A new wave of AI browsers, including Atlas and Comet, has emerged to transform how people interact with the web. These AI browsers have “agentic capabilities,” enabling them to execute complex tasks like summarizing articles from various sources. However, this also poses significant challenges for media outlets.
Traditional defenses such as paywalls and crawler blockers are no longer effective in preventing AI systems from accessing news articles without consent. AI browsers can read article content that is invisible to humans and even use client-side overlays or server-side paywalls as a way to access restricted material.
To cope with this issue, some media outlets are using workarounds, such as reframing the user’s request to suggest alternative coverage. However, this raises questions about the control and visibility of content when AI agents are involved in news consumption.
As AI browsers continue to evolve, publishers will need to adapt and develop new strategies to monitor and control how their content is accessed and used by these systems. The increasing complexity of AI-powered browser capabilities highlights the need for greater transparency and regulation in the media industry.
Source: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/how-ai-browsers-sneak-past-blockers-and-paywalls.php