People Inc. Builds Custom APIs For AI Agents
People Inc. is creating custom APIs to make its journalism easier for AI agents to use, according to Jon Roberts, the company's chief innovation officer. This move aims to make access more efficient and give the company greater control over how its content is delivered.
Original reporting · digiday.com
Original: “People Inc. is building custom APIs to make its journalism easier for AI agents to use”
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Key points from Digiday’s report
- People Inc. is building custom APIs to make its journalism easier for AI agents to use.
- The company is shifting its investment priorities and under pressure to find durable businesses as AI reshapes the journalism landscape.
- Other publishers, such as The Economist and Time, are also exploring ways to make their content more accessible to AI systems.
- Traffic from AI agents is growing rapidly, with a 7,851% year-over-year increase, according to HUMAN's 2026 State of AI Traffic report.
- Publishers are experimenting with different methods to package their journalism for AI systems.
People Inc. is developing custom APIs to provide its article text and key details in a simpler format for AI agents, according to Jon Roberts, the company's chief innovation officer. This approach strips out extra material from HTML pages, which can distract AI agents and increase processing costs. The custom APIs send article text in Markdown along with details such as author and publication date.
The move comes as People Inc. shifts its investment priorities, having laid off about 6% of its workforce recently. The company is under pressure to find durable businesses as AI reshapes how audiences discover and access journalism. By providing custom APIs, People Inc. aims to make access more efficient and gain greater control over its content delivery.
Previously, People Inc. allowed partners to access its content through web crawling and Amazon S3 buckets. However, crawling is an inefficient way for AI systems to obtain information, and the company is now moving towards custom APIs. This strategic shift could make access more efficient and provide People Inc. with greater control over its journalism.
AI companies are recognizing the importance of knowing when publishers created or updated content, according to Roberts. People Inc. is building these details into its content for its own AI tools and using this knowledge to offer AI partners a more useful way to access the material. The publisher is not focused on advertising directly to AI agents.
The urgency to adapt to AI agents is growing, with traffic from these agents increasing 7,851% year over year, according to HUMAN's 2026 State of AI Traffic report. Publishers are testing different ways to adapt their content and services for AI systems, with some experimenting with structured access and others making their marketing material more readable for agents.
Other publishers, such as The Economist and Time, are also exploring ways to make their content more accessible to AI systems. The Economist is making its marketing material outside of its paywall more easily readable for agents, while Time has converted its pages from HTML to Markdown and started selling ads to AI agents. Forbes is testing how to make some content more usable by AI agents, including creating Markdown versions of its content.
The approach to packaging journalism for AI systems is still developing, with publishers experimenting with different methods. Nina Gould, Forbes' chief innovation officer, said the strategy is still in development, with a planned ChatGPT product-recommendation plugin not yet live. As the use of AI agents continues to grow, publishers must find ways to adapt their content and services to meet this new demand. This article is based on reporting by Digiday.
Questions and answers
Why is People Inc. building custom APIs for AI agents?
People Inc. is building custom APIs to make its journalism easier for AI agents to use and to gain greater control over how its content is delivered.
How are other publishers adapting to AI agents?
Other publishers, such as The Economist and Time, are exploring ways to make their content more accessible to AI systems, including making marketing material more readable and converting pages from HTML to Markdown.
What is driving the need for publishers to adapt to AI agents?
The rapid growth of traffic from AI agents, with a 7,851% year-over-year increase, is driving the need for publishers to adapt their content and services to meet this new demand.
