TECH · BREAKING
Folha de S.Paulo and UOL now feed ChatGPT's Brazilian users in the first US AI-to-Brazil media licensing deal of its kind — and both publishers gain access to OpenAI's full developer stack.
OpenAI announced a strategic content partnership with Grupo Folha — publisher of Folha de S.Paulo — and Grupo UOL on May 25, 2026. Starting immediately, users of ChatGPT can access summaries and reporting drawn from both Brazilian outlets, according to OpenAI's official announcement. The deal is OpenAI's first media partnership in Brazil and extends a global program that already covers publishers in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
What the Partnership Covers
Brazil is one of ChatGPT's largest markets globally, with more than 50 million monthly active users and around 140 million messages exchanged per day, per OpenAI's own figures confirmed by multiple independent sources. OpenAI's VP of Media Partnerships Varun Shetty framed the intent directly: the goal is to bring "more useful, timely, and locally relevant answers to ChatGPT, while supporting the broader news ecosystem."
The agreement is not a one-way content license. Grupo Folha and Grupo UOL also gain access to OpenAI's Codex platform, ChatGPT Enterprise, and the API — positioning both publishers as active developers of AI-powered editorial products, not just suppliers of journalism. Carlos Ponce de Leon, Folha's Co-CEO, described the ambition: the partnership is about putting Folha "at the forefront of this transformation and creating new ways to expand the reach, relevance, and impact of trusted journalism."
On the UOL side, CEO Paulo Samia pointed to a structural logic: "AI platforms benefit from reliable sources for news. It is only natural that they partner with the creators of high-quality content for that." UOL Content Director Murilo Garavello added that the goal is to have UOL journalism "in every environment Brazilians use."
The Corridor Read
This is a San Francisco-to-São Paulo deal with consequences running in both directions. For OpenAI, locking in Brazil's two largest digital news operations as both content sources and platform developers deepens its position in a top-tier global market. For Grupo Folha and UOL, decades of Brazilian journalism are now infrastructure inside the world's most-used AI assistant — with a developer runway attached.
The signal for operators watching the Brazil–US corridor: media brands that move early on AI integration gain structural advantages that smaller publishers cannot easily replicate. Folha's Editor-in-Chief Sérgio Dávila put it plainly — OpenAI's interest "only reinforces the importance of professional journalism." For US companies and investors tracking Brazil's digital economy, the deal confirms the country's media sector is now an active node in the global AI supply chain, not a passive content market. Domain, brand, and content strategy for any business operating in the corridor should now account for an AI-licensing layer that did not exist six months ago.
Image: Unsplash
Sources: OpenAI official announcement, Winbuzzer, LatAm Journalism Review, Pulse2, Reuters/TradingView, WindowsReport, StartupHub, Portal dos Jornalistas