SoftBank said on Wednesday it has begun operating GaranAI, a platform that will
source articles from publishers—including Mainichi, Sankei, Kyodo and certain
regional papers—pay contributors and convert content into data formats that make
reconstruction of the original text difficult. The company will further process
those datasets into AI-ready inputs and sell them to AI developers to improve
generative-AI response accuracy. SoftBank released a trial version and is now
accepting developer applications, plans iterative improvements over the next six
months, aims to roll out a full version in or after January next year, and
intends to expand the platform to accept a broader range of copyrighted content.