The Media Copilot

 Publishers don’t need bigger walls—they need dials. Here’s how to see, price, and shape LLM and agent activity instead of getting steamrolled by it.

If the last two years were about discovering that AI agents are vacuuming up the web, the next two will be about deciding what to do about it. Do you block, meter, license - or build your own agent and make the bots pay?

On this episode of The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal welcomes Aurélie Guerrieri, Chief Growth Officer at DataDome, a Forrester-recognized leader in bot defense. Together, they dive into the new reality of AI-driven traffic: from LLM crawlers and real-time “prompt-time fetching” to the rising tide of agentic activity that acts on users’ behalf. Instead of framing the debate as simply good bots versus bad bots, the conversation explores a more practical lens: identity versus intent, and how publishers can reclaim control, revenue, and visibility in an internet increasingly shaped by AI distribution.

Why this matters now

🔹Scale & speed broke the old defenses. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs - servers that cache and deliver website content from locations closer to users) and Web Application Firewalls (WAFs - security systems that filter and monitor HTTP traffic between users and web applications) still matter, but they adapt in minutes. Attackers now act in seconds and from distributed IPs that look like everyday users.

🔹AI changed the mix of traffic. DataDome sees enormous growth in prompt-time fetching - LLMs hitting your most valuable pages (latest articles, pricing, paywalled previews) 20:1 compared with traditional crawling in some cases.

🔹The business model is shifting. “Open web” ≠ “open season.” Publishers need to decide who gets access, for what, and at what price - and they need tooling that can enforce those choices in real time.

“AI is part of the problem—and part of the solution. We use AI to fight AI.”    -  Aurélie Guerrieri

How can publishers fight back against AI bots—and turn them into new revenue streams instead of lost traffic?

Key topics:

🔹Why the future of AI governance is about identity and intent, not just “good vs. bad bots”
🔹How prompt-time fetching targets publishers’ most valuable content in real time
🔹The rise of agentic activity and why it can be both powerful and dangerous
🔹Why static defenses like content delivery networks (CDNs) and web application firewalls (WAFs) are being outpaced
🔹How DataDome uses AI to fight AI, stopping more attacks and restoring visibility
🔹New monetization models: pay-per-fetch, APIs, and even building owned agents
🔹Lessons from Cloudflare vs. Perplexity and what they mean for publisher control
🔹Guerrieri’s advice to media leaders: measure, control, and experiment

Her bottom line: the future of publishing isn’t about keeping bots out, but about shaping how they come in—and making them pay for the privilege.

🎙 Guest:

 Aurélie Guerrieri | CGO,  DataDome | LinkedIn 

📩 And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

How Dappier helps publishers move beyond bot-blocking to monetize AI and take charge of their own "answer layer."

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal is joined by Dan Goikhman and Krish Arvapally, co-founders of Dappier, to explore how media companies can turn AI from a threat into an opportunity.

As AI agents and bots reshape how audiences find and consume content, Dappier is helping publishers go from defending against scraping to playing offense. From creating branded AI experiences on publisher sites to opening new revenue streams from AI search, Dan and Krish break down how the next wave of AI distribution can be sustainable for media.

Together, Pete, Dan, and Krish dive into:

 🔹 What it really means to monetize content when it appears in AI search

🔹 How Dappier’s Ask AI 2.0 helps publishers super-serve audiences with ad-supported AI search

🔹 The role of standards, trust, and enforcement in the bot ecosystem after Cloudflare’s big move against stealth crawlers 🔹 Why verticalized AI experiences will define the future and how publishers can claim their “answer layer”

🔹 What early partnerships in local news reveal about AI’s impact on journalism and community trust

From ad models to agentic search, this episode offers a rare insider’s look at how media can thrive in an AI-first internet. Whether you’re in publishing, tech, or just curious about the future of answers, you’ll leave with a clearer view of where the AI economy for content is headed.

