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There’s a war brewing in the world of AI agents. After declaring a month ago that it would block AI crawlers by default on its network, Cloudflare openly accused Perplexity of deliberately bypassing internet standards to scrape websites. It published a detailed blog post, explaining how, even if its bots were blocked, Perplexity would use certain tacticsincluding third-party crawlersto access those websites anyway. Perplexity responded swiftly with its own post, pointing out that its use of third-party crawlers was actually significantly less than Cloudflare was saying. But the crux of Perplexity’s rebuttal was that Cloudflare fundamentally misunderstood its bot activity: because its agent bots act on behalf of specific user requestsand not crawling the web generallyPerplexity believes they should be able to access anything its human operator could. This divide gets right at the heart of how the AI internet works, and settling on a standard will be crucial to how agents, the media industry, and information retrieval in general will evolve. Notably, Perplexity didn’t deny that its agent bots bypass the Robots Exclusion Protocol (known as robots.txt) to access contentit instead said that behavior was justified: If you wouldn’t deny the content to a person, you should also provide it to a bot acting on behalf of that person. {"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":""}} On the web, nobody knows you’re a bot There are some nuanced but important aspects to this: Agent bots are different from AI training bots or search crawlers. They don’t scrape data to either train AI models or for a general search index. These bots go out and get data directly in response to a user query. When you, say, ask a chatbot what the hours are for your hairdresser, it sends a bot to go check the website right then and there. Once the data is delivered, it’s not stored in a general database, Perplexity says. As a user of AI, the difference isn’t obvious. When you ask a chatbot for any particular piece of information, it’s often not clear which parts of the answer are based on training data, search indexing, or agent activity. You just expect it to work, and to give you the best available information. A lot of the time, that means checking in real time with an external source, a trend that points toward a surge in AI bot activity as everyone starts sending agents to do their browsing for them. For agent-based web browsing to work, agents will need to have the same kind of access to the web that humans do. The problem, as I’ve articulated before, is that agents aren’t humans. A person visiting a website can be enticed by advertising, calls to action, or other content. Much of the economics of the web depends on this basic fact. Think about Google search results: What if you program agents to simply ignore all links marked “Sponsored”? Now, imagine if half of all web searches currently done by humans are performed by agents. You think Google might care? Until very recently, the web has run on human attention. But that is already shifting: Thanks to generative AI, more than half of web activity is now automated, according to Imperva, and that will certainly increase now that consumer agents like Perplexity’s Comet browser and ChatGPT Agent have arrived. The convenience of agent browsing is a game-changer: I’ve personally been using Comet for less than a month and it’s now my default browser. I routinely ask its built-in Assistant to perform tasks in the background. The more I use it, the more it’s difficult to deny that agents will be the future of the web. That is, as long as they can access it. And there’s good reason to deny them access, especially if your business model relies on humans interacting with your contenti.e. the entire media industry. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, in responding to discussion about the issue on X, seemed to say that blocking AI browsers like Comet is on the table, since they further blur the line between agent and user. The divided internet The question the Perplexity-Cloudflare conflict forces us to answer is: Who should have final say over access? Should a website be able to block user agents if they desire? Or should a person be able to send an agent on their behalf, and expect it to have the same level of access? A lot hinges on the answer to this. If users can employ agents as an unhindered proxy for their own browsing, as Perplexity defends, that’s sure to accelerate the shift to the internet of bots, and websites will need to contend with far fewer human visitors. A fairly reasonable assumption is it would also lead to a large expansion of hard paywalls as site owners seek to lock off or monetize access. Team Cloudflare, however, would prefer that sites have the ability to block agents specifically, bifurcating the experience between humans and bots, and the economics along with it. Charging bots to access content is a rapidly growing space, fueling a set of startups (including TollBit and ScalePost) as well as Cloudflare’s own Pay Per Crawl program. Although user agents aren’t the only type of bot, they might end up being the largest category, especially if AI browsers become popular. Ironically, it’s Perplexity who might have the best business model to deal with this future. The Perplexity Publishers’ Program, which shares ad revenue with content partners, is more scalable than signing individual deals with media companies, as OpenAI has done. The program is nascent, but if Perplexity could make it both available to any content creator and self-servesimiar to YouTube’s Partner Programperhaps it could provide the rails for monetizing the activity of agents. Either way, the economy of the web is going to be remade. We can see that the future is agents, but how the future sees them is a question that needs to be answered. And for the media, it might even be the most important one. {"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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It’s August, and horror and humor came to play.In a month that’s long been known to let edgier movies thrive, Zach Cregger’s highly anticipated horror film “Weapons” did not disappoint, topping the box office during its debut weekend with $42.5 million domestically from 3,202 theaters. It made $70 million internationally.The film’s success also handed its distributor, Warner Bros. Pictures, the seventh No. 1 opening of the year, and became the studio’s sixth film in a row to debut with over $40 million domestically.