Louis Dreyfus, the ceo of Le Monde, explained that he decided to sign deals with AI companies to allow them use the French newspaper’s content because they were doing it anyway.
Speaking at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media India conference in Chennai last week, Dreyfus said: “You can put a sign on your lawn that says ‘Please don’t walk on the lawn’. But do you think that people don’t walk on your lawn?”
He said that this being the case, the business wanted some compensation and secured “very significant revenue” from its deal with OpenAI. It has also proved “a strong source of new subscriptions”.
He added that another consideration was making sure Le Monde had a presence on platforms that “will be the main source of information for the younger generation”.
Le Monde is using OpenAI to help it with translations for its English language edition – which has grown since 2022 to have 12,000 subscribers; for text to speech; UX ideation; and reader feedback analysis.
Through a separate deal with Perplexity, it has built an answer engine trained on Le Monde content.
Dreyfus said that Le Monde’s overall attitude towards the platforms was they are an opportunity but also a risk. “We will leverage them, while keeping an eye on our reliance,” he said.
Le Monde now has 660,000 subscribers – 90% of them digital – and is on course for reader revenue to be able to support the newsroom at its current size in two years’ time, said Dreyfus.
The publisher is also looking at other ways of raising revenues. Dreyfus said it had recently launched Le Monde Insights, a FT Strategies-like way of providing digital strategy consultancy services to other publishers based on what Le Monde itself has learnt.
- https://www.reuters.com/technology/frances-le-monde-enters-into-content-partnership-with-ai-startup-perplexity-2025-05-14/ – This article details Le Monde’s partnership with Perplexity, allowing the AI startup to access Le Monde’s content to enhance its search engine responses, while Le Monde utilizes Perplexity’s technology to develop new AI-driven products.
- https://www.perplexity.ai/el/hub/blog/meet-new-sonar – This blog post introduces Sonar, Perplexity’s in-house model optimized for answer quality and user experience, built on top of Llama 3.3 70B, and further trained to enhance answer factuality and readability for Perplexity’s default search mode.
- https://www.lemonde.fr/en/about-us/article/2024/03/13/le-monde-signs-artificial-intelligence-partnership-agreement-with-open-ai_6615418_115.html – This article discusses Le Monde’s partnership with OpenAI, highlighting the agreement’s significance in protecting Le Monde’s content rights and setting a precedent for the industry.
- https://www.ccfi.asso.fr/le-monde-dans-deux-ans-les-abonnements-numeriques-vont-couvrir-la-totalite-des-depenses-editoriales/ – This report states that Le Monde’s digital subscription revenue is expected to cover the costs of its entire editorial staff within the next two years, with 77% of Le Monde’s revenues now coming from paying readers.
- https://www.themedialeader.com/louis-dreyfus-le-monde-notre-accord-avec-openai-cree-un-precedent-pour-toute-lindustrie/ – This article features an interview with Louis Dreyfus, CEO of Le Monde, discussing the newspaper’s profitable initiatives on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and podcasts, and the importance of self-financing.
- https://netacea.com/blog/ai-content-gold-rush-whos-getting-paid-whos-getting-scraped/ – This blog post provides an overview of major licensing deals between content owners and AI companies, including Le Monde’s agreement with OpenAI in March 2024, highlighting the financial aspects of such partnerships.
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