Anthropic struck a content and data licensing deal with the Associated Press just before the US midterm elections, the first time the company has paid a digital news publisher to license its content. Adweek reported the deal on November 4, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The deal had a concrete election-night use. A user who asked Claude for the latest polling data on Election Night would get up-to-the-minute information provided by and attributed to the Associated Press.
Neither side disclosed the financial terms or the deal's timeframe. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment, and the AP did not comment on the record.
Key facts
- 01Anthropic struck a content and data licensing deal with the Associated Press just before the November 2026 midterms.
- 02It is the first time Anthropic has paid a digital news publisher to license its content.
- 03Claude users asking for election-night polling data got information provided by and attributed to the AP.
- 04Financial terms and the deal's timeframe were not disclosed by either party.
- 05OpenAI has signed more than a dozen publisher licensing deals, including Axel Springer, News Corp. and The Atlantic.
The deal marks a shift for Anthropic. As of August 2025, digital media executives said Anthropic considered its scraping and use of publisher content permissible under fair use, and the company had not signed publisher partnerships or signaled plans to.
Access was the practical problem. Premium publishers block Anthropic's crawlers on their sites, which kept Claude from taking in their timely reporting during fast-moving events like an election.
The AP was a natural first partner. It generates the vast majority of its revenue from licensing and wire deals, positions itself as a service closer to a Getty Images for information, and was also the first publisher to sign licensing agreements with Google and OpenAI.
OpenAI has gone much further down this road, with more than a dozen content licensing deals with major publishers including Axel Springer, News Corp. and The Atlantic.
Adweek characterized the AP arrangement as a limited foray into licensing rather than a sign that Anthropic has permanently changed its strategy, and said Anthropic will likely use the results to decide whether to go further. The deal lands as Anthropic prepares to go public in a matter of weeks.
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