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Last updated: October 3rd, 2025. We’ll keep this up to date as terms evolve.
At Nordot, our expertise lies in knowing where your content travels and lands, and making sure it retains value along the way. Here’s a quick overview of the current AI browser landscape and what it means for publishers: how content is used, and whether compensation or licensing is on the table.
What it is. Edge integrates Copilot for page summaries and task assistance. Microsoft is now piloting a Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM) to pay publishers for AI use of their content, starting in the U.S.
How it uses publisher content. Copilot summarizes pages and answers questions using accessible content; PCM aims to license use more formally.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). Early-stage: the pilot describes usage-based payments rather than only upfront deals. Details on rates, measurement/auditing, and scope (training vs. inference) are still emerging.
What to watch. Scope/timing of the pilot, definition of “usage,” and whether Microsoft extends PCM globally or opens it to third-party AI buyers.
What it is. Not a browser, but relevant: ProRata builds licensed AI search/answer layers and embeds Gist.ai on publisher sites, promising attribution transparency and traffic promotion back to sources.
How it uses publisher content. Uses licensed content from partners to generate AI answers; the embedded experience keeps users within publisher environments.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). Public commitment to a revenue share (50%) and “licensed-only” content use; public partner counts indicate a growing network.
What to watch. Reporting/auditability of attribution, net revenue yield vs. off-site AI answers, and how well embedded AI search converts to subscriptions and loyalty.
Don’t forget to ask for our AI Rider to get a clear picture of your AI rights—opt-outs and opt-ins included.
What it is. Opera’s new subscription AI browser that can perform tasks on the web (“Do”), manage AI workflows (“Tasks/Cards”), and run some actions locally for privacy. Early access is paid.
How it uses publisher content. Primarily as a user’s browser: it loads pages and (via its agent) can navigate and act on them. Opera markets summarization/automation, but has not detailed special crawling or reuse beyond the user’s normal page access.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). No public, publisher-specific compensation or licensing program announced as of today. It appears to rely on standard web access via the user’s browser session.
What to watch. Whether Neon introduces built-in summarization or reading modes that materially change on-page monetization, and whether Opera pursues publisher partnerships or format guidance for “agentic” workflows.
What it is. Perplexity’s AI browser (“Comet”) integrates its AI engine to automate research, browsing, and communication flows. The new Comet Plus tier adds a subscription-based model offering direct access to premium journalism.
How it uses publisher content. Comet fetches sources and generates answers with citations, which can in some cases reduce clicks to full articles. With Comet Plus, participating publishers’ content is surfaced more directly to users inside the AI experience.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). Perplexity runs a Publishers Program (partners include TIME, Der Spiegel, etc.). Earlier reporting described ad-revenue share when a cited page appears in an answer; more recently Perplexity announced a $42.5M revenue-sharing pool and additional compensation tied to its subscriptions. Exact splits vary by program/version, but the direction of travel is toward formalized payouts. Comet Plus introduces a new compensation model: participating publishers (CNN, Condé Nast, Fortune, Los Angeles Times, Le Figaro, Le Monde, and The Washington Post) are paid based on multiple “value dimensions” (human and AI-driven interactions) of their contributed content.
What to watch. How Comet Plus defines and measures the “value dimensions,” how compensation is audited for both products, whether all publisher tiers can qualify, and whether the shift toward subscription-based AI access meaningfully offsets loss in conventional traffic or cannibalization risks.
What it is. The Browser Company’s AI browser (“Dia”) adds AI chat about your tabs and other agentic features; It introduced a $20/month Dia Pro plan. Arc on iOS also experimented with AI “pinch-to-summarize.”
How it uses publisher content. Summaries/answers about pages you have open (or pages it fetches on your behalf). No separate search-engine-style index disclosed.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). No public, publisher-specific licensing or compensation program announced.
What to watch. Whether Dia introduces a source marketplace or aligns with third-party licensing frameworks to cover summarization.
What it is. Brave’s assistant Leo can summarize pages and answer questions; it leans on Brave Search and provides citations. Privacy-forward positioning.
How it uses publisher content. Pulls results/summaries via Brave Search and performs on-page summarization when users visit a site.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). No dedicated, public compensation program for publishers specific to Leo summaries. (Brave’s broader ad model is user-centric, not a news-licensing scheme.)
What to watch. Any movement toward licensed content deals via Brave Search, and controls that drive traffic back to source pages.
What it is. Google has layered Gemini features across products. AI Overviews in Search surface synthesized answers above results. While not strictly a browser feature, it’s central to how Chrome users encounter content.
How it uses publisher content. Draws from the open web and other sources to produce summaries, which can reduce click-through in certain result types.
Publisher terms (use/compensation). No broad, public compensation scheme tied to AI Overviews. Licensing conversations are reported but remain deal-specific and non-standardized.
What to watch. Whether Google follows others toward a formal marketplace, measured changes in click-through, and any opt-out/controls that materially help publishers.
Navigating this landscape is not a one-time exercise. Terms shift, pilots expand, and new actors enter quickly. Publishers need a structured way to track platform changes, assess risk, and capture opportunities without losing control of their content. At Nordot, we help publishers manage exactly this: building diversified distribution strategies, structuring communication with platforms, and protecting content value in an ecosystem that rewrites its rules every quarter.
Bertrand de Volontat is VP of EMEA at Nordot, where he helps publishers make the most of their content across platforms and borders. With a background in both journalism and media business, he led editorial operations at upday and launched several digital media ventures in the past.