Why the AI Revolution Requires Tollbooths – Insights from Crazy Stupid Tech

Eighteen months ago, Olivia Joslin and Toshit Panigrahi recognized a significant challenge in the evolving internet landscape: AI chatbots were overwhelming news websites with crawl requests, drastically increasing hosting costs without driving traffic back to publishers. To address this, they founded Tollbit, an online tollbooth that allows publishers to charge AI bots for crawling their content. In just 18 months, Tollbit has attracted over 2,000 clients, including major publications like Time and Newsweek, while processing over 15 million transactions in the first quarter of 2025. This innovation symbolizes a shift in the internet economy, reminiscent of the disruptions caused by Google. As AI chatbots replace traditional search engines, publishers face mounting pressures, exemplified by steep traffic declines. Tollbit offers a potential revenue stream for news organizations, prompting comparisons to the missed opportunities of the early Google era. As the demand for current event data grows, Tollbit stands to expand significantly.

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