Meta has inked a three‑year AI licensing agreement with News Corp that grants the social‑media giant access to articles from The Wall Street Journal and the publisher’s other U.S. and U.K. outlets. The deal reportedly pays up to $50 million a year, allowing Meta’s chatbot to cite and train on premium journalism.

News Corp’s CEO Robert Thomson recently described the company’s licensing playbook as a “woo and a sue” approach: partners pay for content, while scrapers face litigation. The publisher previously struck a five‑year, roughly $250 million contract with OpenAI, and Thomson hinted during the Morgan Stanley TMT conference that additional negotiations are already in an advanced stage.

The Meta deal adds to a growing roster of publisher agreements the company has secured this year, including multi‑year licenses with USA Today, People, CNN and Fox News. Those contracts aim to feed Meta’s evolving AI models as it reorganizes its research teams and prepares its next‑generation chatbot, rumored to be codenamed “Avocado.”

By paying for premium news feeds, Meta sidesteps the legal battles that have plagued other AI providers and offers users more reliable source attribution. For News Corp, the arrangement turns a traditionally defensive stance into a revenue stream, reinforcing the notion that large media owners can monetize content in the generative‑AI era.