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Brian: Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

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I am Brian Morrisey.

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The rise of generative AI is undoing one of
the web's foundational bargains for years.

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Publishers let Google crawl their content.

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They got traffic in return and they monetized it
mostly with ads running through Google's pipes.

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It was an imperfect bargain, but
at least it was fairly clear.

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Google set the rules and you followed
them, and if you executed on them
as a publisher, you had a business.

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but now with the rollout of AI generated
summaries and answers with AI overviews,
that exchange is just breaking down.

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In fact it's being scrapped altogether.

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I mean, just look at how last week Google
rolled out a offer Walls they're calling it
that lets publishers monetize traffic better.

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And this is a classic case of too little, too
late and it happens to come as publishers of
all sizes are seeing, market traffic declines
from Google, that everyone with eyes and a few
working brain cells believes will only accelerate.

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The prospect of Google Zero has gone from
some kind of worst case scenario planning
to reality at can this year, incongruously
outside of a villa and next to a pool.

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I spoke with Neil Vogel, the CEO of dot
dash Meredith, about how they're preparing
for a world where Google sends little to no
traffic and, and he was very clear-eyed that.

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This isn't about fighting change,
it's about being ready for it.

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and they are leaning into product brand a direct
engagement, because they know the economics
of the open web are shifting under their feet.

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And so every publisher I talk to,
this is, I. You know, just reality.

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The old system simply isn't coming back.

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And, there's an obvious
impulse and I understand it.

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To mourn that and to point fingers at culprits.

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I have many, to, to point fingers at.

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Maybe I'll do that later this summer.

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but none of this strikes me as particularly,
you know, useful it, it focusing on
fairness, I find makes you feel good, but
it doesn't really do much, in reality.

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You know, I think I see a lot of
impatience to sort of move on, because,
you know, nobody's coming to save,
you know, publishing, I don't think.

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And it will need to find a way
out on its own, I think it will.

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I think it's just gonna be messy.

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and that's just because,
you know, when it comes to.

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To these AI engines, the content
has already been ingested.

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These models have been trained,
the value has been stripped.

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there's little chance that I see just based on
my experience of having covered this industry
for a generation that big tech is going to all
of a sudden offer retroactive compensation out of
some kind of principle just simply not happening.

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The real question is what comes next?

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What would it.

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New economic bargain look like.

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one that, that hopefully gives publisher,
publishers a stake in the systems
that are profiting off of their work.

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you know, I, I think that has
to start with attribution.

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I mean, I listen to many podcasts from tech
leaders and I listen to, I listen to the words
that they use and, and what's clear is what

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they are doing, at least it's clear to me is
another instance of obfuscation by positioning
the rampant theft as quote unquote training.

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unlike with Napster, they made sure that the
outputs are not carbon copies and therefore, you
know, any claims of copyright, are irrelevant.

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it's the classic case of the plagiarist who
reorders the words and combines many sources
and then pretends that the work that they
have created is, quote unquote original.

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I have little faith.

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In the courts, particularly following
the recent ruling in favor of Anthropics
AI training on copyrighted books.

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so the question is what comes next In this
episode, I speak with Annalise, Jansen, who
is a Chief Business Officer at Pro rata.

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About how publishers can respond, in this moment.

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cause it's an important one.

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Pro Rata is a startup founded by Bill Gross.

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if you don't know Bill Gross, you should, because
he is the original architect of paid search.

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He basically invented it.

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Google copied it.

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I don't say that like out of my judgment.

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It's the judgment of a court.

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Google had a.

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Pay Yahoo, which, had acquired Overture,
which was the company, that Bill had started
and paid a settlement, because of that.

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so what, Bill and Pro Rata are doing now
is trying to build a new infrastructure
for basically ethical AI engagement.

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And the idea really comes down to attribution.

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And that is, if you can count it, you can
compensate for it, you know, attribution.

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Becomes, the foundation for
this new economic model.

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One that pays publishers not just for
clicks, but for their contributions to the,
the content that is being produced by these
AI engines and that there are, profiting
from, Now how that looks is gonna be messy.

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I mean, this is something
I had spoken to Neil about.

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I mean, in his view, you know, you need to get
leverage, in these negotiations because, you
know, publishers have never been able to exert
themselves, for a whole variety of reasons.

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you know, I think a lot of times people
compare, the publishing industry to.

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you know, for instance, music, right?

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Because if you go on these AI engines, I'm
always struck try to get the lyrics of a song
out of one of these AI engines and you cannot.

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Okay.

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And that's because it's an oligopoly in music
and publishing is incredibly fragmented and these
tech companies wanna fragment it even further.

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And that's why they're all into creators.

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And I could go on about that, ad nauseum, but
I won't, So I think when you think about what
a new bargain would look like, it, it could
mean it, you know, embedding attributions

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into these AI generated, answers and creating
frameworks for a pay per use compensation
and, and giving media companies tools
themselves to build, ai, driven products.

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I mean, if AI is gonna become the new
distribution layer, then publishing is
gonna need a new monetization layer that.

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Matches it and, and works well with it.

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I mean, otherwise I think the risk is obvious.

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I mean, quality content will become simply
an economically unsustainable activity.

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so Anise and I talk about what such a
fair system would look like and why the
current dynamics echoes past failures, to
organize collectively, and also whether
publishers will ultimately become.

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In effect wholesalers to these answer engines.

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This is, something that I've been, going on about
like a bit just because it, it seems pretty clear
to me that that is one path that this could take.

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this is overall a conversation about what happens,
you know, after traffic, after the eyeballs here.

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and how, you know, the value of quality content,
can still be captured by those who create it.

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and also how to get there.

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as always, love to hear your feedback.

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My email is brian@therebooting.com.

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Now here's my conversation with Annalise.

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I did a little podcast.

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We're trying this with Ben Smith and
Peter Kafka, where, you know, to, because
podcasts like discovery is horrific.

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So we figure we have overlapping
audiences, but we're kind of different.

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We're different.

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so we're gonna like split it
up between like the three.

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And then I find out on the
podcast that Ben fakes the intro.

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Like it sounds like he's like, you
know, he acts like, he's like, okay,
and now we'll like, you know, bring
him, but he does that after the podcast.

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He's like, it's show business.

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I'm like, I don't do that.

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Annelies: Yeah, because she can highlight,
you know, you can take specific things that
you've heard through through the podcast.

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I think there's a word for it.

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Is it, is it podcast frenemies

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Brian: Frenemies.

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Yeah.

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Annelies: po.

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Po.

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Pod enemies as in, you know, make sure
that you appear on your neighbor's podcast.

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Brian: Yeah.

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so I'm gonna do the intro later.

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just to make sure I don't butcher your surname.

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Is it, is it Janssen?

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Janssen.

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Janssen?

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Annelies: I listen to many pronunciations of

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Brian: but which do you prefer?

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Annelies: my first name.

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I, I think Anna Jansen Janssen is fine.

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Brian: okay.

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But it's really not.

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Annelies: It's, well, if you were
Dutch and you would speak to me in

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Brian: Yeah.

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Annelies: Janssen.

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Yeah.

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So you'd say y you'd say Janssen.

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Brian: Jansen.

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Annelies: Yeah.

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Brian: Okay.

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Hood.

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Hood.

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I don't know.

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I, I lived in, um, in, live in, for two years.

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Annelies: Oh wow.

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To study or fantastic.

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Brian: my parents lived in
Flemish Commune called Reza.

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just outside of Brussels and I, I went to a year
of college there and then, I went to grad school.

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Annelies: Wow.

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So you learned how to drink beer?

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Brian: Yeah.

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Basically outta marked.

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That was, that was my degree.

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It was in outta mark studies.

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Annelies: It's a lot to learn when you drink beer.

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Brian: Annelise, thank you for joining
me, to talk about AI and impending doom.

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Annelies: Wow.

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Yes.

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It's, it depends on how you look at

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Brian: I know, I know.

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But I wanna start with, we're gonna get into
Prorata and just, but I wanna start with
something that we have discussed, via email and
before this podcast that I almost feel like.

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This is one where publishers
are not actually taking the, the
threat as seriously as they should.

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Like what is happening on many fronts with
ai, but most particularly with traffic.

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I almost feel like people are not
taking it as seriously as they should.

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Just give me, I want to do a little exercise.

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Gimme a worst case scenario, in five
years with where you see things are going.

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You've got experiences on all side of of
this, but like just to sort of paint a
picture, what's a worst case scenario?

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I'm not saying that's gonna happen and
then we'll get to a best case scenario.

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Annelies: well thank you for this and it's
a real, it's a real pleasure to be in this
podcast and to continue our conversation.

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Brian, let me start with something that
I see is happening within the industry.

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I think the big steal is being normalized.

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I.  I personally find that very concerning.

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I think a year ago people were much more
aware that their content was stolen.

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I think a year ago there was a a lot
more discussion and people speaking
up about content being stolen.

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I don't see that anymore.

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Or less, way less of it.

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I was just attending a number of conferences
where it's just not the topic of conversation.

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but let's go back to your question.

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So where do I see this play out?

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And obviously, you know, and I am biased.

