Publishers carry the cost of creating original content. Writers, editors, and illustrators do the work every day. Their readers and site visitors support their work through subscriptions, ad revenue, and engagement.
AI bots don’t participate in or contribute to this relationship. They don’t subscribe, they don’t view ads, and they don’t always respect paywalls. Instead, they crawl at scale, bypass business models, and steal content.
The impact is immediate: lost traffic, diluted ad revenue, undermined subscription models, and reduced value of the original content. Our content-creating customers voice this frustration to us every day — this broken paradigm of how they used to earn their living allows their work to be taken without revenue.
High stakes require immediate attention
Legal actions, like the proposed US$1.5 billion Anthropic settlement, show just how high the stakes are. Publishers need control now, not just to protect their content, but to safeguard the revenue that is being lost.
The challenge is that crawlers and fetchers don’t always adhere to existing controls. They can slip past the defenses that content creators used to rely on, like robots.txt adherence.
However, a lack of awareness and familiarity with the growing number of AI bots makes it risky to “just block them” outright. This simplistic approach sounds effective, but it risks the loss of content visibility and potential future revenue.
Control cannot be simplistic, and it must be accurate — it must shut out malicious scrapers while recognizing the AI agents that are willing to pay.
Akamai protects original content in real time
Akamai’s enforcement at the edge provides publishers with the visibility and accuracy necessary to protect original content in real time.
And now we’re excited to help original content creators take the next step through our new direct integrations with TollBit and Skyfire. These market-changing vendors are providing publishers with flexible ways to manage access and turn AI traffic into revenue — whether through use-based fees, tokenized licensing, or pricing models that fit their strategy.
TollBit: Verified consumption, flexible monetization
TollBit is used by more than 3,000 websites to create a paywall or “tollbooth” for AI bots, enabling publishers to control access and monetize use. When integrated with Akamai, TollBit’s process works in four simple steps:
Detection: An AI bot request is detected in real time by Akamai at the edge.
Authorization: Akamai verifies with TollBit that the bot or agent has authorization to access the content.
Monetization: TollBit applies the publisher’s chosen model (such as subscription, licensing, or use-based thresholds), and the usage is logged.
- AI-ready delivery: TollBit fetches the requested content and reformats it into structured, AI-ready outputs for consumption.
Key capabilities for publishers
Central dashboard: Manage AI agent access, pricing models, and use logs in one place
Detailed analytics: Track which AI bots are consuming content, at what frequency, and under which agreements
Flexible controls: Adjust terms, pricing, or access levels instantly, without code changes
Content reformatting: Ensure delivery in structured, AI-friendly formats that agents can easily process
Nigel Leigh, Chief Technology Officer at Footballco, put it simply: “We see firsthand the surge in AI-driven traffic. Partnering with Akamai and TollBit gives us the capabilities to protect our content, the tools to monitor AI bot traffic, manage it on our terms, and a new path to monetize AI access.”
Together, Akamai and TollBit provide publishers and original content creators with a practical framework for managing and monetizing AI traffic on their own terms.
Skyfire: Know Your Agent and monetization through verified access
Detection: An AI bot request is detected by Akamai at the edge.
Token check: Akamai checks for a Skyfire-issued KYAPay token tied to a verified AI identity.
Authorization and payment: If the token is valid, Akamai charges the token to collect payment and approves the request.
Enforcement: If the token is missing or unauthorized, the request is denied until payment or verification is completed.
Key capabilities for publishers
Identity-first access: Every AI agent must present a Skyfire-issued KYAPay token. The token presents the agent's verified identity, but more importantly, it presents the verified identity of the human principal behind the agent.
Prevent false blocks: With Skyfire, publishers avoid mistakes that others have made, such as accidentally blocking Perplexity by treating its traffic as generic scraping. With KYAPay, publishers can have confidence in who the agent is and can allow legitimate bots.
Granular policy control: Publishers can decide which agents are allowed, what content they see, and how often.
Payment enforcement: Requests without a valid token are automatically denied until terms are met.
With Skyfire and Akamai, publishers get identity-based access control at the edge, ensuring that only verified, authorized AI agents are allowed through, and every interaction can be tied to enforceable business terms.
The adoption of Skyfire’s KYAPay tokens also provides a seamless path for broader business use cases, including account creation, API access, ecommerce, and more.
Flexibility in monetization models
No two publishers will approach AI traffic the same way. Some will want the visibility and transaction layer that TollBit provides, while others will prioritize identity-first access controls through Skyfire.
Akamai isn’t prescribing a single model but instead enabling flexibility. By integrating with multiple monetization partners, Akamai ensures that publishers can adopt the framework that best fits their content strategy, business model, and long-term AI engagement goals.
Identity is the foundation of monetization
Our separate alliances with TollBit and Skyfire reinforce one truth: Identity is the foundation of monetization. Without it, publishers risk either missing revenue or blocking the wrong thing.
The future of AI traffic isn’t about rigid models like charging per crawl. Our customers have told us that they want to go beyond simply putting a price tag on access. They want to solve the bigger challenge: knowing who the agents are, ensuring the right ones get through, and giving publishers the flexibility to shape value in multiple ways.
With accurate AI bot detection, identity-driven access, and flexible monetization frameworks, Akamai is giving publishers the ability to:
Recognize and verify individual AI agents instead of treating them all the same.
Monetize through flexible models, including recurring agreements, licensing, and bespoke partnerships.
Adapt at the speed of AI innovation while maintaining global control and enforcement at the edge.
Get started today
These integrations are available now, giving publishers the power to turn automated traffic into revenue on their terms. To get started with Skyfire or TollBit, contact an expert.
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