People Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith) recently announced an AI content licensing agreement with Microsoft. This news was released in the third-quarter financial report of its parent company IAC, marking further expansion of People Inc. in the AI field. According to the agreement, People Inc. will become one of the first partners in Microsoft's publisher content market, and this agreement is the second AI deal signed by the company following its initial collaboration with OpenAI.
Image source note: The image is AI-generated
Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., said that this market is essentially a pay-per-use market, where AI companies can pay for the use of publisher content in a "à la carte" manner. He praised Microsoft for its commitment to paying for content in supporting its AI projects and noted that Microsoft's Copilot will be the first buyer in this market. Vogel emphasized that partnering with Microsoft is a strong recognition of the value of their content.
During IAC's earnings call, People Inc. also mentioned that Google's AI summary feature on its search has negatively impacted their traffic. Data showed that two years ago, Google Search accounted for 54% of People Inc.'s traffic, but this proportion dropped to 24% in the past quarter. Vogel expressed concern over this, stating that Google, as a "bad actor," uses the same program to scrape websites for both its search engine and AI features, while publishers cannot block this program because Google Search remains a significant source of traffic for them.
To protect its content, People Inc. has adopted technology from Cloudflare to block other AI crawlers, which has prompted many AI companies to reach out for content collaborations. Vogel also pointed out that blocking AI crawlers has been very effective and expressed hope for more such agreements in the future.
In the financial report, IAC mentioned that People Inc.'s digital revenue increased by 9%, reaching $269 million, with growth rates of 38% and 24% in performance marketing and content licensing, respectively. Additionally, the company acquired Feedfeed, a media publisher and influencer network focused on food.
Key points:
🌟 People Inc. has reached an AI content licensing agreement with Microsoft, becoming one of the first partners in Microsoft's content market.
📉 Google Search traffic has significantly declined, from 54% to 24%.
💻 People Inc. uses Cloudflare technology to block AI crawlers, driving collaborations with AI companies.
