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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