Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., has publicly called out Google, accusing the tech giant of using content without compensation to train its AI products. Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Vogel claimed that Google’s single web crawler serves both its search engine indexing and AI training, effectively taking content from publishers like People Inc.
Vogel noted that traffic from Google Search to People Inc.’s websites has dropped significantly, from 65% to the “high 20s.” He emphasized that the issue goes beyond lost traffic, arguing that Google’s use of the same crawler for AI training undermines the value of original content creators.
To counter this, People Inc. has partnered with Cloudflare to block unauthorized AI crawlers. Vogel added that the company is in discussions with major AI providers about potential content licensing agreements, though no deals have been finalized.
The CEO’s comments highlight growing concerns among publishers over AI training practices and the need for fair compensation. As AI continues to expand across industries, the debate over content ownership and licensing is becoming increasingly critical for the media world.
