OpenAI is chasing advertising dollars. Can publishers cash in, too?

For the media, this isn’t exactly thrilling news. OpenAI entering the ad business means yet another Big Tech player is competing with them for digital ad dollars alongside platforms like Google, Meta, and Amazon. 

And there’s less traffic to go around since those same AI chatbots summarize content, often negating the need to click through. There’s a reason web traffic to publishers dropped by a third last year.

However, advertising tied to AI answers might end up being exactly the leverage publishers need to make their case for compensation.

When a publisher’s content is used to create the answer to a query, the line back to revenue is always somewhat indirect—after all, the user likely subscribed to the chatbot well before they ever typed their question, and most AI services have a free tier anyway. 

But if your content fuels an answer, and that answer directly leads to revenue for the AI company through either impressions or transactions, the chain from content to dollars is clearer.

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