Lightspeed leads a $24 million Series A in TollBit, a first-of-its-kind platform built to help publishers get compensated for their content in an AI-f

Investing in TollBit: The Internet’s AI Toll Booth

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2024-10-23 14:00:34

Lightspeed leads a $24 million Series A in TollBit, a first-of-its-kind platform built to help publishers get compensated for their content in an AI-first world.

AI is changing the economics of the internet. When an AI chatbot can simply answer any question on any topic in the known universe, there’s no need to visit the websites where the bot found those answers in the first place. But without site visits, the advertising revenue keeping many of those sites afloat quickly dries up.

While some larger publishers have begun striking deals with generative AI companies and getting paid for the right to use their content, many mid-sized and smaller digital content owners will either go under or be forced to adopt paywalls to survive. Without a major paradigm shift, the free ad-supported Internet that has thrived for nearly three decades will come to an end.

As AI agents become more accessible and eventually proliferate at an exponential rate, publishers and digital content owners need a way to monetize content that doesn’t rely on eyeballs and clicks. Enter TollBit.