Episode 151: How Publishers Can Get Paid for AI, with Matthew Goldstein

Matthew Goldstein joins Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi to break down how AI is reshaping publishing, why traffic declines are less scary than content theft, and what it will take for publishers to get paid in an agentic future. They dig into licensing deals, bot blocking, Microsoft’s content marketplace, and the idea of a real-time exchange for fresh, metadata-rich articles. The conversation also hits Google’s growing advantage, OpenAI’s code-red moment, and what all of this means for ads, agencies, and where digital media revenue goes next.

Takeaways

• Publishers are more focused on getting compensated for AI training and retrieval than on raw traffic drops.

• Bot blocking is rising, but without a shared, reliable block list, it stays messy and uneven.

• Content marketplaces only work if buyers show up, and right now sellers massively outnumber demand.

• A split web is coming: humans browse homepages, while agents pull content at scale from trusted sources.

• Google’s integrated ecosystem gives it a structural edge over everyone in search plus AI.

Chapters

00:09 Welcome and setup for AI and content licensing discussion with MSG

02:10 What happened to MSG’s newsletter and why LinkedIn feels better for feedback

05:11 Birthdays, Spotify Wrapped, and shout outs to the pod’s biggest fans

08:18 State of publishers right now: traffic concerns vs AI taking content

10:26 Upfront licensing deals: why the headlines cooled off and what renewals mean

13:12 Blocking AI bots: Cloudflare rollout, inconsistency, and need for a shared list

15:20 Human web vs agentic web and why the publisher business model must change

18:20 Content marketplaces: how many exist, the demand problem, and Microsoft’s approach

20:36 Marketplace mechanics explained through a finance app example

24:00 Real time per article payments and RAG style usage as the likely model

28:21 What marketplaces imply for publisher ads and MSG’s timeline prediction

31:30 News: BroadSign acquires Place Exchange, and why out of home is heating up

35:17 News: Omnicom IPG deal closes and what it means for agencies

38:41 News: OpenAI code red and the rapid rise of Google Gemini

44:52 Rumors of ads in AI search and in ChatGPT

47:19 LLM referral traffic to retail rises over Black Friday weekend

48:40 Trade Desk talent moves and pricing pressure

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