Very funny enshitification coming from OpenAI. In exchange for access to real time data, it looks like they’re planning to bake in partner ads. Wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes just as pay-to-play as Google search.

Details from the pitch deck

The Preferred Publisher Program has five primary components, according to the deck.

First, it is available only to “select, high-quality editorial partners,” and its purpose is to help ChatGPT users more easily discover and engage with publishers’ brands and content.

Additionally, members of the program receive priority placement and “richer brand expression” in chat conversations, and their content benefits from more prominent link treatments. Finally, through PPP, OpenAI also offers licensed financial terms to publishers.

The financial incentives participating publishers can expect to receive are grouped into two buckets: guaranteed value and variable value.

Guaranteed value is a licensing payment that compensates the publisher for allowing OpenAI to access its backlog of data, while variable value is contingent on display success, a metric based on the number of users engaging with linked or displayed content.

The resulting financial offer would combine the guaranteed and variable values into one payment, which would be structured on an annual basis.

“The PPP program is more about scraping than training,” said one executive. “OpenAI has presumably already ingested and trained on these publishers’ archival data, but it needs access to contemporary content to answer contemporary queries.”