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I'm, I have a play out without prorata or as one
could call it a, a product solution for the whole
industry and not just the happy you are able to do
a deal and, and a product solution with prorata.

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but the big deal's happening, all content's
taken and share of wallets, share of
voice, share of audience is with those and
already was with those who did deals who
have been lucky enough to do, to do deals.

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And the deals, whether they're licensing
deals or commercial deals, they're get
out of the courtroom deals, I call them.

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and those

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Brian: boardroom deals.

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What

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Annelies: get, get out of the courtroom

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Brian: Oh, courtroom.

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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They're payoffs.

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Annelies: Yes.

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And so if we continue to, live in this bifurcated
media world where we have the happy view, 0.5%
with some sort of money based on, you know, you
call it licensing, I don't think it's licensing

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depends, but I'm not a lawyer and the ones
who, who don't, the haves and the have not for
the, have not, no payment on output and input.

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Significant loss of traffic from Google.

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No ability to have a control of my brand and my
content's appearance and use in Gen AI answers.

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I really, really worry about the 99.5% of media.

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I don't, I worry less about the
large players than, than the the
nationwide newspaper or magazine who.

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In many instances, particularly in the English
speaking world, have been able to make a deal.

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I also worry about those deals going forward.

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Are they sustainable?

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Are they just a one-off payment?

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And then in three years time, people change their
minds and say, actually, no, we've done this.

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Now you've got our tech.

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'cause as part of the, the deal, you
got our tech, now it's up to you to
use our tech to build engagement, ai
engagement within your own media channels.

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But there is no more deal.

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who knows?

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I, I am not a fortune teller, but I
really worry about the next, uh, where
we're gonna be in five years time.

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If the industry that doesn't have a deal
today doesn't come together and collaborate.

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To build an alternative, which what
I would call a new economic model.

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And initially when we started
Prorata, it was about this new
economic model where we build a tech.

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To enable a user to see independent, to have
independent attribution on all gen AI answers.

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If you can count it, you can share it.

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Good for the users, we would argue, but also good
for content creators, publishers, media owners,
because there's a real visible contribution

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to my content used in a Gen AI answer, but
that requires the L LMS to collaborate with an
independent attribution company like ourselves.

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Is not happening today.

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We've built the independent attribution
platform to do that, but but also to do

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Brian: isn't a tech problem is I think
is my sort of like, what I would say.

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It's like, it's not a tech problem
to understand, you know, attribution.

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It, it is, it's possible, right?

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Like, I mean the, the, the, the, the
things that AI is being promised to be
able to do, I mean like every day and
it does sometimes line up with funding.

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you know, we, we.

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Hear about like, oh, 95% of doctors will
be gone in three years and, and all kinds
of different things that that AI is able to

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do, but somehow, some way it's not able to
actually properly attribute where this stuff
came from that they took and it's galling.

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I think in some ways anyone who's been in
media or, or appreciates what media does for
society and the economy, and particularly
if their jobs rely on it, to be fair.

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but at the same time we had
to sort of get on with it.

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I mean, when I talk with someone
like, Neil Vogel I had on a couple
weeks ago, you know, he is like, look.

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00:14:15,105 --> 00:14:15,975
Deal with the devil.

205
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I don't know.

206
00:14:16,875 --> 00:14:21,345
We're going in with, you know, it's, it's, it's,
it's trust but verify and this isn't forever.

207
00:14:21,345 --> 00:14:22,275
We're not getting married.

208
00:14:22,425 --> 00:14:26,685
And, and what I hear is always
better to have a seat at the table.

209
00:14:26,690 --> 00:14:33,165
That, that, that, that is the sort of the, the,
the, I don't wanna say cliched answer, but it is
kind of the cliched answer a seat at the table.

210
00:14:33,165 --> 00:14:35,115
And I've heard this like several different times,

211
00:14:36,064 --> 00:14:36,334
Annelies: Yeah.

212
00:14:36,334 --> 00:14:38,464
And you know, you would argue
you would do the same thing.

213
00:14:38,954 --> 00:14:42,944
the problem here is we don't have a seat
at a table for all content creators.

214
00:14:42,974 --> 00:14:45,134
We only have it for what I call the happy view.

215
00:14:46,044 --> 00:14:47,124
Brian: the tech people love that.

216
00:14:47,154 --> 00:14:49,164
They love the divide and conquer approach.

217
00:14:49,374 --> 00:14:53,244
And now I'm like going anti-tech when I was just
watching mountain Heads, like it's in my head.

218
00:14:53,754 --> 00:14:58,755
but like, you know, they love the, that's
why a lot of like to me, like technology
companies love the creator economy.

219
00:14:58,755 --> 00:15:03,840
I. And they're like, oh yeah, why do
I want to, like, we spent a generation
getting beat up by big publishers.

220
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:09,030
Why don't we just have like millions and millions
of small people that are dependent on us?

221
00:15:09,150 --> 00:15:11,400
Like, sounds like a better system to me.

222
00:15:12,130 --> 00:15:13,720
and I think that's, that's really the risk.

223
00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:18,100
But what you're saying is like, yes, the, the
dot dash Meredith, they're gonna cut their deals.

224
00:15:18,100 --> 00:15:22,000
You know, the New York Times can incur
tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.

225
00:15:22,274 --> 00:15:23,504
but then, you know.

226
00:15:24,119 --> 00:15:29,669
I think some maybe naive people, like I, I got
a couple text messages like, wow, real shocker.

227
00:15:29,669 --> 00:15:31,679
They cut a deal on AI with Amazon.

228
00:15:31,679 --> 00:15:32,639
I'm like, what are you talking about?

229
00:15:32,639 --> 00:15:34,889
I'm like, litigation is a form of negotiation.

230
00:15:35,099 --> 00:15:35,909
Like right.

231
00:15:36,509 --> 00:15:37,769
Annelies: yeah, absolutely.

232
00:15:38,069 --> 00:15:44,515
I would argue there that if, as part
of the settlements, they would, require
independent attribution that the industry.

233
00:15:45,100 --> 00:15:50,740
Overall would benefit it from it,
and that I'm definitely campaigning
for that message to be included.

234
00:15:51,255 --> 00:15:54,825
we're not there yet, but I think
it's really important for everybody.

235
00:15:54,825 --> 00:15:56,535
You said have a seat at the table.

236
00:15:56,535 --> 00:16:03,815
I think it's really important for everybody to
have a seat at the table and there is, there
are comparables in the industry, Spotify.

237
00:16:04,590 --> 00:16:07,110
Everybody has a seat at the table at YouTube.

238
00:16:07,110 --> 00:16:08,640
Everybody has a seat at the table.

239
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:10,740
So it's only in Gen ai.

240
00:16:10,740 --> 00:16:16,705
In Gen AI answers Gen AI engagement
that not everybody has a seat at
the table when it comes to payout.

241
00:16:16,860 --> 00:16:17,160
Brian: Yeah.

242
00:16:17,610 --> 00:16:20,330
Do you know what, do you know something
that's, endlessly fascinating to me?

243
00:16:20,643 --> 00:16:28,022
try to get music lyrics on, Chachi pt. Let's
going try to get them, just say any sort of,
you know, and you won't be able to get them.

244
00:16:28,668 --> 00:16:32,418
And the reason is the, the,
they've been through this.

245
00:16:33,018 --> 00:16:42,708
And they're lawyered up and they're organized,
like unlike publishers who could not organize
a two car funeral parade, I guess it's
not a per se parade, it's a procession.

246
00:16:42,738 --> 00:16:43,548
Maybe it should be a parade.

247
00:16:43,548 --> 00:16:44,358
Depends on the person.

248
00:16:44,886 --> 00:16:45,726
You cannot get.

249
00:16:45,786 --> 00:16:51,916
I tried to get like a Tupac lyric and don't
ask, and, and I could not get it there.

250
00:16:52,066 --> 00:16:56,176
I, and then, and just like randomly
I tried, like I, I got the lyric.

251
00:16:56,326 --> 00:16:59,536
What's interesting is you get
these lyrics on Google, right?

252
00:16:59,686 --> 00:17:02,926
But like, I, I took, I, I couldn't
like copy and paste something.

253
00:17:02,926 --> 00:17:07,227
So I took a photo and I said, just give me
the, give me the text in here  just the photo.

254
00:17:07,677 --> 00:17:10,497
And it identified that these were lyrics.

255
00:17:11,157 --> 00:17:12,747
Said, I cannot perform that function

256
00:17:13,178 --> 00:17:13,398
Annelies: Wow.

257
00:17:15,733 --> 00:17:16,093
Brian: well.

258
00:17:16,093 --> 00:17:17,023
Well, well, I feel like

259
00:17:17,053 --> 00:17:17,953
Annelies: Yeah.

260
00:17:18,043 --> 00:17:20,960
Well, it, I mean, I think,
Spotify is a good example.

261
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:27,471
The music industry is a good example, and
one could argue Spotify brought that product
through which the industry had to collaborate.

262
00:17:28,071 --> 00:17:41,091
If they had to organize themselves without
Spotify to collaborate on making, making
the, the mu digital music, pay for all
players involved and, and, and license it,
they would never have been able to do so.

