WTF is AI ‘grounding’ licensing, and why do publishers say it matters over training deals?

AI training licensing deals are starting to feel like yesterday’s news as publishers and platforms focus on more dynamic, usage-based models.

Rather than the initial training deals that formed the backbone of AI licensing partnerships between AI platforms and news publishers, recent deals have forged around different parameters: what many in the industry refer to as “AI grounding.”

In fast-moving digital areas like AI, the terminology tends to splinter quickly. Vendors, publishers, platforms and analysts coin their own terms: for instance, “grounding,” “content inference compute”, and “retrieval augmented generation” (RAG) are all intertwined and refer more or less to the same thing. Those who can’t be bothered with jargon of any sort simply call grounding and RAG “web search.” 

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Inside Estée Lauder’s $14 billion reset: AI, brand trouble and a travel retail retreat

This story was originally published by sister site, Glossy.

Estée Lauder is leaning on AI, digital expansion and product innovation to turn around three years of sales declines. On Tuesday, the company reported fiscal 2025 revenue of $14.3 billion, down 8% year over year, and confirmed it has brought on advisors for a strategic portfolio review — signaling possible brand exits as it works to streamline and recover.

“Beauty Reimagined,” the transformation plan launched in May 2024 under CEO Stéphane de La Faverie, is beginning to show early momentum. “We are energized as we transform our company,” he said on the earnings call. “Together with all of our employees, I am excited for what we will accomplish.”

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