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If you’re in the business of publishing content on the internet, it’s been difficult to know how to deal with AI. Obviously, you can’t ignore it; large language models (LLMs) and AI search engines are here, and they ingest your content and summarize it for their users, killing valuable traffic to your site. Plenty of data supports this. Creating a content strategy that accounts for this changing reality is complex to begin with. You need to decide what content to expose to AI systems, what to block from them, and how both of those activities can serve your business. That would be hard even if there were clear rules that everyone’s operating under. But that is far from a given in the AI world. A topic I’ve revisited more than once is how tech and media view some aspects of the ecosystem differently (most notably, user agents), leading to new industry alliances, myriad lawsuits, and several angry blog posts. But even accounting for that, a pair of recent reports suggest the two sides are even further apart than you might think. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} Common Crawl and the copyright clash Common Crawl is a vast trove of internet data that many AI systems use for training. It was a fundamental part of GPT-3.5, the model that powered ChatGPT when it was released to the world back in 2022, and many other LLMs are also based on it. Over the past three years, however, the issue of copyright and training data has become a major source of controversy, and several publishers have requested that Common Crawl delete their content from its archive to prevent AI models from training on it. A report from The Atlantic suggests that Common Crawl hasn’t complied, keeping the content in the archive while making it invisible to its online search toolmeaning any spot checks would come up empty. Common Crawl’s executive director, Rich Skrenta, told the publication that it complies with removal requests, but he also clearly supports the point of view that anything online should be fair game for training LLMs, saying, “You shouldnt have put your content on the internet if you didnt want it to be on the internet.” Separately, Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) looked at how the new AI-powered browsers, Perplexity Comet and ChatGPT Atlas, handle requests to access paywalled content. The report notes that, when asked to retrieve a subscriber-only article from MIT Technology Review, both browsers complied even though the web-based chatbots from those companies would refuse to get the article on account of it being paywalled. The details of both cases are important, but both underscore just how far apart the perspectives of the media and the tech industry are. The tech side will always tilt toward more accessif information is digital and findable on the internet, AI systems will always default to obtaining it by any means necessary. And publishers assert that their content still belongs to them regardless of where and how it’s published, and they should retain control of who can access it and what they can do with it. The mental divide between AI and media There’s more happening here than just two debaters arguing past each other, though. The case of Common Crawl exposes a contradiction in a key talking point on the tech side of thingsthat any particular piece of content or source in an LLM’s training data isn’t that relevant, and they could easily do without it. But it’s hard to reconcile that with Common Crawl’s apparent actions, risking costly lawsuits by not deleting data from publications who request them to, which includes The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post. When it comes to training data, some sources are clearly more valuable than others. The browsers that circumvent paywalls reveal another incorrect assumption from the AI side: that because certain behaviors are allowed on an individual basis, they should be allowed at scale. The most common argument that relies on this logic is when people say that when AI “learns” from all the information it ingests, it’s just doing what humans do. But a change in scale can also create a category shift. Think about how paywalls typically work: Many are deliberately porous, allowing a limited number of free articles per day, week, or month. Once those are exhausted, there’s the old trick of the incognito window. Also, some paywalls, as noted in the CJR article, work by loading all the text on the page, then pulling down a curtain so the reader can’t see it. Sometimes, if you click the “Stop loading” button fast enough, you can expose the text before that curtain comes down. One level up from there is to use your browser’s simple developer tools to disable and delete the paywall elements on an article page. Savvy internet users have known about all of these for years, but it’s a small percentage of all usersI’d wager less than 5%. But guess who knows about all these tricks, and probably many more on top of them? AI. Browser agents like those in Comet and Atlas are effectively the most savvy internet users possible, and they grant these powers to anyone simply requesting information. Now, what was once a niche activity is applied at scale, and paywalls become invisible to anyone using an AI browser. One defense here might be server-side paywalls, which grant access to the text only after the reader logs in. Regardless, what the browser does with the data after the AI ingests it is yet another access question. OpenAI says it won#8217;t train on any pages that Atlas’s agent may access, and indeed this is how user agents are supposed to work, though the company does say it will retain the pages for the individual user’s memory. That sounds benign enough, but considering how Common Crawl has behaved, should we be taking any AI company at their word? Turning conflict into strategy So what’s the takeaway for the mediabesides investing in server-side paywalls? The good news is your content is more valuable than you’ve been told. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so much effort to find it, ingest it, and claim it to be “free.” But the bad news is that maintaining control over that content is going to be much harder than you probably thought. Understanding and managing how AI uses your content for training, summaries, or agents is a complicated business, requiring more than just techniques and code. You need to take into account the mindset of those on the other side. Turning all this into real strategy means deciding when to fight access, when to allow it, and when to demand compensation. Considering what a moving target AI is, that will never be easy, but if the AI companies’ aggressive, constant, and comprehensive push for more access has shown anything, it’s that they deeply value the media industry’s content. It’s nice to be needed, but success will depend on turning that need into leverage. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Its a random Tuesday in October, and your kids are home again. A national holiday? Nope. A snow day. Not even a speck of frost on the ground. Its Professional Development Day or Parent-Teacher Conference Half Day or one of the 15 other noninstructional days that appear in the school calendar like little landmines for anyone with a full-time job. At this point, Ive stopped trying to keep track. Every month seems to come with a surprise, theyre home moment. And as a working parent, there are few phrases that strike fear into my heart quite like: No School Today! I love my kids, but that doesnt mean I can drop everything every time the school district decides teachers need a day to recalibrate. I want their educators to have the time they need, I truly do. Its a job I dont have the patience or superpowers to handle. But the system is still built around a 1950s fantasy where one parent is home and is available for midday pick-ups, early dismissals, and weeklong winter breaks. Most families dont live that reality anymore. