• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Publishers alarmed by widespread content scraping and other issues may have reason for hope. 

IAB Tech Lab, which sets digital advertising technical standards worldwide, has morphed its LLM Content Ingest API into the AI Content Monetization Protocols (CoMP) Working Group, and expanded its mission. 

"This group came together because the fundamentals of the open web are under ever-increasing pressure," says Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. "Publishers are seeing significant traffic drops from AI experiences like overviews and chatbots. Brands are watching their product information get stripped of context or misrepresented. It's time to build the technical plumbing for a better path forward."

This means supporting a variety of monetization models, including pay-per-crawl, aggregation and outcome-based structures.

IAB Tech Lab is asking for input from publishers, platforms, edge cloud providers and AI agents like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Meta, Perplexity and Grok. 

"While some content deals have been struck with large publishers, the mid and long tail remain unheard,” Katsur points out. “This framework gives everyone a seat at the table." 

The Working Group will define new standards to allow publishers and content creators to monetize their content, focusing on these elements:

• Blocking bot traffic—Publishers need a “door with a lock” to control unwanted scraping. 
• LLM-friendly discovery—The goal is to help publishers participate in AI experiences and build a viable marketplace.
• LLM Ingest API—This will result in a standardized mechanism for content ingestion that allows AI systems to monetize through opt-in participation.

"The rise of generative AI created the Wild West for content usage,” says Shailley Singh, executive vice president, product and chief operating officer, IAB Tech Lab. “What we're building now is the zoning map," 

Singh adds, "This initiative gives publishers the tools to protect their IP and unlock new value—not just plug holes."