🎙 Guests:

• Dan Goikhman | Co-Founder, Dappier | LinkedIn
  

• Krish Arvapally | Co-Founder, Dappier | LinkedIn

  
  

📩 And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

From “subscriber‐financed stalwart” to AI trailblazer—how The Atlantic built an AI task force, overhauled its search strategy, and struck bold licensing deals to future-proof quality journalism.

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal sits down with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, to unpack how one of America’s most storied publications is navigating the AI revolution. Under Nick’s leadership, The Atlantic has become a rare legacy‐media success story—profitable, subscriber-driven, and bold in its AI strategy. From launching an internal task force post-ChatGPT to pivoting away from Google-first traffic, to striking a licensing deal with OpenAI despite staff unease, The Atlantic’s journey offers a playbook in balancing journalistic integrity, business sustainability, and technological innovation. Nick brings both enthusiasm for AI’s potential and a clear-eyed realism about its impact on news discovery and trust.

Pete and Nick dive into: 🔹 The AI Task Force’s findings on search traffic decline and what it meant for The Atlantic’s business model 🔹 Behind the scenes of The Atlantic’s licensing agreement with OpenAI—and why it ruffled editorial feathers 🔹 How “agents” and personalized AI tools will reshape how readers find and engage with journalism 🔹 The Atlantic’s ethics playbook for AI: rules, guardrails, and editorial oversight 🔹 Striking the balance between subscriber trust, profitability, and fearless experimentation

Whether you’re a media professional, tech enthusiast, or simply curious about the future of news, this episode offers rare insight into how a leading publication is plotting its course through one of the most tumultuous eras in media history.

🎙 Guest: Nicholas Thompson | CEO, The Atlantic | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasthompson

📩 And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

Cloudflare’s move to block AI bots by default could reshape how content is protected online—raising new questions about copyright, scraping, and the future of AI training data.

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal welcomes Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer of Cloudflare, for a conversation that couldn’t be more timely.

On July 1st, Cloudflare announced a game-changing move: any new domain hosted on its massive network will automatically block AI bots from scraping content. That’s a major escalation in the growing fight over who gets to access and use data on the internet—and how.

Cloudflare is far from a minor player. It routes 20% of global internet traffic, and its decision to restrict bot access by default could redraw the boundaries of the AI economy. As generative AI companies train their models on vast amounts of publicly available content—often without consent—this kind of infrastructural pushback may mark a turning point.

Pete and Stephanie dive deep into:

🔹 How Cloudflare identifies and blocks AI bots in real time

🔹 Why this decision matters more than individual publishers adding "robots.txt"

🔹 What enforcement looks like when AI companies try to sneak around restrictions

🔹 The potential ripple effect across the rest of the internet

🔹 Whether we’re heading toward an AI content economy—and what that might look like

It’s a conversation that raises urgent questions about digital rights, platform responsibility, and the blurry future of content in the AI era.

Whether you're a journalist, technologist, or just someone who cares about the future of the web, this episode is essential listening.

🎙 Guest: Stephanie Cohen | https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieecohen 

Chief Strategy Officer, Cloudflare | https://www.cloudflare.com/ 

📩 And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

From “news wholesaler” to AI innovator—how the Associated Press is adapting to new audience habits, synthetic content, and search-native journalism.

This week on The Media Copilot podcast, host Pete Pachal sits down with Troy Thibodeaux, Director of AI Products and Services at The Associated Press. A pioneer in AI-powered journalism, Troy has been ahead of the curve—long before ChatGPT made AI a household name.

With AI search platforms like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google’s AI Overviews reshaping how people access news, media companies are being forced to rethink their entire approach. But the AP occupies a unique space in the ecosystem: it’s a news wholesaler, serving thousands of outlets rather than individual readers. So when audiences demand instant summaries, auto-generated podcasts, and AI-written rundowns, the AP’s biggest challenge isn’t competition—it’s maintaining editorial integrity across every remix.

Pete and Troy unpack:

🔹 How the AP defines “liquid content” and where AI fits in

🔹 The ethical boundaries and red lines around synthetic news 🔹 Why adapting to AI isn’t just a tech problem—it’s a newsroom culture shift

🔹 How the AP’s structure gives it an edge in the AI news arms race

If you care about the future of journalism and how legacy institutions are rewriting their rulebooks for an AI-powered era, this episode is essential listening.