263
00:17:41,091 --> 00:17:43,341
But Spotify was that independent

264
00:17:43,626 --> 00:17:44,166
Brian: Yeah.

265
00:17:44,526 --> 00:17:47,436
You know, people in media, we've
been in this business a little time.

266
00:17:47,646 --> 00:17:52,266
People in media like to blame, like
antitrust and all these things,
and no, it's just disorganization.

267
00:17:52,566 --> 00:18:00,916
They've never, anytime anything has
been, to actually have a joint action
of any kind, it completely falls apart.

268
00:18:01,156 --> 00:18:01,996
It, it, it.

269
00:18:02,006 --> 00:18:04,046
Like, it's the opposite of opec.

270
00:18:04,136 --> 00:18:05,996
It's the, it's the worst organization.

271
00:18:05,996 --> 00:18:17,336
And I just don't see that anytime anyone says
they're gonna organize, whether it was Yahoo
with their newspaper alliance, you know, so
like a generation ago, it never ever works.

272
00:18:17,396 --> 00:18:21,987
And and so I think it is gonna have to
be organized probably to some degree.

273
00:18:22,487 --> 00:18:29,807
From the outside, but let's talk about, like, we
will talk about the mechanics there, but you know,
I asked you for a worst case scenario, right?

274
00:18:30,017 --> 00:18:31,727
So gimme what a new.

275
00:18:32,287 --> 00:18:37,027
Economic accord looks like I've been like, sort
of jokingly call it like a Mar-a-Lago accord.

276
00:18:37,327 --> 00:18:50,327
Like what is a Mar-a-Lago accord of, which
is the, the name given to this idea that
there's some grand plan with everything
we're doing on tariffs and whatnot, to,
to create a, a deal that will increase us.

277
00:18:50,672 --> 00:18:58,828
Exports and devalue the dollar and, and
increase other currencies and various other
things to, to normalize, trade imbalances.

278
00:18:59,128 --> 00:19:08,728
What, what would be a sort of Mar-a-Lago
accord that resets the economic incentives
that are being ripped up right now?

279
00:19:08,728 --> 00:19:18,418
Because I, I don't think people fully organ
realize that Google adopting AI mode is
walking away from an economic bargain that has.

280
00:19:18,613 --> 00:19:22,993
Dictated the internet from basically
from the commercial internet.

281
00:19:22,993 --> 00:19:28,093
And you know, after the portal era, you know,
Google has been the arbiter of the internet.

282
00:19:28,213 --> 00:19:30,883
It is distributing it, distributed the traffic.

283
00:19:31,003 --> 00:19:33,703
The unspoken agreement was always that.

284
00:19:33,823 --> 00:19:36,253
You're gonna get tr you're gonna
allow us to crawl your site.

285
00:19:36,253 --> 00:19:37,603
We're gonna take the snippets.

286
00:19:37,603 --> 00:19:38,083
It's fine.

287
00:19:38,083 --> 00:19:43,873
It's not copyright violation, just pretend
it isn't and then we're going to send you
back traffic that you're gonna monetize.

288
00:19:43,873 --> 00:19:47,413
And oh, by the way, it'd be really good if you
use our ad tech stack 'cause we'd like a taste.

289
00:19:47,893 --> 00:19:50,293
Would be terrible for something
to happen to that traffic.

290
00:19:51,313 --> 00:19:53,113
Maybe that's a cynical take, but that's my take.

291
00:19:53,653 --> 00:19:56,953
What is a new, what's a Mar-a-Lago
Accord for the AI error?

292
00:19:58,038 --> 00:19:59,778
Annelies: so I think it starts
with a couple of things.

293
00:19:59,778 --> 00:20:04,638
First of all, acceptance and understanding
in the industry that, that you can count it.

294
00:20:05,238 --> 00:20:14,728
That attribution is needed, that on
every Gen AI answer, it is possible to
attribute the original content sources and,

295
00:20:14,743 --> 00:20:17,143
Brian: they're doing right now,
like they are kind of doing it.

296
00:20:17,143 --> 00:20:23,353
I even see the rebooting is, is, has,
has sometimes gets this little logo like
up there, so I'm getting slurped up.

297
00:20:23,413 --> 00:20:23,953
I, I don't know.

298
00:20:23,953 --> 00:20:24,583
I was like, oh.

299
00:20:24,583 --> 00:20:27,163
I was like kind of excited by that,
but I'm not sure if I should be,

300
00:20:27,193 --> 00:20:34,076
Annelies: But, you know, you know, there is
a trust, that, that we need to bring into
this space when it comes to attribution.

301
00:20:34,526 --> 00:20:41,696
And that's why we're really working on third
party validation to make sure that our,
in our attribution model is independent.

302
00:20:42,368 --> 00:20:45,578
I think if you, you know, I, I, I like the com.

303
00:20:46,076 --> 00:20:53,456
You know, going back in time in terms of Google
and how it changed the industry forever, and
it was that, I think it was a silent killer.

304
00:20:53,906 --> 00:20:56,816
None of us really knew that it
was going to be a silent killer.

305
00:20:56,816 --> 00:21:00,926
And that's why it was, that's why we can
frame it as a silent killer this time around.

306
00:21:00,956 --> 00:21:02,216
It's going much faster.

307
00:21:02,276 --> 00:21:11,493
And so therefore, and, and it's also not
very silent, although for so many industry
it is are the, so the new accord is, educate.

308
00:21:12,122 --> 00:21:17,307
And inspire all content creators that
educate 'em that attribution is possible.

309
00:21:17,667 --> 00:21:23,007
Inspire them to, not to be dependent,
because we've all become codependent.

310
00:21:23,007 --> 00:21:25,797
You know, and I was a, a, a publisher myself.

311
00:21:26,217 --> 00:21:31,467
You become codependent on traffic
that needs to come from a third party
source where you have no control.

312
00:21:31,647 --> 00:21:38,292
And I'm really worried about, the, the, the
Google environment moving into AI where it is.

313
00:21:38,787 --> 00:21:41,937
No longer going to be an extension
of your brand and your content.

314
00:21:42,147 --> 00:21:54,837
You know, in, in the good old search world, at
least your content, your brand was visible and
a snippet of your content as well, so that at
least there was some sort of brand and content
extension, that's how you could sell it.

315
00:21:54,867 --> 00:21:56,247
And then it brings back traffic.

316
00:21:56,577 --> 00:22:00,297
In the new world, there is no brand
extension or content extension.

317
00:22:00,747 --> 00:22:08,067
That you can, I would arguably, I, I would argue,
could actually build in, into your business
model, into your p and l because it's out there.

318
00:22:08,277 --> 00:22:09,147
There's no traffic.

319
00:22:09,147 --> 00:22:17,937
Zero click and search environment brings
very little traffic, if, if at all, and
there's no forecastable revenue stream.

320
00:22:18,537 --> 00:22:20,487
So what do we need to do to change it?

321
00:22:20,487 --> 00:22:25,987
And the industry, what I do here, more
and more is we need to work together.

322
00:22:27,037 --> 00:22:33,997
And I'm like, well, you've kind of already
worked together, but under the control of
somebody else, when a user's looking for

323
00:22:33,997 --> 00:22:42,904
an article about, the earthquake in Japan,
they will get an, they'll get an answer
from Google with 10 20 brands covering that.

324
00:22:43,384 --> 00:22:46,384
New story in the new paradigm,
that's not going to happen.

325
00:22:46,444 --> 00:22:49,894
So, but you were effectively working together.

326
00:22:49,894 --> 00:22:52,054
You were displayed amongst your competitors.

327
00:22:52,384 --> 00:22:55,294
So our view is build a toolkit.

328
00:22:56,164 --> 00:23:07,534
That enables you to embrace AI search,
embrace AI engagement, not to walk away
from it, not to let it, not to leave that
to a third party where you don't control.

329
00:23:07,564 --> 00:23:08,644
You have no control.

330
00:23:08,824 --> 00:23:13,534
They may change the rules, they may change
the algorithm, but actually take back control.

331
00:23:13,584 --> 00:23:23,164
And how do you take back control and
collaborate is, you know, and obviously
I'm, I'm biased, but I would say that's what
we're building, in Prorata found with the

332
00:23:23,164 --> 00:23:31,534
foundation of attribution, building a toolkit
that enables the industry to work together to
bring AI engagement within your own channels.

333
00:23:31,964 --> 00:23:35,624
Brian: But like attribution is a first
step to pay per use compensation.

334
00:23:35,674 --> 00:23:36,214
Annelies: Yeah,

335
00:23:36,464 --> 00:23:41,624
Brian: So basically every time, you
know in this like, new Accord, right?

336
00:23:41,954 --> 00:23:49,784
Anytime, you know the rebooting is used in
a Gen AI answer, I get some ducketts my way.

337
00:23:50,384 --> 00:23:50,714
Is that it?

338
00:23:52,229 --> 00:24:08,679
Annelies: Yeah, so, and if you allow me, I can
explain what, what I think that the, the healthy
eco ecosystem is going to look like in five
years time if, the industry, adopts AI engagement
tools like the ones that we are developing, so.

339
00:24:09,549 --> 00:24:12,009
We've used license content only.

