• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 4, 2025

Fair compensation and attribution of content from has been a point of contention between search companies, brands and publishers, but with the growth of AI-driven search results and chat interfaces, this has worsened.

Concerns have centered on data scraping that has transitioned into generative AI (GAI) scraping without compensation. 

IAB Tech Lab proposed a compensation framework, LLM Content Ingest API Initiative, on Wednesday at its annual summit that supports publishers and brands.  This will help them to manage a "fair value exchange" in the way AI systems and large language models (LLMs) access and use content.

The fair exchange protocol would provide a structure for brands to manage how their information is accessed and interpreted by AI systems, and would give companies a structured way to work out any differences related to increased content scraping from AI systems, while addressing content owners' and LLM developers' concerns.

The framework incorporates technical specifications that enable brands to control how their content is accessed and then integrated into LLMs and AI agent services. 

“It is clear that AI agents powered by large language models are shifting how users engage with content,” said Anthony Katsur, chief executive officer, IAB Tech Lab. “While this is a promising new way for people to access information, we have also seen data showing publisher traffic decreases at 15% or higher, and revenue is down.”

There have been numerous reports that organic website traffic has decreased because of AI search engines like Google AI Overviews, as well as those developed by Perplexity and OpenAI.

Katsur believes AI platforms are impacting publisher revenue and misrepresenting advertisers. The initiative aims to give publishers and brands an enforceable path based on technical standards. 

“People also are interacting a lot more with Google search, but the clickthrough rates to publishers and marketers have significantly declined," BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu told MediaPost in May.

The plan is to develop a workshop to explore solutions to the challenges posed by rogue AI content ingestion, and develop practical and enforceable tools.

It will explore approaches such as understanding and controlling internet bots, LLM-friendly content discovery and delivery, managing bot access, and content monetization.