“Freakier Friday,” Disney’s chaotic sequel to the 2003 classic, “Freaky Friday,” took the second spot during its premiere weekend, earning $29 million in 3,975 North American theaters. Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis return, this time for a double body-swapping between the mother-daughter duo and Lohan’s teen daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter.Viral marketing tactics, coupled with strong social media word-of-mouth, boded well for both films’ success, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the data firm Comscore.“The top two films could not be more different, and that’s what makes this weekend so appealing for moviegoers,” Dergarabedian said. “Both are perfectly tailored for their audiences to react in real time over the weekend to these films and then post on social media.”“Weapons” transports audiences to the small town of Maybrook, where 17 kids up and leave their homes at 2:17 a.m., leaving bewildered parents in their wake. The town is left to navigate the lingering effects of trauma through horror, paranoia and a touch of existential humor.The film is Cregger’s follow-up to his solo directorial debut with the 2022 genre-bending horror, “Barbarian.” That critically-acclaimed film had a slower start and smaller budget, but still topped the charts during its premiere with $10 million domestically and made a splash in the genre.“Weapons” generated a lot of buzz for its strong reviews (95% on Rotten Tomatoes).“The internet’s exploding right now between Friday and today. You just see that people are having a great time with it,” said Jeffrey Goldstein, president of global distribution for Warner Bros. “It starts with an exceptional movie, an exceptional marketing campaign, and the date was exceptional too.”The success of the comedy-horror double premiere meant “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” surrendered its two-week run in the top spot and landed in the third position, bringing in $15.5 million domestically. The superhero movie enjoyed a strong $118 million debut, but stumbled in its second weekend.“The Bad Guys 2,” which got a healthy start at the No. 2 spot during its premiere weekend, came in fourth place, earning $10.4 million domestically. “The Naked Gun” had a similar fate, reaching the fifth position with $8.4 million in North American theaters.“Jurassic World Rebirth,” which came in seventh this week, is expected to hit $800 million globally by Monday, according to NBC Universal, following a successful run in theaters.Warner Bros. started off slow this year, but made a comeback with the box-office hit, “A Minecraft Movie,” which opened with $157 million domestically. Since then, movies like “Sinners,” “Superman” and now, “Weapons,” have found success.The studio set “a blueprint to how to create a perfect summer lineup,” Dergarabedian said.“Weapons “also joins a stream of successful horror movies this year, its opening numbers coming in just behind “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and “Sinners.” Top 10 movies by domestic box office With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore: “Weapons,” $42.5 million. “Freakier Friday,” $29 million. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” $15.5 million. “The Bad Guys 2,” $10.4 million. “The Naked Gun,” $8.4 million. “Superman,” $7.8 million. “Jurassic World Rebirth,” $4.7 million. “F1: The Movie,” $2.9 million. “Together,” $2.6 million. “Sketch,” $2.5 million. Itzel Luna, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Authorities overseeing the development of artificial intelligence in Indonesia have proposed a “sovereign AI fund” to finance the archipelago’s ambitions to become a regional hub for the fast-growing technology, a government document showed. Last month, Reuters reported that Southeast Asia’s largest economy would release its first national roadmap on AI in a bid to attract foreign investment as it looks to join the global AI and chip-making race. The race has seen neighbouring Malaysia secure billions of dollars from global tech firms seeking to build critical infrastructure to meet growing demand for cloud and AI services. The Indonesia strategy, released in the form of a 179-page white paper seen by Reuters, recommends, among other things, a sovereign AI fund mainly handled by the country’s new sovereign wealth fund, Danantara Indonesia, which controls over $900 billion in assets. Danantara Indonesia did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The paper did not specify the amount that would be needed, but estimated a 2027 to 2029 timeline to set up the fund, and a public-private model to finance Indonesia’s AI push. It also suggests increasing fiscal incentives for domestic investors in AI, without providing details. The strategy paper, which the communications and digital ministry said still awaits public feedback before the final draft, maps Indonesia’s computational readiness for AI and makes recommendations for AI-related policy strategies until 2030. “Indonesia right now is in the early stages of AI adoption,” the document reads. Industry players including Chinese giant Huawei and Indonesia’s biggest technology company GoTo contributed to the report. An April report by the Boston Consulting Group said ASEAN nations were positioned for substantial AI-driven gains, with GDP contributions ranging from 2.3% to 3.1% by 2027, and Indonesia could see the highest impact in terms of absolute gross domestic output growth. The roadmap also details challenges for Indonesia, including a lack of talent, low research funding, uneven connectivity outside big cities, risks of misinformation, and data leaks. Global tech companies have courted the AI drive in Indonesia, including Nvidia and Microsoft. Stanley Widianto, Reuters
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