340
00:24:12,069 --> 00:24:18,999
We have licensing deals, and I would
argue we're probably only player that are
actively and and actually licenses content.

341
00:24:19,329 --> 00:24:22,569
We use that content to create an ai.

342
00:24:23,169 --> 00:24:25,239
Ethical AI Answer engine.

343
00:24:25,689 --> 00:24:30,849
Some people call it engagement engine,
some people call search engine,
but we create ethical AI search.

344
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:40,689
An ethical AI source always comes with the
independent attribution, always with the link back
to the original content source, and it comes with
monetization or park monetization for a moment.

345
00:24:40,719 --> 00:24:50,139
But we, we believe that we can only do this,
you can only create a healthy ecosystem if
you bring new monetization into the mix.

346
00:24:50,589 --> 00:25:00,199
The toolkit enables us to, offer
these to publishers with whom we have
licensing deals to start to build AI
engagement within your own channels.

347
00:25:00,289 --> 00:25:08,779
So you effectively get a toolkit to
build, ask me anything related, links
within your pages to drive AI engagement.

348
00:25:09,019 --> 00:25:12,709
'cause as I, as I said earlier,
AI engagement's not gonna go away.

349
00:25:12,769 --> 00:25:16,579
That train's left the station a
billion users across the globe.

350
00:25:16,789 --> 00:25:17,269
So.

351
00:25:17,869 --> 00:25:24,269
Publishers, content creators need to embrace it,
and we help them to, build that AI engagement.

352
00:25:24,989 --> 00:25:26,639
Some people have already done that.

353
00:25:26,699 --> 00:25:29,819
Most people who do it have used their deals.

354
00:25:29,879 --> 00:25:39,119
The 0.5% happy view, who've, who've received
DPU credits, as part of their deals, the 99.5%.

355
00:25:40,438 --> 00:25:44,008
sometimes do not know how to do
this, can't afford to do this.

356
00:25:44,500 --> 00:25:49,840
and, and in many instances do not have enough
content if they were even able to do it.

357
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:55,750
Do not have content to deliver
desired answers by users.

358
00:25:56,020 --> 00:26:02,230
So what we came up with is this toolkit that you
embed within your pages drives AI engagement.

359
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:03,790
It uses content.

360
00:26:04,180 --> 00:26:11,650
From not just your own corpus, but
also the corpuses that we have licensed
with our trusted content partners.

361
00:26:12,250 --> 00:26:12,580
Brian: Okay.

362
00:26:12,900 --> 00:26:18,480
and it should say, I mean, prorata is started
by Bill Gross, who, has a long history.

363
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,450
I, I, everyone should know who
Bill Gross is, at least in my view.

364
00:26:21,769 --> 00:26:22,329
Annelies: I. think so too.

365
00:26:22,624 --> 00:26:31,324
Brian: Because, you know, he's really
the person who pioneered the greatest
economic engine that the world has ever
seen, which is known as paid search.

366
00:26:31,324 --> 00:26:32,464
Google did not invent it.

367
00:26:32,464 --> 00:26:43,274
They actually had to pay for, ripping
it off if you really go back, because
you know what was Overture at the
time, which actually was rebranded.

368
00:26:43,364 --> 00:26:46,274
I, I, I go all the way back
Annalise, I go back to GoTo.

369
00:26:46,364 --> 00:26:47,564
That's how you know the OGs.

370
00:26:47,564 --> 00:26:50,144
They go, they go back to GoTo, not, not Overture.

371
00:26:50,699 --> 00:26:58,149
You know, and you know, I think at the
time I, it was really when I started, it
was really when I started in journalism.

372
00:26:58,329 --> 00:27:06,069
I remember having a meeting with, and it
wasn't with GoTo, it was with Find Watt,
which was one of the other competitors.

373
00:27:06,069 --> 00:27:06,969
I know I'm going way back.

374
00:27:06,969 --> 00:27:07,149
Right.

375
00:27:07,893 --> 00:27:11,643
and I remember them explaining
this to me that they were putting
these ads on search results pages.

376
00:27:11,643 --> 00:27:12,183
I was like.

377
00:27:12,738 --> 00:27:13,758
This is insane.

378
00:27:13,818 --> 00:27:15,288
I'm like, you can't do this.

379
00:27:15,828 --> 00:27:17,358
That was like what it was back then.

380
00:27:17,568 --> 00:27:24,168
Nobody understood that the search
results page was the most valuable
piece of real estate in the world.

381
00:27:24,468 --> 00:27:33,216
It was used for remnant banner ads, like
whatever, the 4 46 by 60, whatever the, the,
the little, banner at size was back then.

382
00:27:33,642 --> 00:27:34,722
maybe some skyscrapers.

383
00:27:35,562 --> 00:27:42,112
But it, nobody understood it, until
Gotto and then Overture started
the, really the paid search system.

384
00:27:42,112 --> 00:27:52,222
Now, I mean, you could argue Google really
perfected it and really, you know, was able
to use its muscle, in order to, You know,
basically take over the entire market.

385
00:27:52,402 --> 00:28:00,532
And it's, it's interesting to me, like,
because of all of the, the antitrust,
actions now I'm like reading through them.

386
00:28:00,532 --> 00:28:03,007
I'm like, I. Yeah, they've been
doing this like since the beginning.

387
00:28:03,007 --> 00:28:04,327
This is like the business model.

388
00:28:04,327 --> 00:28:05,017
What are you talking about?

389
00:28:05,017 --> 00:28:13,537
I was like, I'm talking to Overture like
every other week because Google was cutting
uneconomic deals with a OL to buy distribution.

390
00:28:13,597 --> 00:28:14,827
It just did it with Apple.

391
00:28:14,917 --> 00:28:21,427
Like it, they literally had been doing
this since the start and Overture couldn't
compete because the, that was their business.

392
00:28:21,457 --> 00:28:29,197
And basically Google was saying, we're gonna
give you more money than you generate because
we're gonna, we're gonna wipe up the entire
market because we have our own search engine.

393
00:28:29,751 --> 00:28:32,241
All that is a long preamble to say what?

394
00:28:32,721 --> 00:28:48,171
I'm sure that that experience wa wa was top
of mind in designing prorata for, a new, a
new era, but explain how it was built in such
a way with, with that experience in mind.

395
00:28:48,807 --> 00:28:51,567
Little history, little history
lesson there for everyone.

396
00:28:51,882 --> 00:28:52,242
Annelies: yeah.

397
00:28:52,242 --> 00:28:58,452
You know, it's, it's lessons from history and
the things that we don't, we want to repeat
and we, we don't ever want to do again.

398
00:28:58,862 --> 00:29:08,732
and I think in, in the show notes, definitely
if you can put, a link to bill's, Idea
Lab where everything on the website, uh,
you need to know about Bill is there.

399
00:29:09,116 --> 00:29:11,876
you know, he's a legend and
he's a legend in many ways.

400
00:29:12,186 --> 00:29:20,196
he has a, a real talent for understanding where
there's a gap in the market and where there's an
opportunity to, to build a new business model.

401
00:29:20,496 --> 00:29:21,426
So when he read.

402
00:29:21,871 --> 00:29:27,841
The New York Times, when he read the
news about the New York Times lawsuit,
he thought, this is just not right.

403
00:29:27,991 --> 00:29:39,331
You know, within Gen AI answers, only a few people
are are able to take the large language models to
court and only a few will be able to do a deal.

404
00:29:39,746 --> 00:29:41,186
What's out there for the rest?

405
00:29:41,216 --> 00:29:45,806
I need to build a new economic model where
basically if you can count it, you can share it.

406
00:29:45,956 --> 00:29:47,336
That's how this all started.

407
00:29:47,966 --> 00:30:01,911
And by setting up the mission that I want to build
a business that is pro publisher, pro content
creator, pro author, and I want to help them
and guide them to speak up for themselves and,
and to highlight where their content is used.

408
00:30:02,451 --> 00:30:12,381
We build a, we build a A team around this
mission that actually comes with deep
tech experience, deep media experience
and deep entrepreneurial experience.

409
00:30:12,381 --> 00:30:16,071
And on the entrepreneurial side, I
mean our tech team build the bing.

410
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:25,904
Knowledge graph, the being advertising system
Bill Build, go to Overture, which basically
now is, what is it, $300 billion of revenue

411
00:30:26,264 --> 00:30:35,454
across the whole and probably even more so
he's, he's, he's the founder of these, new
implementations of what I would call old ideas.

412
00:30:35,654 --> 00:30:38,744
and, and a traditional, existing ideas.

413
00:30:38,744 --> 00:30:47,454
You know, if you build, if you make something
great, you'll, you'll get an audience and then
you can get paid for it, whether it's the audience
pays for it or the advertiser pays for it.

414
00:30:47,754 --> 00:30:51,534
And in this new world of ai, we
need to be able to replicate it.

415
00:30:51,714 --> 00:30:58,554
And for that we need to understand the
tech, and we need to build a tech that
enables us to build great product.

416
00:30:59,154 --> 00:31:05,724
You know, and I think Neil said it so
well in that podcast, you know, it was all
about building great and engaging products.

