Online journalism has thrived on clicks, generating revenue crucial for supporting reporters. However, with the rise of AI models like Google’s AI Overview and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the landscape is shifting. These AI bots crawl content, redirecting essential traffic away from original publishers, thus jeopardizing their revenue models. AI summaries can misrepresent information, leading to misinformation and depriving publishers of clicks.
Perplexity is tackling this challenge with its “Comet Plus,” a subscription service that directs a share of subscription revenues back to publishers when their content is accessed via Perplexity’s platforms. By courting content agreements, Perplexity aims to provide premium digital content while ensuring that publishers benefit financially. Amid legal issues regarding copyright, firms like Cloudflare are proposing solutions such as a “pay per crawl” model, giving publishers more control and compensation for AI-driven content use. This evolving dialogue emphasizes the need for sustainable revenue models in a rapidly changing digital environment.
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