🎙 Guest: Troy Thibodeaux

Director of AI Products & Services, The Associated Press  |https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-thibodeaux/ 

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

Inside Particle’s mission to fix the way we consume headlines—with AI summaries, source transparency, and more.

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal welcomes Sara Beykpour, CEO of Particle, an AI-powered news app that’s rethinking what it means to aggregate information in 2025.

Unlike traditional aggregators that simply pile stories into a feed, Particle uses artificial intelligence to assemble a comprehensive summary of any given topic—highlighting key facts, surfacing original sources like tweets or trailers, and analyzing bias across coverage. It’s curation with context, and it’s changing how people interact with the news.

Pete and Sara dig into:

🔹 What makes Particle different in a long line of aggregator apps

🔹 How “liquid content” turns a 30-minute article into an 8-minute podcast

🔹 The concept of personalized news agents powered by AI

🔹 Why AI is giving users more control than ever over how they consume media

Whether you’re in the trenches of journalism, building tools for content creators, or just trying to stay informed in a smarter way, this episode is packed with insight.

🎙 Guest: Sara Beykpour CEO of Particle | Follow on LinkedIn

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

Hugging Face’s media liaison talks trust, tech, and why the next great newsroom might look more like a dev team.

This week on The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal welcomes Florent Daudens, longtime Canadian journalist and now Press Lead at Hugging Face, the open-source powerhouse behind many of the AI models driving today’s innovation.

Florent’s unique position—right at the intersection of the developer world and the newsroom—makes him one of the most insightful voices on how AI is reshaping journalism from the inside out. Before joining Hugging Face, Florent led teams at the CBC, and now he's helping build real tools that actually work for journalists.

Pete and Florent dig into: 🔹 How to overcome journalists' lingering skepticism about AI 🔹 Why the line between editorial and product teams is disappearing 🔹 The rise of the “product-minded reporter” 🔹 The future of AI discovery—and what the “Internet of Agents” might look like 🔹 And yes, they talk AIEO—the next evolution of SEO for an AI-driven media landscape

Whether you're experimenting with AI tools in your newsroom, navigating editorial strategy in a shifting ecosystem, or just trying to understand what’s next, this conversation is a must-listen.

🎙 Guest: Florent Daudens :https://fdaudens.com/en/index.html Press Lead, Hugging Face Follow him on LinkedIn  : https://ca.linkedin.com/in/fdaudens 

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

There's something in TollBit's latest State of the Bots report that really jumped out at me. The major AI companies—notably Meta, OpenAI, and Google—have essentially given themselves permission to ignore robots.txt for their user agents. In the big picture of AI scraping it might seem like a detail, but it feels to me like a turning point from liberally interpreting the mechanisms for protecting content to brazenly flouting them.

I put this question directly to TollBit CEO Toshit Panigrahi when he joined me on this week’s Media Copilot podcast. A little background on TollBit: It’s a startup that specializes in helping publishers monetize their content when AI bots come calling. As everyone knows, the AI internet is rising fast—people are using chatbots to search the web, and those chatbots are giving them answers, not links. And if there was any doubt that this was a fad or not very impactful, Tollbit's most recent State of the Bots report for the first quarter 2025 puts that notion to rest. AI scraping is way up, and it's very quickly becoming comparable to scraping from search engines like Google or Bing.

That's one of several eye-opening, and in some cases worrisome, data points in the report, and Toshit and I dive deep into the most important ones. Like I mentioned, AI companies are now starting to openly ignore long-standing internet standards, effectively letting them crawl any "publicly available" content with impunity. What happens if this trend is left unchecked, and what can publishers do about it? We get into all the details, and their implications.

If you're stressed about what agents are going to mean for the media ecosystem, you definitely don't want to miss this one.