417
00:31:05,904 --> 00:31:09,354
I loved it when he said A
media business is fantastic.

418
00:31:09,354 --> 00:31:20,154
You build something great, you build a
great content story, a great storyline,
a great product to engage with that story
in that content, and then you get an
audience and then you monetize the audience.

419
00:31:20,544 --> 00:31:24,894
And we can do the same thing in
the world of ai, but we need.

420
00:31:25,494 --> 00:31:28,374
Content owners and creators
to understand how to do this.

421
00:31:28,374 --> 00:31:40,824
And that's where, that's, that's the, the
foundation of our company, which is an economic
model, a very experienced team who's incredibly
passionate about solving this problem.

422
00:31:41,034 --> 00:31:43,104
And we do that with the industry.

423
00:31:43,194 --> 00:31:46,794
You know, we lean in, we, and, and,
and that's together, we can solve it.

424
00:31:46,794 --> 00:31:53,459
And I always say to publishers, I don't
have all your answers, but I have the
best team to get to the right answer.

425
00:31:53,739 --> 00:31:59,134
Brian: Yeah, but I guess the point that
I was trying to get at was like, are,
are you building a consumer company?

426
00:31:59,314 --> 00:32:10,054
Or a B2B company or both in that, like, I get
the, the positioning of like, we're on the
side of publishers, you know, and that's why I
wanted to talk to you, to be honest with you.

427
00:32:10,054 --> 00:32:13,924
If you were like, I wanna put them
out of business, I probably would be
like, yeah, let's pass that Elise.

428
00:32:14,494 --> 00:32:16,937
Um, you know, I, I like that.

429
00:32:16,937 --> 00:32:17,207
Right?

430
00:32:17,207 --> 00:32:21,137
But I go back to the overture
experience and overture.

431
00:32:21,437 --> 00:32:23,687
You know, look, it got bought by Yahoo eventually.

432
00:32:23,687 --> 00:32:26,657
It was, it was a great exit, but it,
it, it lost against Google, right?

433
00:32:26,657 --> 00:32:30,137
Because Google had a search engine,
it had a direct tie to the consumer.

434
00:32:30,377 --> 00:32:34,847
It vacuumed up a ton of data and an
overwhelmed overture in the marketplace.

435
00:32:34,877 --> 00:32:40,307
It just slowly lost every single
deal because Google could say, name
the number, we'll just take it.

436
00:32:40,427 --> 00:32:44,987
I mean, at the time people don't in, in
Google was tiny compared to how it is now.

437
00:32:44,987 --> 00:32:45,767
I can remember.

438
00:32:46,247 --> 00:32:51,587
Go back to neil about.com at the time,
which is the sort of origins of Do Meredith.

439
00:32:52,021 --> 00:32:57,941
you know, they used a rival AdSense
product, called Springs, I believe, and I.

440
00:32:58,859 --> 00:33:00,929
About was one of the largest
sites on the internet.

441
00:33:00,929 --> 00:33:02,939
Google was like, we need that real estate.

442
00:33:03,149 --> 00:33:05,519
So they just bought sprints and shut it down.

443
00:33:06,089 --> 00:33:09,149
I was like, here you go, you're using AdSense now.

444
00:33:09,709 --> 00:33:12,469
you know, and that I think spoke
to, to how things were going.

445
00:33:12,469 --> 00:33:23,138
But like, I I, I'd love to get it that,
because like, explain to me is just AI
gonna try to compete with chat, with
chat GBT and like, and, and Gemini.

446
00:33:23,168 --> 00:33:24,458
Like that seems like a lot.

447
00:33:25,107 --> 00:33:39,565
Annelies: Now we build just AI because we needed
to prove that attributions possible and we needed
to show to publishers what it looks like, what is,
you know, we're using your content to build an AI
answer experience and this is what it looks like.

448
00:33:39,817 --> 00:33:41,017
that was step number one.

449
00:33:41,017 --> 00:33:43,537
And now we're working with
these publishers to actually.

450
00:33:44,159 --> 00:33:52,783
Take gist into a, we call a gist powered
GPA product that you integrate across
your channels to drive distribution.

451
00:33:53,375 --> 00:33:53,705
Brian: Okay.

452
00:33:54,301 --> 00:33:58,201
so it's mostly, so explain how,
how do you get leverage in that?

453
00:33:58,231 --> 00:34:03,931
Because I think the, the, you know, we can talk
about what's fair and what's not and, and it's,
it's interesting and I'm, I'm probably gonna.

454
00:34:04,121 --> 00:34:13,931
End up agreeing with you that it's unfair,
but at the same time, I don't know, my
experience in in the world has generally
been, it really comes down to leverage.

455
00:34:13,991 --> 00:34:18,131
And publishers individually have like no juice.

456
00:34:18,131 --> 00:34:19,241
They have no leverage.

457
00:34:19,271 --> 00:34:20,531
I mean, good luck.

458
00:34:20,621 --> 00:34:25,781
You might as well be, you know, going up against
the, the house of Lannister with like a rock.

459
00:34:25,901 --> 00:34:27,041
It's just not gonna happen.

460
00:34:27,281 --> 00:34:29,261
Or, or not even the lannis,
the ones with the dragons.

461
00:34:29,710 --> 00:34:30,160
so like.

462
00:34:30,300 --> 00:34:31,140
That that's out.

463
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:38,280
And then I don't even know, first of all, the
history of publishers doing anything together
is very consistent in that it never works.

464
00:34:38,700 --> 00:34:45,900
and so I end up wondering why in the world would
outside of some kind of legal action, which.

465
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:52,380
Does not seem, which is not happening
in the United States, obviously, at
least in the next three plus years.

466
00:34:52,730 --> 00:34:58,250
you, you look at the, the bill going
through, like right now, they're
protecting the AI companies from this.

467
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:00,110
And so that's not gonna happen.

468
00:35:00,110 --> 00:35:01,910
No one's coming, coming to the rescue.

469
00:35:02,180 --> 00:35:12,320
But then it leaves me to wonder, it's
like, what is the pa, what is the leverage
that publishers can have other than
saying, please, and then pretty please.

470
00:35:12,845 --> 00:35:13,205
Annelies: Okay.

471
00:35:13,205 --> 00:35:15,474
The leverage is, it's the power of the numbers.

472
00:35:15,574 --> 00:35:18,654
we've done almost a hundred deals, agreements.

473
00:35:18,834 --> 00:35:19,434
I call them.

474
00:35:19,554 --> 00:35:21,054
They're not deals, agreements.

475
00:35:21,054 --> 00:35:28,044
We signed agreements with almost a hundred
publishers, and we have many non-English
publishers, kind of like ready to sign.

476
00:35:28,904 --> 00:35:32,524
We we're focusing on English language,
for the first half of this year.

477
00:35:33,004 --> 00:35:40,354
So the leverage is the power of the numbers,
the collaboration across the industry,
and every publisher that signs up today

478
00:35:40,354 --> 00:35:50,824
with us already signs up to collaboration
because my content is used alongside content
from my competitors adjacent neighbors.

479
00:35:51,467 --> 00:35:54,767
and so it is already a collective.

480
00:35:55,367 --> 00:36:00,467
Product through working with a large number
of publishers and many, many more to come.

481
00:36:01,077 --> 00:36:03,657
so the leverage is power in size.

482
00:36:03,657 --> 00:36:08,187
If I look at the, the, the extent of the network.

483
00:36:08,787 --> 00:36:23,947
You know, you can count it through page
views, number of titles, but where gist can
be gist powered answers, the AI engagement
powered by by, our product can take place
is across a network of all our partners.

484
00:36:24,067 --> 00:36:31,297
'cause our partners sign up to
license content, but effectively they
also sign up to get a suite of ai.

485
00:36:31,897 --> 00:36:36,457
Engagement tools that they can implement within
their channel, within their own media channels.

486
00:36:36,697 --> 00:36:42,727
So I think the leverage is not
gonna come overnight, but there's an
incredible sign across the industry.

487
00:36:42,727 --> 00:36:47,437
There's an appetite to collaborate, but
you can't collaborate through negotiation.

488
00:36:47,437 --> 00:36:52,387
So what we bring is collaboration with
without negotiation through product solution.

489
00:36:52,977 --> 00:36:53,367
Brian: Okay.

490
00:36:53,847 --> 00:36:55,917
and how does this change
how publishers make money?

491
00:36:56,307 --> 00:37:00,407
Are they still gonna, because I think that's
what I end up, wondering about like the.

492
00:37:01,217 --> 00:37:06,647
Like, there's so many problems that are created
by this new paradigm of people getting answers.

493
00:37:06,647 --> 00:37:07,007
Right?

494
00:37:07,247 --> 00:37:14,867
But one of the things that seems to me, that's
why I'm, I'm always asking people, are people
gonna be going to your website in five years?

495
00:37:14,867 --> 00:37:22,112
I. And I don't mean it to be a jerk or something,
but I think every, every single person needs
to be thinking that, like, honestly, with the

496
00:37:22,112 --> 00:37:31,322
changes going on right now, are people seriously
going to be going to www.yoursite.com and
then hitting a back button when they're done?

