With generative AI tech companies spending millions of dollars to license content and Google back-and-forth over its plans to phase out third-party cookies, publishers have a lot to sort out.
When asked which was his bigger concern, Future CEO Jon Steinberg replied, “The cookie issue keeps me up at night more than the AI issue. AI used to keep me up at night more, but not anymore.” 1724129351 … I’m more optimistic … The cookie thing — every conversation about cookies begins and ends with, ‘Well, there’s so much uncertainty.’”
In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Steinberg discusses these two topics and why Future has not yet struck a content licensing deal with an AI technology company.
Below are highlights from the conversation, lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Don’t be bothered by the uncertainty surrounding Google’s decision to phase out cookies
I think the change is small. If 30% of Chrome users have cookies, that might be a useful signal. Either way, I think things will be the same or a little better, but not significantly different than they were before the announcement.
We’ve made progress in terms of driving people to more branded content and first-party deals, and we just need to continue that mission. At the end of the day, for us, first-party revenue is [in the] The auction is open, so there’s an economic incentive. And I think it’s also a win-win for advertisers and agencies. If you can get someone who’s thinking about buying a phone, or someone who’s thinking about buying an air fryer, you get a big win with first-party buying. It could be a confusing time, but on the other hand, I don’t think anyone wants to buy just a portion of that audience that has a cookie.
His philosophy on the relationship between publishers and AI technology companies
I have a philosophy of what should happen, and it’s a very simple philosophy, and it’s based on two pillars: The first is, we want traffic from these platforms, and I think this is a very positive sign… [that] OpenAI announced SearchGPT. I’ve only seen the image they put on their website, but it prominently displays publisher content and links… They can’t just scrape our content. We need to send traffic back. This is the reciprocity that has always existed with Google and it needs to continue in this new world.
And the second [prong] You need to get paid. You need to get paid for your content. [but] first [prong] is much more important.
The price is right, but the content license agreement
After all, if you make millions of dollars off your back catalogue and millions of dollars on an ongoing basis, you know, the half-year revenue that we reported in May was £391 million, but that was [come close to the value of the business]I mean, I want all the money I can get, legally and ethically… but traffic is the more important piece of the puzzle.
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