news companies “both to stand up to abuses by AI companies and to prepare our own organisations to succeed in this new era” in a keynote speech on Monday at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille.
Warning that AI companies are committing “brazen theft” of intellectual property, Sulzberger revealed the New York Times has already spent more than $20m on its lawsuits against OpenAI/Microsoft and Perplexity since December 2023.
This compares to the more than $2bn he revealed as the cost to The New York Times in 2025 alone of producing nearly half a million pieces of journalism, including articles, photos, videos and podcasts.
Despite its strong stance, The New York Times has also done AI licensing deals such as with Amazon.
[Read more: OpenAI not planning to share advertising revenue with publishers ]
Compensation for creators tiny compared to scale of AI investment
“Others have embraced micropayments from AI companies for each individual scrape and use of journalism. But there is good reason to question whether either will be sufficient to make up for the revenue and readers lost to competitive AI products. Meanwhile, many smaller news organisations whose work has also been taken and used by AI models haven’t been offered any such compensation…”
Sulzberger said private AI investment in the US was $350bn in 2025 but that “given the small size of deals that have been reported, it appears that less than half of 1% of that investment is going to compensate the people and companies creating the data that powers AI”.
He criticised AI companies for “jeopardising their most important source of new news, new information, new analysis” which would ultimately make the products themselves “less useful and less reliable”.
In a stark warning to publishers, Sulzberger said: “We cannot afford to be as naive this time” as compared to the first shift from print to digital media. “News organisations are collectively smaller and weaker than two decades ago. Tech giants are bigger and stronger – and far more willing to use their size and power.
“Meanwhile, the AI wave itself may be bigger and faster as the technology continues to improve. Even if things are feeling fine now, remember that these early swells herald an approaching tsunami.”
Don’t let AI cheerleaders dominate conversation
Sulzberger also said the news industry “must do more. Our profession has been too quiet, too passive and too fragmented in the face of abuses by the companies leading the AI revolution.
“We cannot allow AI cheerleaders to dominate the public conversation without interjecting to argue for the importance of ensuring a sustainable future for original journalism.
“We cannot watch as AI companies attempt to permanently dismantle the rights that give us control over the work we create.
“We cannot sit by as this work is used to build replacement products that undermine our ability to earn the audience and revenue necessary to continue reporting the news.”
Four ways publishers can fight back
Sulzberger shared four suggestions for publishers.
“Stand up for your rights”, which he said “will only hold if you insist that they be respected and push back when they are not. This will take courage – and sometimes resources, which are in short supply – but the alternative path of quietly tolerating the systematic theft of your work will eventually end your ability to continue it.”
“Deal carefully”, considering the “long-term viability” of each deal and ensuring it reflects something “close to fair value”.
Push legislators on issues such as: “Ensure the currently robust protections for intellectual property are reinforced – not weakened – for the AI era. Require bots to identify themselves and constrain their ability to strip websites without permission. Require transparency so news organisations know when and how their work is used by AI. Ensure AI companies bear legal responsibility for the defamatory content they generate.”
He also urged the news industry to work together with other creative industries on a response to the threat posed by AI. Several leading publishers – The Guardian, the BBC, Sky News, the Financial Times, The Telegraph and Mediahuis – are currently leading a charge to develop shared licensing standards.
Ways publishers can build resilience
Sulzberger said news organisations can also do several things to become more resilient..
He said: “Newsrooms should create thoughtful standards for the responsible use of AI. Then they should be aggressive and creative in putting the technology to work to improve their journalism and strengthen their businesses.”
He encouraged more original reporting, saying: “Many news organisations undermined and commoditised themselves trying to feed the constantly shifting preferences of search and social algorithms with clickbait, aggregation and hot takes. The economics of that approach will get even worse. To be a destination in a world intermediated by AI, you’ll need journalism so distinctive it has its own gravity.”
And he urged publishers to promote the value of journalism: “AI companies have giant megaphones and have studiously and selectively communicated the benefits of their work while also downplaying the harms. The news industry must, in turn, make the case that original reporting is an essential ingredient in healthy societies, secure nations and strong democracies — and show how the actions of the tech giants are putting it at risk.”
Read or watch Sulzberger’s full speech on The New York Times website here.
Email [email protected] to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog