Yahoo News Tech Startup Aims to Help Media License Content for AI Training
An artificial intelligence startup focused on the media and entertainment sector is launching a new product meant to help media companies and creators license their content to AI model developers.
Avail, which already has a script summarization tool widely used by talent agencies and studio executives, is rolling out its new product, called Corpus, on Thursday.
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“We were really interested in helping some of these smaller media companies or even individual creators participate in this moment, because those big licensing deals that you’re reading about, they are happening between really large media companies, and the big generative AI models, but there’s actually two other brackets of kind of parties here,” says Avail CEO Chris Giliberti. “There’s rights holders that are smaller, that have really valuable data and library, but just aren’t on the scale that could do an individual deal with OpenAI. And then also there’s smaller generative AI companies that are looking for smaller data sets as well.”
Giliberti, who previously founded Gimlet Pictures and later led Spotify’s TV and film business, says that the company has already lined up two media partners: The Spanish-language podcast producer Sonoro, and the short-form video network Mad Realities. He says that YouTubers and other creators will also be a priority.
“YouTubers are going to be a really big focus for us because, for one thing, these chatbots can be referring a valuable audience if the chatbots know who they are,” Giliberti says. “And in order to know who they are, they have to train on their data. And you know, it’s this giant dark spot for the model developers, and they’re desperate to get their hands on more more YouTube content.”
The CEO says that they are working with a number of AI firms, from “the biggest model developers out there” to smaller “application layer companies that are looking to build a really specific type of AI application.”
“The various models have different kinds of remits that they’re looking to buy data against,” Giliberti says of the opportunity for media companies and creators. “So that’s really where we can come into and sort of look at a library and understand, like, okay, this is STEM content, and these particular models right now are really looking for STEM content … there’s no kind of one size fits all sort of demand right now, on the model side, it’s really all against specific priorities that they have.”
Avail launched its initial script summarization tool last year, targeting Hollywood studios, agents, and others in the business who are bombarded by pitches. The firm is backed by Shari Redstone’s Advancit Capital, and Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, as well as the VC firm General Catalyst.
The goal of Corpus is to give smaller media and entertainment companies, as well as independent creators, an opportunity to license their content to AI firms looking to train their models, with giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta all inking deals with major media companies and platforms like Reddit, often leaving smaller entities in the lurch.
“We want to help rights holders get cited and paid; it’s crucial, as the longstanding search and ad revenue model breaks down,” Giliberti says.
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