People Inc., one of the largest media publishers in the United States, has signed an artificial intelligence licensing agreement with Microsoft. The media company, which was formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, announced the deal on Tuesday as part of its parent company IAC’s third-quarter earnings report.
Under this new agreement, People Inc. will become a launch partner in Microsoft’s publisher content marketplace. This marks the company’s second major AI deal, following an earlier agreement it made with OpenAI last year.
People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel described the new marketplace as a pay-per-use system where artificial intelligence companies can directly compensate publishers for the use of their content. He characterized it as an a la carte model. Vogel praised Microsoft for its commitment to paying for content to support its AI initiatives. He noted that Microsoft’s Copilot will be the first buyer for this new marketplace.
Vogel stated that being selected as a partner is a strong endorsement of his company and the publishing industry. He emphasized the value of trusted content for creating high-quality artificial intelligence.
The Microsoft deal was announced alongside news that Google Search’s AI Overviews feature has been negatively affecting the publisher’s web traffic. For the first time, People Inc. shared specific data with investors showing this decline. Google Search accounted for fifty-four percent of its traffic two years ago, but that share dropped to just twenty-four percent in the past quarter.
The CEO explained that this new Microsoft agreement is different from the earlier OpenAI deal, which he described as more of an all-you-can-eat model. He said his company is happy with either approach. The most important thing is that its work is respected and paid for. The specific financial terms of the Microsoft deal were not disclosed.
People Inc. has expressed concern about how artificial intelligence companies have used media content without payment to fuel their products and train their models. The company’s CEO recently criticized Google, calling the technology company a bad actor. He accused Google of using the same web crawler for its search engine and its AI features, which prevents publishers from blocking the bot without also losing valuable search traffic.
To address this, People Inc. uses technology from web infrastructure provider Cloudflare to block other AI crawlers. This action has prompted AI companies to approach the publisher with content licensing proposals. In September, the CEO said that using Cloudflare’s technology was a strategic decision to push AI firms to negotiate. He noted that deal progress was much further along after adopting this solution.
He reiterated those comments on the earnings call with investors, stating that blocking AI crawlers has been very effective and has brought almost every company to the negotiating table. Vogel suggested that more deals would be announced in the future.
IAC reported that People Inc. grew its digital revenue by nine percent to two hundred sixty-nine million dollars in the quarter. This growth was driven by performance marketing and licensing, which saw thirty-eight percent and twenty-four percent growth respectively. The company also noted its recent acquisition of Feedfeed, a food-focused media publisher and influencer network.