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} The hidden toll of random days off This juggling act is brutal. Every day off becomes an exercise in logistics, guilt, and creative problem-solving. Whos taking off work this time? Can I trade shifts? Do we have any vacation days left? Should I call in sickAGAIN? For parents who cant afford nannies or backup care, there arent many options. A babysitter can cost more than what a parent makes in a day. Drop-off programs seem to fill up within minutes and you have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting off the waitlist. And working remote with kids running around, making noise, and needing food hardly makes for a productive day. Of course, the burden doesnt hit parents equally in cisgender households. Research shows that working mothers are far more likely to take time off or rearrange their schedules to cover the gaps in childcare. A 2023 study found that unexpected school closures forced mothers to cut six hours per week on average. Over a three-month period, that adds up to 72 hours. So, its not just inconvenient, it can have economic consequences. Most families cannot afford to bring home less money, and for single parents, this could cause a crisis. Surviving this requires even more emotional labor: coordinating carpools, texting neighbors to ask a favor, setting up playdates with a child that has a SAHM. This is about childcare and the mental strain of dealing with an unpredictable and unsupportive system. There has to be a better way So, whats the solution? Its not as simple as hiring more babysitters. We need modern policies that reflect how families live and work today. Here are a few ideas worth exploring: Community care partnerships. Check out your local YMCAs, libraries, and afterschool programs. Some receive state or district funding to offer affordable coverage on non-school days. Some cities, like Seattle, already do this. Rethink remote flexibility. If companies can pivot to global time zones and hybrid schedules, they can also accommodate parents during the school-year craziness. Family Flex Days could allow workers to shift hours without penalty. Policy shifts. Paid family leave cant just be about new babies. It should also recognize the everyday realities of caregiving. That includes the random Tuesday your second graders school closes at noon. Until the workplace and the school system sync up, parents will keep paying the price in time, money, and peace of mind. The bottom line is, we dont need parents to be more flexible. We need the system to be. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2015\/08\/erikaaslogo.png","headline":"Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters","description":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting. ","substackDomain":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
Seeing peers lose their jobs has a way of making people weird. Its not much different from grief. When someone loses a loved one, you can almost feel the tension: people fumbling for the right words, hoping not to say something insensitive, then saying something insensitive anyway. Everything happens for a reason. Theyre in a better place. That is, assuming any condolences are shared at all. Many of us have been there. You dont want to overstep. Dont want to make the person feel worse. I get it: Showing sympathy can feel like a minefield. The same thing happens when companies downsize their staff, only the loss isnt life. Its employment. When someone gets laid off, its a kind of corporate death. One day, youre working alongside someone, swapping memes on Slack, surviving the same back-to-back meetings. The next day, their desk is vacant, their Slack photo appears black and white, and their email account forwards incoming messages to whoever has inherited their responsibilities. Ive been on both sides of this situation, a casualty and a survivor. Ive seen folks who are lucky enough to evade the chopping block minimize, deflect, or disappear. Its not that people are cruel. Theyre uncomfortable. Layoffs remind us how little control we have over our own jobs. And in that discomfort, we forget the person in front of us is going through some real s**t. I remember working at a startup in a contractor role that was cut abruptly after nearly a year. One acquaintance, a guy named Tyler, stopped by my desk to check in before my last day. He somehow made my departure about him: Were already such a small team, I dont know how they expect us to get all of this work done. I rolled my eyes. Another well-meaning coworker at least showed concern. But after offering some empty platitudes (When one door closes, another opens), she asked an unanswerable question: What are you gonna do? I wanted to say, I dont know, Janice, probably stress-eat a pack of Oreos, go on a weekend bender, and then obsessively scroll LinkedIn for my next job, but I just kept it to the first four words. What stung the most was the colleagues who suddenly acted like I was contagious. Youd think I was on Power the way these people suddenly went ghost. You can feel that void, that interrupted rhythm of virtual or real-life interaction. I assume they probably dont know what to say, so they say nothing. Its still wack. Heres the thing: Its not all that difficult to show up for someone who is suddenly out of work. You dont have to fix their situation; you just have to let them know you see them. Ask how theyre doing. Validate their feelings. Tell them something youll miss about them. You dont need a motivational speech. A simple, Thats awful, Im really sorry youre dealing with that, can mean a lot. Instead of clichés like, Youve got this! offer your presence. If you want to talk, Im here works just fine. Get specific about how youd like to be supportive. Let me know if you need anything rarely goes beyond lip service. Instead, offer to share job postings you come across or connect your newly unemployed colleague with contacts at companies that may be hiring. If appropriate, you can even offer to serve as a reference. Those suggestions are baseline, but my former boss at the aforementioned job did something small that went a long way. In my final leadership meeting, she carved out time so other managers could express kind words and farewells. One by one, they spoke about my poise under pressure, my witty emails, that one project that I managed to perfection. I felt appreciated. It reminded me of the impact I made over a short period of time. It reminded me that I would be an asset in my next gig. When Ive seen layoffs up close, Ive noticed something: The people who show up make all the difference. Its not about having the perfect words. Its about presence. Jobs come and go. Titles change. But the way we treat each other when things fall apart? Thats what people remember the most. The Only Black Guy in the Office is copublished with Levelman.com.
Category:
E-Commerce
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