Publishers

On August 2, Article 50 of the EU AI Act became enforceable. Under the new transparency rules, AI-generated or AI-manipulated content must be clearly and visibly labeled with machine-readable marks; people must be told when they are interacting with a chatbot, an AI agent, or an avatar rather than a person; and deepfakes must be disclosed. The European Commission even shipped an icon set for the labels. Continue Reading →

Google announced that publishers will soon be able to opt their websites out of AI Overviews and AI Mode through a new Search Console control. Continue Reading →

Google just announced updates to AI Mode and AI Overviews that promise to surface more original content and drive traffic back to publishers. The company is adding direct links within AI responses, article suggestions, and website previews to help users "explore the web" rather than getting answers entirely from AI summaries. Continue Reading →

Perplexity is launching a $5/month subscription service called Comet Plus, and it comes with a payout model for publishers. When a user asks a question (and Perplexity pulls from licensed news content), the publisher gets paid. The company is setting aside $42.5 million for the first phase and says 80% of Comet Plus revenue will go to participating publishers, including revenue from higher-tier plans that bundle the feature for free. Continue Reading →

Google just confirmed what many publishers have been dreading: AI summaries are now live in Discover, the main news feed within Google's search app on iOS and Android. This isn't another test; it's a full U.S. launch that fundamentally changes how millions of users consume news daily. Continue Reading →

Condé Nast has signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI, allowing the AI company to use content from its publications, such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. This partnership aims to generate revenue and ensure proper attribution for the media company’s content, amidst challenges posed by changes in traditional search engines. Details of the deal are undisclosed. Continue Reading →

For those of you not of a certain age, at the climax of the original Ghostbusters movie, Gozer the Gozerian (an ancient Sumerian demigod, aka Google) offers the Ghostbusters a choice (albeit, not a great one): they get to choose the form of the monster that will annihilate humanity. As Hollywood movies often do, this worked out okay; evil marshmallow monsters can end up toasted. Even though Google isn't a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, the choice it's offering publishers is absolutely existential. Continue Reading →