Beyond the browser: what Sell Side Summit revealed about publishers’ next play

At this year’s AdMonsters Sell Side Summit in Nashville, publishers had one message: the value of content can’t be ignored in the age of generative AI.

Membrana Media’s CEO Mike Kudriavskiy and Siebren Roorda, Managing Director Western Europe, were on the ground as executives, ad ops leaders, and trade bodies debated how to protect publisher economics in a fast-changing ecosystem.

AI Scraping Under Fire

The sharpest words came from Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, who used his session to launch the AI Content Monetization Protocols (CoMP) Working Group. The initiative aims to create standards that force AI companies and LLM operators to pay for the content they use.

“If you are being crawled, and you’re not being paid for your content, that’s theft. Full stop,” Katsur told a packed room, earning applause.

Unlike Cloudflare’s new «pay-to-crawl» model, CoMP is built around compensation per user query, tracked through APIs that also give publishers the ability to block unwanted crawlers. It’s a vision that, if adopted, could give publishers a consistent new revenue stream instead of letting their output fuel AI for free.

Beyond the Browser

AI wasn’t the only talking point in Nashville. The summit’s theme, «Beyond the Browser», tapped into two other pain points: declining referral traffic and the shift to mobile.

• Community metrics over clicks. Amazon Web Services’ Stephanie Layser argued that publishers need to double down on building loyal communities, not chasing pageviews.
  
  
• Mobile monetization pressure. Panelists pointed out that with 70% of Gen Z identifying as app-first, publishers have to get smarter about contextual ad formats that feel more like services than interruptions.

Why It Matters

For publishers, the message from Nashville was blunt: protect content, diversify revenue, and build real audience value.

For Membrana Media, the summit reinforced our core belief that sustainable publishing requires both collective action to stop uncompensated AI scraping and innovation in how we serve and monetize audiences.