AI companies charged to share revenue or risk journalism’s collapse
Artificial Intelligence companies have been charged to develop revenue-sharing arrangements with publishers whose journalism is increasingly being used to generate AI-powered summaries.
The charged was made by News publishers and industry operators during the second edition of SquirrelPR’s annual industry webinar, “How Brands Can Prepare for AI Search and Declining Organic Discovery”.
They warned that continued declines in website traffic and advertising revenue could undermine the economics of professional journalism.
The event brought together journalists, publishers, technology and communications professionals to examine how AI is reshaping information discovery.
SquirrelPR, an African PR infrastructure platform known for building tools and creating platforms for industry conversations, launched the webinar series last year with a discussion on “How Storytelling Can Help Shape Africa’s Narrative.” The latest conversation was an offshoot of findings from its RANKED report, launched in April, which highlighted a significant decline in website visits as audiences increasingly consume information without clicking through to publishers’ platforms.
For publishers, the concern is not simply that AI is changing search behaviour, but that the technology can increasingly deliver the value of journalism without sending users to the organisations that produced it.
Victor Oluwole, Managing Director of Business Insider Africa, captured the shift succinctly in a keynote address: “Being found no longer guarantees being visited. Impressions do not pay for journalism; a visit to the website is what pays for journalism,” underscoring the revenue implications of AI-generated answers that satisfy users without requiring a publisher visit.
David Afolayan, Managing Director of Technext, said the impact is already visible in publisher revenues, arguing that AI companies benefiting from publishers’ content should share the value they create from it.
“Our views are declining by over 60% year in, year out. We are losing revenue by over 30%, and the AI companies are growing by leaps and bounds,” he said. “If they are using our data for their chat box, there should be a way we can share the revenue.”
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