If you ask an AI agent about the best 401(k) plans, you’ll likely get a unique answer. But the responses are stitched together and reworded from publishers who used to earn a pretty penny by crafting such high-intent content.
If the IAB Tech Lab gets its way, publishers writing about the best 401(k) plans, to name one example, would be compensated every time their story informs a response to a user query. They would also be able to block AI crawlers and make sure their content wasn’t used without payment.
This AI Content Monetization Protocol (CoMP), previewed at AdMonsters’ Sell Side Summit last week, appears to be catching publishers’ attention. But only Google and Meta, already members of the IAB Tech Lab, are participating in the working group.
That doesn’t mean these AI companies aren’t thinking about what they may need to offer publishers. Separately, Perplexity just offered to set aside $42.5 million to compensate publishers.
What do publishers choose? And will they have the leverage to negotiate with powerful AI companies? AI companies may be startups, but they also are attempting to make powerful allies, like committing up to $200 million to hire AI-friendly politicians. Overall, publishers at the Sell Side Summit were optimistic about AI helping them grow their businesses. But time will tell the fate of publishers, as tech disrupts the media industry once again.
The rise of pause
Custom pause ads have long been a jewel of connected TV. They can be clever, hawking products that people consume during pauses, like snacks or toilet paper on bathroom breaks.
But their custom nature, as well as their perceived high attention, has made them jewels for programmers. And the jewels usually don’t go up for programmatic auctions.
This dynamic is changing. Magnite is offering pause ads with DirecTV, Dish and Fubo, and Kargo is also running pause ads. Video games, too, increasingly incorporate pause ads into gameplay.
We discuss the pros and cons of pause ads for users, especially when the ads hide the content users are pausing to see. As their adoption rises, will users hail pause ads as a better alternative to commercial breaks, or will making pause ads programmatic result in sloppier or mismatched executions that make viewers grumble?
