The rapid rise of artificial intelligence has sent publishers scrambling to understand the potential threats it poses to their business models and how they can best react and adapt to protect their interests.
The addition of AI-generated responses in Google’s search results pages, which could result in significantly less website traffic, is causing the most consternation. Meanwhile, chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT threaten to fundamentally change how consumers search for and interact with information, potentially disrupting publishers’ relationships with their audiences.
Toolkits spoke with David Buttle, an independent consultant and former Director of Public Affairs and Platform Strategy for the Financial Times, to understand how publishers can quantify the risks AI disintermediation could pose to their business models, how to future-proof their editorial and content strategies, and how to ensure their interests are protected in licensing negotiations with AI platforms.
Quantifying the threat of AI to publishers’ businesses
For publishers hoping to mitigate the impact of AI on their businesses, the first step is understanding where and why their current content and business models could be exposed and disrupted, and where they can invest to defend themselves and insulate their businesses against AI disruption.
“That starts with an analysis of what types of content they're producing that are dependent on Google,” Buttle said. “What kind of search terms are driving traffic to those different types of content? What's the intent behind those search terms? And finally, how effective is AI at serving those user needs that manifest in those queries?”