Microsoft says virtually nobody was grabbing NYT articles through its chatbot
TL;DR
Microsoft's Copilot rarely reproduces even full sentences from news articles and books, let alone substantive chunks that could substitute for the original, the company says in new legal filings as it fights copyright claims from publishers including The New York Times and book authors. As part of the lawsuit's discovery, Microsoft provided 8.2 million Copilot chat logs to an expert hired by news publishers.
Nauti's Take
If the number holds, it is a strong argument for anyone using AI assistants in research and content work, because it cuts against the claim that chatbots substitute for publisher traffic at scale. The catch: this remains one party's figure in an active case, and Microsoft defined the sample itself.
Test your own setup for how often source wording appears verbatim and whether links survive, instead of relying on someone else's count.
Sources