Illustration, AI-generated from the story text. Tap a panel to enlarge.

An outside analysis says ChatGPT search places licensed publishers first

ChatGPT's news search appears to give licensed publishers a separate path to the top of its answers, according to David Konitzny, a researcher at Berlin start-up Peec AI. In 1,000 sampled cases, partner summaries made up 70% of entries in positions one to three and 23% in positions seven to ten.

He identified 12 publishers across 43 domains, including Condé Nast, Hearst, Axel Springer, News Corp, Reuters and the Associated Press. OpenAI has not disclosed the arrangement and had not responded. If it holds, a publisher without a license is competing for the bottom of the list. SourcesC

Sources

• COpenAI appears to give licensed publishers a hidden head start in ChatGPT (Tomorrow's Publisher)tomorrowspublisher.today

This story ran in the Morning Brief of October 28th 2026.