Are These the Hero’s Publishers Need Right Now?

In the mid-1400s, Gutenberg’s printing press upended the way ideas traveled. It democratized information and diminished the gatekeeping power of elites. Today, AI is doing the same, only faster, deeper, and with far more ambiguity for the institutions that collate the information. As AI-generated summaries replace search links, and bots outnumber readers, publishers are being written out of the equation.

Perplexity, a $14 billion AI startup, reportedly scrapes sites even when blocked and has republished paywalled content without consent. Google’s AI Overviews and its newer AI Mode strip away even the need to click, turning traditional search into a closed-loop assistant. The result? Sites like Business Insider and The Washington Post have seen traffic drop by more than 50% over three years. Business Insider recently laid off 21% of its staff and declared it was going “all in on AI.”

News outlets that once built their businesses around SEO are seeing their models collapse, and AI companies, some argue, are eating their lunch. Faced with this existential threat, publishers are confronting a hard truth: adapt or disappear.

The Vanishing Click

AI-powered answer engines like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode, and Perplexity AI are accelerating the decline of traditional search-driven referral traffic. Google’s AI Overviews and Mode generate conversational responses that leave little incentive to click through. According to TollBit, a data and monetization platform for publishers, AI search engines now send 96% less traffic to publishers than traditional Google search.

TollBit CEO Toshit Panigrahi warns The Washington Post: “It starts with publishers, but this is coming for everyone.” While AI bots hoover up content to answer user queries, human eyeballs on publisher pages have declined. Yet paradoxically, AI systems now “read” more publisher content than ever before, just not in ways that benefit those publishers financially.

In March 2025 alone, over 26 million AI scrapes bypassed publishers’ content blockers. Time, a TollBit client, used this data to negotiate content licensing deals with OpenAI and Perplexity, but COO Mark Howard notes that, “There is a very, very long way to go” in achieving fair compensation.

Some publishers, like Time, are opting to coexist, negotiating licensing agreements with AI firms (many after initially suing those firms, accusing them of unauthorized scraping). OpenAI has inked deals with The Associated Press, Axel Springer, and The Financial Times. Google, though more reticent, struck a recent deal with The New York Times to integrate content into Alexa experiences. These deals offer short-term revenue but often grant AI companies broad, sometimes exclusive, access to content.

But an increasing number of publishers are attempting to get ahead: not by clinging to SEO, but by redefining what they do, with AI in the mix. This is where innovation is happening. And they have a bit of help.

Defenders and Disruptors

Taboola, the open web ad tech giant, just launched DeeperDive, a generative AI answer engine embedded directly on publisher websites. Instead of letting AI siphon off traffic, Taboola’s model keeps users on-site, offering AI-powered answers pulled from the publisher’s own archives. The system is already live with Gannett and The Independent.

“This is a big day not just for Taboola, but for the entire industry,” said Taboola CEO Adam Singolda. “It’s the shift from 50 cents per click to $500 per conversion, right on the publisher’s site.”

TollBit is arming publishers with visibility and leverage. Its platform tracks AI bot activity and allows publishers to charge for each scrape: transforming AI traffic from silent theft into measurable, billable usage. TollBit’s network now includes over 2,000 publishers, including Time, Hearst, and Adweek.

Every, a media startup founded by Dan Shipper, is embracing AI as a core part of its business model. With tools like Lex (an AI writing assistant) and consulting services for legacy media, Every is saying that journalism and AI don’t have to be at odds. 

ScalePost, co-founded by Ahmed Malik and Zach Todd, while less visible, plays a backstage role. It is helping Perplexity structure partnerships with publishers and provides analytics to track how AI cites their content. Its pitch: transparency, monetization, and strategic control.

Promises of Payouts

Still, skepticism runs high. While Perplexity promises double-digit %ge revenue shares with publishers, many are excluded or left guessing about their compensation. WordPress.com’s partnership with Perplexity is opt-in by default, but even it excludes VIP and nonprofit publishers. Digital marketer Ryan Jones observed, “Unless you’re one of the top few thousand websites… search engines are never going to pay you.” 

There are real risks in aligning too closely with AI platforms. Even publishers inside revenue-sharing programs have voiced concerns about transparency and control.

Worse, the AI race may be making the web itself more closed. As publishers deploy anti-bot tools and paywalls, the openness that fueled the modern internet is fracturing. Crawlers (once welcome guests) are now under siege, risking collateral damage to legitimate uses like accessibility tools and academic research.

An Alternate Path: Build

The reality is this: AI isn’t going away. Fighting AI with lawsuits alone is a defensive game, and coexistence without leverage often leads to exploitation. Instead of relying on tech companies for scraps or suing them into compliance, publishers could pursue strategic independence. To truly get ahead, publishers must become builders again: of tools, ecosystems, and revenue models that prioritize their content and community.

Publishers that treat AI like a threat to be outrun will eventually be overtaken. But those that reimagine themselves as platforms of insight, not just producers of text, can shape the next information ecosystem, whatever form it may take.

Some examples already exist: BuzzFeed is optimizing for “queries that still benefit from deeper context,” such as curated guides and explainers with a personal voice. The Atlantic is diversifying its business with subscriptions, events, and proprietary content tools.

More ambitiously, publishers could form cooperatives to build shared AI models trained only on licensed content, ensuring control and monetization from the outset. Others might embed AI into newsroom workflows not to replace reporters, but to elevate their reach.

Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, put to WSJ “We have to develop new strategies.” Have to. Search traffic may go to zero, but journalism doesn’t have to.