497
00:37:31,382 --> 00:37:38,642
Like it just seems strange to me and I
just wonder and, and then you're gonna be
monetizing it through programmatic ads.

498
00:37:38,942 --> 00:37:43,112
I mean, really like, that just
seems like a very fraught.

499
00:37:43,712 --> 00:37:44,312
Proposition.

500
00:37:44,312 --> 00:37:46,562
So there's so many issues to like solve.

501
00:37:46,952 --> 00:37:54,902
but you know, one thing that I always
wonder is whether a lot of publishers
will end up being wholesalers.

502
00:37:55,247 --> 00:38:04,637
And that they're wholesaling information
to the aggregators, which are going to be
these answer engines and whatnot, that they
might not even have a quote unquote website.

503
00:38:04,847 --> 00:38:08,897
A website is just a front end to like a
data depository at the end of the day.

504
00:38:09,137 --> 00:38:09,917
Like shouldn't.

505
00:38:10,187 --> 00:38:20,327
Isn't there like a case to be made that
if the economic bargain can be made, a lot
of people will be more in the licensing
business than they will be in this, you know?

506
00:38:20,927 --> 00:38:28,597
This business where it, it doesn't,
it's so convoluted in how a lot
of publishers, have to make money.

507
00:38:28,717 --> 00:38:38,167
Like these businesses are overly complex
for their size and they're getting
smaller, and when you have complexity
on top of shrinking, it's just a mess.

508
00:38:38,407 --> 00:38:44,017
And it's because the ad system is broken and
it has been broken almost from the start.

509
00:38:44,842 --> 00:38:47,692
Subscriptions are only like gonna do so much.

510
00:38:47,842 --> 00:38:49,882
Commerce was an SEO strategy.

511
00:38:49,882 --> 00:38:50,722
Forget that.

512
00:38:51,142 --> 00:38:54,602
get ready for every commerce, not
every, most commerce, business lines.

513
00:38:54,602 --> 00:38:57,122
You're not gonna be hearing
a lot of them going forward.

514
00:38:57,362 --> 00:38:59,582
'cause people are gonna be
quietly taking them upstate.

515
00:39:00,162 --> 00:39:03,792
I mean, BI just took theirs upstate
and, and others will follow, I'm sure.

516
00:39:03,972 --> 00:39:07,692
And so what I wonder is, is
Longwinded set way of saying.

517
00:39:08,967 --> 00:39:20,457
Do you see like a possibility where, how
publishers make money will increasingly
be getting, you know, it's, it's
more licensing than it is retail.

518
00:39:20,487 --> 00:39:33,627
And by that I mean like getting people to come
to your website, having, you know, figuring
out all the programmatic and like all of these
different things that, that, that are being
done for businesses that frankly are shrinking.

519
00:39:34,739 --> 00:39:35,189
Annelies: Wow.

520
00:39:35,519 --> 00:39:39,029
so how do I, how do I save
the industry in five minutes?

521
00:39:39,450 --> 00:39:39,780
but you

522
00:39:39,930 --> 00:39:41,195
Brian: Be concise, Annalise.

523
00:39:41,550 --> 00:39:42,120
Annelies: yes.

524
00:39:42,220 --> 00:39:45,970
so licensing needs a, fair economic model.

525
00:39:45,970 --> 00:39:53,270
And I think if you look at the media
industry as a wholesaler of content,
if you license that with our brand.

526
00:39:53,630 --> 00:39:58,820
Without mentioning and contribution
of, of brand and actual content itself.

527
00:39:59,270 --> 00:40:06,840
you know, I don't want to go back to the
time, the time when I lived in, in Russia
and I was a magazine publisher and we had

528
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:14,490
about 20 magazines and that that was a, an
innovative landscape because they're under
so times there were only two magazines.

529
00:40:14,940 --> 00:40:16,680
you know, consumers actually like.

530
00:40:17,447 --> 00:40:32,594
New media and they like media that comes with a
brand and if we license it and it's all vanilla
and it comes out with brand and any contribution
to the original source, I don't think that's
a very exciting media landscape delivered.

531
00:40:32,594 --> 00:40:35,864
It's not the one that Neil was, was
describing your podcast two weeks ago.

532
00:40:36,554 --> 00:40:37,595
so, but yeah.

533
00:40:37,595 --> 00:40:39,665
Is, are people still gonna come to your website?

534
00:40:39,665 --> 00:40:43,385
Some of them will do it, but you know,
we've seen the website traffic is.

535
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:44,220
Decreasing

536
00:40:44,420 --> 00:40:45,500
Brian: get magazines too.

537
00:40:45,540 --> 00:40:51,270
Annelies: yeah, but people still
gonna, so it is, as a publisher, you
need to lean into product development.

538
00:40:51,300 --> 00:40:58,350
And that product development goes across
a number of channels, a, a number of
ways to reach your, your, your audience.

539
00:40:58,590 --> 00:41:03,630
And that audience is now used to having an AI
experience as well, at least many of them are.

540
00:41:03,930 --> 00:41:06,810
And for some of that, that may
be an article summarization.

541
00:41:06,985 --> 00:41:16,675
For some of that, it may be a button where
I can ask a question because I happen to
have a question, and then the publisher can
decide for that question to be answered by

542
00:41:16,675 --> 00:41:25,255
just my content or actually content of a
number of trusted content sources, because I
know I can do a better job for the consumer.

543
00:41:25,645 --> 00:41:27,955
So I think it starts with the
consumer and the consumer.

544
00:41:28,779 --> 00:41:32,169
has already shown to us that they
can navigate different channels.

545
00:41:32,169 --> 00:41:35,109
They can go from a podcast, and
now we have podcasts on YouTube.

546
00:41:35,319 --> 00:41:42,879
So we need to really follow that consumer u
consumer desire and behavior and build for it.

547
00:41:42,879 --> 00:41:48,399
And I'm not a publisher today, but I
deal with them all the time and I liked
them, inspired them wherever I can is to.

548
00:41:48,939 --> 00:41:56,364
AI engagement is another user experience
that you need to build within your
workflow, and it's there to drive.

549
00:41:56,579 --> 00:41:59,639
More engagement and more engagement to then be

550
00:41:59,639 --> 00:42:00,299
monetized.

551
00:42:00,299 --> 00:42:00,599
You took,

552
00:42:00,769 --> 00:42:05,269
Brian: have to come to your website
in order for them to ha engage
with any of these things like it's.

553
00:42:05,764 --> 00:42:15,664
Annelies: not, not if you, I mean, what
we're building with, kind of the AI toolkit,
just Dispar answer is imagine a user goes to
the Guardian's website, the Guardian's app.

554
00:42:16,262 --> 00:42:24,932
In London and wants to know about their upcoming
Yellowstone holiday, and they ask a question
like, what do I take on my holiday to Yellowstone?

555
00:42:25,262 --> 00:42:27,962
And what are the top things I
should avoid when I'm there?

556
00:42:28,431 --> 00:42:39,832
that answer could just, you look at the guardian's
corpus and you know you're lucky at a, a
journalist wrote an article three years ago about
a travel, their travel story, to Yellowstone.

557
00:42:40,132 --> 00:42:40,997
If you combine.

558
00:42:41,647 --> 00:42:50,167
That corpus with the corpus of the
billing gazettes, which is practically
next to Yellowstone, you get an
answer that's based on recency.

559
00:42:50,167 --> 00:43:00,127
So you get depth and breadth within the
answer, and it doesn't matter for the billing
gazettes that that content is used for a user.

560
00:43:01,807 --> 00:43:12,877
Who reads The Guardian or user in the UK
who reads, the Guardian wants to know about
Yellowstone because through attribution there
will be compensation for use of that content
in a completely different media channel.

561
00:43:13,477 --> 00:43:13,867
Brian: Yeah.

562
00:43:13,897 --> 00:43:16,737
So, you've, you've worked, I
guess they used to call it fang.

563
00:43:16,737 --> 00:43:17,907
Now we're on the mag seven.

564
00:43:17,907 --> 00:43:19,467
But you worked, you worked at Facebook.

565
00:43:19,497 --> 00:43:21,147
Like, so you have experience in these companies.

566
00:43:21,147 --> 00:43:23,217
And I don't mean to generalize,
but I will generalize.

567
00:43:23,217 --> 00:43:25,467
That's, you know, someone's gonna
generalize when they say that.

568
00:43:25,991 --> 00:43:27,701
Talk to me about your experience about how.

569
00:43:28,571 --> 00:43:30,371
Those companies in general.

570
00:43:30,371 --> 00:43:42,071
And, 'cause and I've always felt this divide
between Silicon Valley and New York and
my career, and, and again, I'm just like
speaking in very broad generalities, but
it's basically between like tech and media.

571
00:43:42,071 --> 00:43:44,411
It's like, you know, men are
from Mars, women are from Venus.

572
00:43:44,411 --> 00:43:47,621
It's like really kind of is that kind of thing.

573
00:43:48,161 --> 00:43:51,181
And, you know, you're, you're
a media person right, too.

574
00:43:52,681 --> 00:43:56,521
So what, what sort of, do you think that.

575
00:43:57,466 --> 00:43:57,976
I don't know.

