The New York Times<\/a> is confident in its AI legal fights and believes the law is on its side, president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien told Axios.<\/p>\nWhy it matters: Few news companies have the resources to sue the tech giants in precedent-setting cases that will likely define intellectual property rights in the AI era.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying: “If there isn’t a sustainable business model for high-quality independent journalism and other creative work, there won’t be anything to move through the LLMs,” Levien told Axios’ Sara Fischer on Monday.<\/p>\n
“It’s a really big issue for journalism, and for all creators, all rights holders and ultimately we think it’s a really big issue for the public,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We are living in a world right now where I would say there is an abundance of takes and much less original reporting, and that’s because of all the business model pressure there’s been on news organizations.”<\/p>\n
Catch up quick: The Times has sued Perplexity, OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, becoming the first major media company to pursue claims against leading AI firms.<\/p>\n
“The stakes are really, really high here. These companies that make the LLMs have taken our work. They’ve used it without our permission,” Levien said.<\/p>\n
Zoom in: Levien said the Times has built resilience to volatility and macro forces by investing in its core news business and building products to support that.<\/p>\n
That business model helps sustain and protect what she called the core act of independent journalism, where trained reporters go out in the world and unearth new information, “following a professional process to make sure that that is done to no one’s interest but the public’s.”<\/p>\n
“That’s the thing we are protecting, that’s the thing we keep investing in, and we’ve invested into it more and more every year, and I think that’s played a huge difference in the success of the Times,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I really believe that when something big and important happens in the world, people come to the Times because they know they’re going to get information they trust,” she said.<\/p>\n
What to watch: When asked about the future of the Times’ video business, Levien said the medium is a “huge opportunity to get more engagement from the audience we already have” while also reaching new audiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Axios’ Sara Fischer and New York Times president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien speak onstage at Axios House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7263,2788,44507,44505,157,44506,44508],"class_list":["post-81712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-axios","tag-business-model","tag-independent-journalism","tag-meredith-kopit-levien","tag-openai","tag-sara-fischer","tag-sustainable-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Axios'](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0d2933693a26cec0d80218ce6e885807.jpeg\")
Axios’ Sara Fischer and New York Times president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien speak onstage at Axios House Cannes on June 22, 2026. Photo: Nicolas Gavet for Axios <\/p>\n