This episode covers:

• Why AI bots are ignoring robots.txt and what it means for publishers right now

• How the rise of agent-based scraping is quietly reshaping the open web

• The surprising data behind how much AI scrapers take vs. how little they give back

• What a “new value exchange” with AI looks like and how publishers might get paid

• Where all this is headed if nothing changes — and what needs to happen next

🎙 Guest: Toshit Panigrahi
CEO of TollBit
Follow him on LinkedIn

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License

© AnyWho Media 2025

What does it take to get AI to notice your content? Scrunch AI’s Chris Andrew shares the secret sauce.

On this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal welcomes Chris Andrew, CEO of Scrunch AI, to unravel the mysteries of AI-driven search. As AI platforms increasingly summarize news without driving traffic back to publishers, the game of visibility is changing. Chris explains how Scrunch AI is helping content creators understand and optimize for "AI SEO," a new frontier that goes beyond traditional search algorithms.

Pete and Chris dive deep into the emerging concept of "SEO for Chatbots"—why AI-generated summaries are redefining content discovery, and how publishers can adapt to avoid getting buried in the noise. They also explore the uncomfortable truth: AI summaries are designed to be self-contained, reducing the need for users to click through to the original source.

If you’re a media executive, content strategist, or just curious about the shifting landscape of digital publishing, this conversation is packed with practical insights and bold predictions.

This episode covers:

🔹 AI SEO: What it is and why it's the next content battleground

🔹 The Clickless Future: How AI summaries are shifting audience behavior

🔹 Publisher Panic: Why media outlets are scrambling to adapt

🔹 AI’s Surface Area Problem: Fewer sources, fewer clicks, and what that means

🔹 Scrunch AI’s Strategy: How Chris Andrew’s platform is re-engineering content for AI   visibility

🔹 New Rules of Engagement: What publishers need to know to stay relevant

🎙 Guest: Chris Andrew -CEO of Scrunch AI     

 Follow him on LinkedIn

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025

AI risk and the tenacity required.

In this special episode of The Media Copilot podcast, we're diving into the seismic shifts AI is causing in digital publishing. I recently hosted a webinar on AI Risk and Resilience for Publishers, where we unpacked how AI search engines are disrupting traditional traffic flows and what that means for content creators. The implications are significant: if audiences no longer need to visit publisher platforms to get information, how do publishers maintain visibility and revenue?

To explore this challenge, I sat down with David Buttle, founder of DJB Strategies and former Director of Platform Strategy at the Financial Times. David has been at the forefront of analyzing how AI impacts media consumption, and he's developed a methodology to assess risk levels for publishers in an AI-driven world.

Joining us is Will Barker of BluConnick, a company focused on enhancing audience engagement through first-party data. Together, we discussed how publishers can create AI-resilient content strategies and maintain their audience relationships in the age of AI-generated summaries.

Key Topics Covered:

• The rise of AI-driven search and its impact on publisher traffic

• How to identify content most at risk for AI substitution

• Strategic approaches to maintain audience loyalty and engagement

• Leveraging first-party data to optimize reader experience
  

Listen in as we uncover the roadmap for resilient content in an AI-first world. Whether you're a publisher, content strategist, or media executive, this episode will equip you with the insights needed to navigate this technological shift.

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I’d encourage you to follow the show on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app that you want. Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a rating or review — it really does help the show. And if you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to “like” the video and subscribe to the channel 🔔

🎙️ Guests:

• David Buttle

  Founder of DJB Strategies

  Former Director of Platform Strategy at Financial Times

  LinkedIn Profile

  DJB Strategies Website

  
  

• Will Barker

  Manager for Customer Success at BluConnick

  LinkedIn Profile

  BluConnick Website

You can also subscribe to The Media Copilot newsletter (link in show notes) and visit mediacopilot.ai for exclusive resources, tools, and AI training courses built specifically for media professionals.

This episode of The Media CoPilot was produced by Pete Pachal, Executive Producer Michele Musso, and with video/audio editing by the Musso Media team. Produced by Musso Media. © 2025 Musso Media. All rights reserved.

Music: Favorite by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 License 

© AnyWho Media 2025