576
00:43:57,976 --> 00:44:12,996
I'd love to hear your takeaways about how,
broadly speaking the world of tech sees publishing
and media, because I think that really matters
in how they, approach these, these problems.

577
00:44:12,996 --> 00:44:15,876
I mean, they, they're not
quote unquote media people.

578
00:44:16,266 --> 00:44:18,306
And, and that's, you know,
that's what I was saying.

579
00:44:18,306 --> 00:44:23,646
I was, you know, I was, I was watching that,
that mountain head thing, you know, which
I didn't really like personally that much.

580
00:44:23,646 --> 00:44:24,606
I didn't think it was that funny.

581
00:44:24,936 --> 00:44:32,146
But, you know, it, it does sort of
drive home that, that point that, yeah,
these people think a little differently.

582
00:44:33,417 --> 00:44:33,867
Annelies: Yeah.

583
00:44:33,877 --> 00:44:37,491
first of all, I'm, I'm incredibly,
I was incredibly excited to join.

584
00:44:37,551 --> 00:44:44,551
I was not joining on the media partnership
site, but I joined on Commerce, because I
built many classified websites in my career.

585
00:44:45,014 --> 00:44:52,964
I think you only understand what product
led companies, what that means once you're
there and once you're in the midst of it.

586
00:44:53,084 --> 00:44:59,924
It a company that's purely focused on building
product for engagement and traffic and.

587
00:45:00,244 --> 00:45:06,334
When you do that at such a large scale,
there are some things you, there are some
elements that are really crucial to us.

588
00:45:06,334 --> 00:45:14,674
You know, if we're a media person, like,
you know, the brand of the New York Times
or the brand of the Washington, Washington
Post, we, you know, we can distinguish
between these two different brands.

589
00:45:15,154 --> 00:45:21,664
But when you work on product at and with
such, for such a large audience and.

590
00:45:22,049 --> 00:45:26,309
You are an engineer, you probably
have a different, you know,
it's the alphas and the betas.

591
00:45:26,339 --> 00:45:29,309
You, at least that's how we
classify people in the Netherlands.

592
00:45:29,309 --> 00:45:33,779
You're, you're an alpha person, you are a
language person, you're a better person.

593
00:45:33,779 --> 00:45:38,249
You are a, a STEM person, and there's a different

594
00:45:38,289 --> 00:45:39,279
Brian: Wait, who are the alphas?

595
00:45:39,459 --> 00:45:41,199
The alphas are the, the stem people.

596
00:45:41,489 --> 00:45:42,779
Annelies: No, the alpha already.

597
00:45:42,779 --> 00:45:42,989
No.

598
00:45:42,989 --> 00:45:43,589
So that's why

599
00:45:44,019 --> 00:45:44,409
Brian: Oh, really?

600
00:45:45,029 --> 00:45:49,199
Annelies: when I say, Alphabet it, it is
definitely a direct translation from Dutch.

601
00:45:49,409 --> 00:45:53,339
So the alpha people are the
people who are the linguists and.

602
00:45:53,729 --> 00:45:54,179
Brian: Oh, great.

603
00:45:54,179 --> 00:45:54,929
I'm an Alpha and

604
00:45:55,304 --> 00:45:57,354
Annelies: And, and, yes, you are.

605
00:45:58,134 --> 00:46:00,984
And, the beta people are the STEM people.

606
00:46:01,479 --> 00:46:06,819
So there's a, there's a, and actually I
have, no, I actually have two stems at home.

607
00:46:06,819 --> 00:46:08,799
My two kids are both the STEM kids.

608
00:46:09,099 --> 00:46:12,039
And, and actually that was a, a great,

609
00:46:12,139 --> 00:46:13,749
Brian: Yeah, you gotta de-risk, you know,

610
00:46:13,749 --> 00:46:13,909
you

611
00:46:14,034 --> 00:46:24,234
Annelies: was, that was very helpful
in my career because you need to look
into the brain of somebody who's an
engineer and what is important for them.

612
00:46:24,234 --> 00:46:28,344
It's code, it's numbers, it's
not words or words matter.

613
00:46:28,344 --> 00:46:29,724
Less so.

614
00:46:30,579 --> 00:46:41,649
I always say this to publishers, if you negotiate
with somebody who has a different perception
and different sense of respect for what you
are making, I'm not sure if you can negotiate,

615
00:46:42,092 --> 00:46:51,212
Through a sense of, you, you're not equal and
you're not, you're not pursuing the same outcome
or it's not based on the same principles.

616
00:46:51,542 --> 00:46:52,352
And so my.

617
00:46:53,088 --> 00:47:00,918
What I loved about working in Silicon Valley,
and actually later on I moved to LA because I,
I, I, and the way I described it is, you know,

618
00:47:00,918 --> 00:47:10,088
people in, in, Silicon Valley are very excited
about new technology, because of, the tech itself
and, you know, the, the products you could build.

619
00:47:10,088 --> 00:47:15,458
And then you move to LA and it's like, what
does that tech do for, for me in terms of money?

620
00:47:15,608 --> 00:47:16,478
You know, it's like, what?

621
00:47:16,808 --> 00:47:17,763
What's the use case?

622
00:47:17,933 --> 00:47:22,643
You know, so a, a, a cool piece of
tech, but actually is it useful?

623
00:47:22,793 --> 00:47:25,133
And if it's not useful, but it's really cool.

624
00:47:25,673 --> 00:47:34,031
So a commoditization of things that we,
that are really precious to publishers,
I think is where the big divide is.

625
00:47:34,541 --> 00:47:46,155
And that's, you know, Justine Roberts, founder
of Mumsnet described on a podcast how she was
so insulted during a negotiation with one of the
LLMs where they described her content as tonnage.

626
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:50,460
Like the, you know, tonnage of
your tonnage of your content.

627
00:47:50,460 --> 00:47:57,060
She's like, you know, she was enraged
and, you know, I am enraged about it as
well because, and that's, you know, comes

628
00:47:57,285 --> 00:47:59,235
Brian: but to an engineer,
it's just a bunch of data.

629
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:00,030
Annelies: Yeah.

630
00:48:00,030 --> 00:48:00,180
You

631
00:48:00,180 --> 00:48:00,570
know, that's

632
00:48:00,570 --> 00:48:09,000
why you've heard them say, you know,
we've, we've got enough humanly
created content, so now we can just use

633
00:48:09,285 --> 00:48:09,525
Brian: man.

634
00:48:09,885 --> 00:48:16,215
You know this, to me, it was like always like,
and this sort of went away, but for years
it was like talking about what is premium.

635
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:17,880
Like what is premium?

636
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:24,120
And so like publishers, it's like, you
know, it's like the old thing they would
say about pornography or obscenity, it's
like, you know, when you see it or whatever.

637
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:30,420
Like, you know, there's no te but like,
you know, pre but in, and they're like,
but in the engineering brain, they're
like, who are you to say it's premium?

638
00:48:30,420 --> 00:48:34,890
And like, were we talking about pre, I remember
YouTube started talking about pre premium content.

639
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:36,690
Premium premium audiences.

640
00:48:37,105 --> 00:48:42,475
Like, and there's, there's all kinds
of ways to twist this and I can, I
can kind of understand from that.

641
00:48:42,585 --> 00:48:55,729
I came from an engineering family at least,
and so I kind of understand that, that
mindset and, and particularly being product
focused where the externalities, I. Yeah,
are, are, are not, are not your main concern.

642
00:48:55,729 --> 00:49:09,963
Like I, I do this, I do this podcast People
Versus Algorithms and, one, one of my co-hosts,
Alex Schleifer, he was, an executive at
Airbnb and he ran, design there and he was
like, we're making changes that would affect.

643
00:49:10,638 --> 00:49:15,108
Really millions of people, like it would
affect like, you know, tens of thousands
of people's like livelihoods and stuff.

644
00:49:15,618 --> 00:49:17,718
And he is like, we are just
like moving pixels around.

645
00:49:18,228 --> 00:49:23,928
And the reality is like, you don't
think about that and not because like
you're like heartless or something.

646
00:49:23,928 --> 00:49:25,338
I don't, Alex is not heartless.

647
00:49:25,478 --> 00:49:27,398
but just because like, that's the job.

648
00:49:27,953 --> 00:49:30,563
You know, and, and that is the approach.

649
00:49:30,563 --> 00:49:36,983
Because if you are gonna be product centric,
and, and this is, you know, this is in Mountain
Head and this is, you know, just the reality

650
00:49:36,983 --> 00:49:44,243
I think of, of a lot of these Silicon Valley
companies, when you're operating at scale,
you, you're gonna, you're gonna run over stuff.

651
00:49:44,693 --> 00:49:51,713
You know, I mean, imagine like running with these
companies when like, you know, Facebook was being
accused of, of, of fermenting genocide in Myanmar.

652
00:49:51,713 --> 00:50:02,633
Like, I mean, like these things are like real,
that they deal with, that are far beyond, you
know, people's precious web webpages when they're
building these products at such massive scale.

653
00:50:02,933 --> 00:50:03,803
So, I don't know.

