Anthony Katsur on why LLM free ride must end – and how IAB Tech Lab plans to fix it

From chaos to control

Speaking to The Drum during IAB NewFronts, Katsur revealed the organization’s plans for what he calls the LLM Content Ingest API Initiative – a framework to help publishers structure and license their content for use in LLMs, with pricing, attribution and even ad revenue built in.

“The crawling methodology is very unstructured,” he says. “Publishers need structure and control. I would argue LLMs would benefit from structure and control as well.”

The idea is to move away from today’s uncontrolled scraping toward a system where publishers decide what LLMs can access – and what it’s worth. “Look, publishers: lock arms, block the crawling, stop the crawling,” he urges. “Engage with the LLMs, but do it in a way that’s structured and within your control.”

Tiered pricing could allow media owners to charge more for exclusives or real-time news. Structured metadata could ensure better user experiences and proper attribution – “This content brought to you by The Drum,” for instance, with scope for revenue-sharing ads baked in.

“None of that is possible in the current crawling architecture,” Katsur says. “But with an API? It’s all possible.”

Why the courts aren’t enough

While publishers like The New York Times are challenging generative AI in court, Katsur says most are still caught between principle and pragmatism.

“I think some media companies are letting this occur now just to remain relevant,” he says. “They want to be in the game. I’m not saying that’s right - but that’s what’s going on.”

And while some believe there’s time to figure it all out, Katsur disagrees. “It’s like we’re in the first inning of a baseball game, but the game will be over in 15 minutes.”

Regulators, too, are scrambling to keep up. “Technology always outpaces regulation,” he says. “Yes, we need updates to copyright and trademark law. Maybe even new ones. But this is moving so fast.”

He also warns that inconsistent rules across regions could entrench an AI power divide. “China’s looser regulatory environment gives them advantages. In Europe, I’m hearing whispers of loosening data restrictions to spark innovation. No one wants to be an AI backwater.”

Measurement: a mirror on the industry

Katsur is equally blunt about another long-running digital dilemma: advertising measurement. And here, the problem isn’t legal or technical – it’s cultural.

“We’ve been pushing this rock up the hill for a decade,” he says. “Advertisers and their agency partners should be pounding the table, stomping their feet, withholding ad dollars… We treat measurement like it’s the holy grail. But we have the technical solutions.”

He points to the Open Measurement SDK – an open-source framework built by the Tech Lab in response to P&G’s Mark Pritchard, who famously threatened to pull spend over viewability failures in 2017. Today, the SDK is used across 3bn+ devices and 150+ companies globally.

“It’s not a technical issue,” says Katsur. “The issues around measurement are more business and politically oriented and about protecting perceived walled gardens or real walled gardens.”

A trade body with teeth

Founded 11 years ago as a spinout from the IAB, the IAB Tech Lab exists solely to build technical standards and frameworks, not to lobby policymakers or write insertion orders. “We don’t get involved in matters of policy,” Katsur says. “Our job is to create technical standards, open-source frameworks and best practices for the industry.”

That includes the LLM content API now in development. “We’re calling our first meetings with publishers now,” he says. “We want the LLMs at the table, too. It has to work for both parties.”

With members ranging from The Telegraph and Axel Springer to Amazon, Google, The Trade Desk, NBCUniversal and General Motors, those meetings are likely to be lively.

But Katsur is confident. “APIs give structure and control to an ecosystem,” he says. “That’s why APIs exist.”

And if there’s one thing the industry has proved? When the money’s on the line, it can move quickly.