Do AI Data Partnerships with News Platforms Influence Citations?

• Overall, about 3% of all news citations came from publishers with confirmed OpenAI or Google data partnerships.
• Less than 1% of citations from Gemini, AI Mode, and AI Overviews came from Google’s confirmed partner, the Associated Press.
• 28.5% of ChatGPT news citations came from OpenAI partners, though OpenAI partners with many more publishers than Google.

Let’s debunk something.

I’ve heard that because AI is entering into data partnerships with news platforms, you should prioritize those for outreach.

I myself jumped to this conclusion when the news about these partnerships first started dropping.

But since then, I’ve been documenting confirmed AI news publisher partnerships and now have access to a vast array of citations I gathered with the help of Xofu, an AI citation tracker from Citation Labs.

(This is part two of a several-part breakdown of that data. You can see the first study on the role of news publications in AI citations.)

To recap, among the ~4 million citations we studied from OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini, about 14% were to news publisher sites.

But now, we need to look at the connections, which we’ve covered in our AI partnerships study.

Overall News Citations With AI Partnerships

Overall, just 2.94% of news citations came from publishers who have confirmed data partnerships with OpenAI or Google.

However, we need to break it down by partner share because it does look very different based on the platforms.

Do OpenAI Partners Appear More on ChatGPT?

ChatGPT cites partner publishers much more frequently (28.5%) than other platforms.

But hold your horses, folks.

There’s a lot more correlation between the two than there is causation.

First off, OpenAI, which powers ChatGPT, simply has more partnerships than Google.

Our count as of March 2026 shows OpenAI outnumbering Google 17 to one.

Further, the sites ChatGPT partners with are among the most widely cited news outlets on the web.

Among the top 10 cited news domains in our entire study, 7 are OpenAI partner publishers .

Most of the citations come from Axel Springer—specifically Business Insider—followed by News Corp, Future PLC, etc.

(Note, this analysis occurred before Axel Springer acquired Telegraph, though Telegraph never showed up in our data.)

So what about Google?

Do Google Partners Appear More on Gemini, AI Mode, or AI Overviews?

Just 0.77% of the citations from Gemini, AI Mode, or AI Overviews come from the only confirmed true publishing data partnership Google has, with the Associated Press.

Interestingly, though, is that Google announced in a blog post their partnership with AP “will now deliver a feed of real-time information to help further enhance the usefulness of results displayed in the Gemini app.”

So, one may think that Associated Press will show up more in Gemini results because of this.

However, based on our dataset, Associated Press appeared in NONE of the Gemini results.

Is this a limited dataset?

Sure, but one would still think there would be at least one citation from AP?

So What the Heck is Going on Here?

Here’s the thing, as far as we understand, the partnerships announcements typically say the data is being used to help train models.

Typically, citations that these models pull come from live search and retrieval, not from training data.

So, if that is the case, it makes sense that one (news partnerships with AI) wouldn’t lead to another (more exposure in citations).

Why even do the study, you might ask?

For one, I’ve seen claims that connect these dots even though it doesn’t seem to be the case.

And secondly, because we are still so in the dark about all of this, getting as much data as possible to support your strategies is just about the best we can do right now.

How Should This Impact Your Digital PR Strategies?

If appearing in AI citations is your goal and you are using partnerships as a guide for how/where to prioritize, you are chasing the wrong thread.

Realistically, the news of partnerships shouldn’t impact how you think about digital PR because the focus should always be on the story.

Rather than seeking links from specific publishers, look for specific kinds of stories to tell that will support your brand story, key news, and positioning.

The broader takeaways from our larger study saw different, unique kinds of news content getting surfaced by AI models:

These partnerships will most likely become more and more common, and as you’ll see in another study of ours, the alternative that publishers have—blocking AI models—doesn’t seem to keep anything out.

Stay tuned for more.