654
00:50:03,803 --> 00:50:11,633
I kind of, I just think it's interesting
to, to think about like, you know,
from, from the different perspectives
because when you go into these things.

655
00:50:12,068 --> 00:50:16,748
It's better, it's not good to be naive
about like what, what the objectives are.

656
00:50:16,748 --> 00:50:25,368
And like, I think for too long, too many
people in publishing in the last era, thought
that they could, if they could just like

657
00:50:25,368 --> 00:50:32,748
Jonah pre, if he could just convince, you
know, mark Zuckerberg about how important
you know, this content is to like Facebook.

658
00:50:32,748 --> 00:50:33,828
It's like, come on Joan.

659
00:50:33,888 --> 00:50:34,218
Like, I

660
00:50:34,218 --> 00:50:34,698
mean, that's

661
00:50:34,698 --> 00:50:34,968
just.

662
00:50:36,125 --> 00:50:43,625
Annelies: Yeah, I, I, I think it is,
almost a definition of insanity because
you do the same thing over and over
again and you expect a different results.

663
00:50:43,625 --> 00:50:48,665
Like when is, when is big tech going
to appreciate my content and my brand?

664
00:50:49,355 --> 00:50:54,125
And, but one of the key things
I've learned is how to scale.

665
00:50:54,545 --> 00:50:58,715
You know, in a, in an environment, in a
company like Facebook, it's, it's incredible.

666
00:50:58,715 --> 00:51:09,215
It's like you're in a sweet shop and you
build a product for, you know, you pilot it
with 25, and then you find the right pipes
and you push that content, did that product

667
00:51:09,215 --> 00:51:15,515
through 10 pipes, and, and then it works
for a hundred thousand people, a hundred
thousand merchants in that particular case.

668
00:51:15,755 --> 00:51:17,465
So you build it for 25 and then you have it.

669
00:51:17,510 --> 00:51:21,770
In the hands of a hundred thousand merchants
in, in a year's time, that is exhilarating.

670
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:29,720
And I've taken that, but I've taken that
experience with me into Prorata because
you asked me what, what is the leverage?

671
00:51:29,990 --> 00:51:43,910
And I think the leverage we have is if we can
bring our product into the hands of hundreds
of publishers, maybe even thousands of
publishers, then publishers can start to build
decentralized AI engagement in their own channels.

672
00:51:44,215 --> 00:51:53,815
Through a collective, because if, if, if
the content I have for an AI experience is
not enough, then I have all of this content,
the content from the trusted network.

673
00:51:54,115 --> 00:52:05,135
And so I, I deeply believe that by, by
building product for the industry to work
together, I. We will build leverage in the
industry, but it needs to come with money.

674
00:52:05,195 --> 00:52:06,665
It needs to come with monetization.

675
00:52:06,665 --> 00:52:13,925
It isn't just distribution and and
more engagement throughout the network
and more engagement on my own channel.

676
00:52:13,925 --> 00:52:18,575
It needs to come with monetization and
that's why I'm so super excited about that.

677
00:52:18,575 --> 00:52:24,935
The ad product we've built and this kind of
like full circle for Bill as well because
that's why he started to build an ad product.

678
00:52:25,295 --> 00:52:26,225
This ad product.

679
00:52:26,590 --> 00:52:38,170
It goes back to my days when I was a publisher
and I was selling Men's Health's next issue,
and there was a feature on jeans and I would
definitely call Wrangler and Le Levi's and

680
00:52:38,170 --> 00:52:50,410
Kelvin Klein, and we've moved away from that
experience where the ad is really performs
best when it's contextual with semantic
understanding, and that's what we've built.

681
00:52:50,705 --> 00:52:54,515
For the ad to, and it's an ad
that lives within the answer.

682
00:52:54,515 --> 00:53:07,055
It lives within the AI engagement and has
a real understanding, think about it as
an agent that can read all the answers
and can read all the brand information
and combines that into a new a product.

683
00:53:07,325 --> 00:53:12,365
But, you know, I just wanted to, to, to raise
that because as we know, collective a action.

684
00:53:12,395 --> 00:53:14,705
All people are bringing people together.

685
00:53:15,035 --> 00:53:18,035
They need to understand at the end
of the law and the end of the day.

686
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:20,120
How's this gonna pay for my

687
00:53:20,420 --> 00:53:20,960
Brian: Well, yeah.

688
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:26,300
Yeah, I mean, 'cause like I don't
think the licensing revenue's
gonna be enough and, not for most.

689
00:53:26,300 --> 00:53:26,630
Right.

690
00:53:26,690 --> 00:53:31,020
And if they're able to get it, and the
ad experience clearly needs to change.

691
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:35,400
Like, I mean, I don't, I've talked about this
repeatedly on this podcast, like it's a disaster.

692
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:37,620
So it might as well like start all over again.

693
00:53:37,620 --> 00:53:43,830
Like, I don't, like more, you
know, popups were a a a disaster.

694
00:53:44,130 --> 00:53:45,720
Retargeting was a disaster.

695
00:53:45,720 --> 00:53:47,340
Like everything led.

696
00:53:47,940 --> 00:53:59,269
It's kind of funny 'cause in some ways,
like, you know, tech enabled a horrific,
user experience that then, you know, this
is a common theme, create a problem and
then you solve the problem that you created.

697
00:53:59,359 --> 00:54:08,202
and you know, it's like, yes, people are
going to opt for, some kind of answer engine,
then clicking on a link on Google and going

698
00:54:08,202 --> 00:54:15,582
to some horror show of, You know, like a,
a UK local publisher site will like make
your eyes bleed and your computer overheat.

699
00:54:16,102 --> 00:54:25,912
so, you know, and I understand why that happens,
but the ads have to, you know, change and,
you know, I look can is in a couple weeks
when we're recording this, there's gonna

700
00:54:25,912 --> 00:54:32,242
be a lot of people in Cannes who are, it's
gonna be all about AI creative and automating
like the creative creativity that this.

701
00:54:32,822 --> 00:54:40,502
This festival is supposed to be celebrating
and there's gonna be no, that is gonna
be lost on everyone as they sip rose.

702
00:54:41,132 --> 00:54:45,932
The fact that this literally is
supposed to celebrate human creativity,
and it is gonna be all about

703
00:54:46,857 --> 00:54:47,367
Annelies: Yeah.

704
00:54:47,522 --> 00:54:48,902
Brian: replace human creativity,

705
00:54:49,527 --> 00:54:55,467
Annelies: I mean, we're running
out of time, Brian, but I am so
passionate about this because ads.

706
00:54:56,207 --> 00:54:57,197
Should be great.

707
00:54:57,377 --> 00:54:59,417
I mean, advertising is wonderful.

708
00:54:59,417 --> 00:55:04,367
It should be a joyful experience that then
inspires you to, to, to buy something.

709
00:55:04,757 --> 00:55:09,047
And it's, I think we've totally moved away
from it for many reasons you just mentioned.

710
00:55:09,627 --> 00:55:10,767
but we need to bring that back.

711
00:55:10,767 --> 00:55:15,657
And what I hear about AI in ads and there's
so many new players, so many new products.

712
00:55:16,257 --> 00:55:21,417
It's almost always focused on
the optimization of the creation.

713
00:55:22,017 --> 00:55:27,807
And very few times do I hear people talk about
the optimization of the experience for the user.

714
00:55:27,987 --> 00:55:32,427
How do we use AI to make it a better
user experience to make it delightful?

715
00:55:32,427 --> 00:55:38,007
As Bill would say, thank you for this
ad. That's what we're, you know, that's
a spirit of what we are building.

716
00:55:38,037 --> 00:55:39,177
We want to build ads.

717
00:55:39,756 --> 00:55:43,536
That, that make users say, thank
you, this is really useful.

718
00:55:43,566 --> 00:55:44,946
This is the ad I want.

719
00:55:45,366 --> 00:55:48,216
And isn't that where advertising
started in the first place?

720
00:55:48,831 --> 00:55:49,191
Brian: Yeah.

721
00:55:49,221 --> 00:55:49,761
Okay.

722
00:55:50,128 --> 00:55:51,170
thank you for this annise.

723
00:55:51,212 --> 00:55:56,402
this was a real pleasure to, to go
through these very important issues
and I think mostly optimistic.

724
00:55:56,402 --> 00:55:56,912
I mean, there's some

725
00:55:56,912 --> 00:56:04,142
optimism in there 'cause I think that there's,
you know, this is a, this is a period where,
you know, publishers can't play defense forever.

726
00:56:04,262 --> 00:56:07,442
And you know, it's time to, you know, chart.

727
00:56:07,827 --> 00:56:17,042
A a, a more as well as you can, an
independent path and like, whether there
can be collective action that makes clear
the leverage that quality content has.

728
00:56:17,192 --> 00:56:22,336
You know, that the, the world actually needs it,
and wants it, and that these AI engines need it.

729
00:56:22,746 --> 00:56:25,916
you know, hopefully that will, you
know, lead to a better outcome.

730
00:56:26,246 --> 00:56:27,446
But thank you so much for taking the time.

731
00:56:27,996 --> 00:56:28,686
Annelies: Thank you Bird.

732
00:56:28,686 --> 00:56:29,466
See you in cam.