How much referral traffic to publishers do AI chatbots provide? Practically zero. - Entrepreneur Generations

'AI presents an existential threat to the news and
media industry.' (AI image by AI)

AI chatbots steal and repost news created and paid for by humans while failing to refer any meaningful traffic to the publications, a new report finds. Chatbot click-through rates, or CTRs, to original content, are abysmal.

"Tollbit, an analytics and licensing platform for publishers and AI companies, has released its first AI User Agent Index, a quarterly report that tracks overall trends in the scraping habits of the AI industry," reports News/Media Alliance. "The report details that the click-through rates for AI chatbots are 95.7% lower than traditional Google search, with a referral rate of just 0.37%." According to industry figures, 3% is considered the average CTR from a Google search, and anything above this is good.

For many publishers and writers, AI content theft is not surprising; however, "Tollbit's data confirms what publishers have known for years — generative AI chatbots are not providing anywhere near the amount of traffic as traditional search," News/Media Alliance CEO Danielle Coffey said in a statement. "By illegally scraping our content, repackaging it and giving it to consumers without adequately directing them to our sites, AI companies are using our own content to undermine our businesses."

When chatbots "redeliver" news via the web without a click-through to the original publication, news and media organizations miss out on subscription and advertising income. In essence, bots steal original content, which costs publications what a consumer may have paid to read it, and they remove to possibility of future income when no click-through traffic is provided.

“With AI click-through rates almost 96% lower than traditional search, which we believe is already at inadequate return rates, the shift to AI presents an existential threat to the news and media industry," Coffey said. "Something has to change. But that doesn’t mean we want to stop the growth of AI. . . .We’re just asking for responsible AI. Artificial intelligence companies must compensate publishers for the content they use, for the long-term health of both of our industries.”

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/pbZBYRa How much referral traffic to publishers do AI chatbots provide? Practically zero. - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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