AI over cookies, outstanding slop, and Time's rewinding clock.

Germany is taking a stand, AI going off the rails, cracking GEO, and no news, no sunshine - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:51, 13 November 2025

Corbidge comments on...the AI contribution
Once upon a time, only a few books earned their place as true works of note - defined by standing the test of time and making a true impact on culture and minds. Now AI is stocking the shelves, what chance for anything new and ground-breaking? Industrialised imitation dressed up as insight seems designed to be superseded by the next AI creation, while today someone somewhere will pen or create something which will be here in a hundred years or more. Our resident content tsar Rob blows the dust from the bookshelves to share his thoughts on slop vs sublime.
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Growth beyond Google
No more crying over lost clicks, now it's all about building audiences that stick around. It's earning report season, and analysing the statements and assertions of some of the media's biggest brands reaffirms how much of the industry has pivoted away from faceless traffic towards direct audience connections. While some outlets such as People Inc. and BuzzFeed felt the Google search traffic pinch, others are seeing their digital ad revenue climb: New York Times reports +20%, Ziff Davis +5.9%, USA Today +2.9%. The trick? Direct connections, more video, and - for some - licensing content to AI platforms. Publishers can still survive (and thrive).
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Privacy pause?
Brussels seems willing to soften its stance on data protection if it helps AI to progress. The bloc’s upcoming "digital omnibus" will allow AI firms to play around with sensitive data, redefine what actually counts as personal, and (yay) simplify cookie banners. Privacy experts are perturbed, especially around who owns said AI, while pro-business groups think it might be a good thing. More details due next week.
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Japanese finance site Glides ahead
A chance to toot our own horn, after Japanese financial information and data brand DealWatch relaunched on Glide Publishing Platform. The service powers terminals and screens for banking and finance industry clients in Japanese, and leans on Glide CMS and Glide's audience Engagement platform Nexa to manage a complex mix of both traditional content and realtime data and information.
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Munich's historic nein
Regional Court judges in Germany ruled that ChatGPT broke copyright when using lyrics by local artists. Owners OpenAI will appeal the ruling, made after action brought by German IP rights organisation GEMA. The ruling does not have the same authority as a national or EU ruling, but it is giving legal experts a useful steer on sentiment for other cases.
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Discover fix on the way
Google Discover is working on ejecting AI spam, it says. Large numbers in the UK read fake articles in the prime Discover spots, despite being from fictional content from recycled and dubious domains. Google says a fix is due, but it is still handing out top spots like candy. Press Gazette knows more. Trusted publisher domains would be an obvious answer.
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Archives to algorithm
Time Magazine is jumping into AI, teaming up with Scale AI to breathe new life into their 102-year-old archive with an AI chatbot readers can interact with. Readers can now chat, question, and get short summaries from decades of journalism, in 13 languages. Does this single-source type of system work commercially? Give it Time.
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AI citations go rogue
AI answer engines use a process called "query fanout" to bring replies back to users, where a single original question might be broken down into parts, and rephrased with probable supplementary questions to assimilate a much wider set of replies from which to package its eventual single response. Quite how this effects optimising content for AI is hard to pin down - but AI researchers at Profound have had a good go at it. A deep dive into data from 2,867 ChatGPT fanouts shows that Google rank matters only for the first query or two - whch matters for giving citations. After that, answers barely link to SERP position at all, and become almost impossible to cite - making optimising for AI hard to do.
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Decoding GEO
Grab some popcorn and take some time to watch Lily Ray's new video on GEO, SEO, LLMO, organic search, and other topics vital to visibility.
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Canadian publishers bite
Another sign that AI companies can't just bulldoze copyright rules is coming from Canada. A court there says that OpenAI must answer a suit over scraping news content for ChatGPT, and publishers from Postmedia to CBC are rubbing their hands. The court awarded an initial $260,000 in costs to the publishers and argued that OpenAI's arguments over lack of jurisdiction are irrelevant, and Canadian courts are empowered to try the case.
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Surviving the AI murky waters 
Is the AI content flood upon us? Is quality a rare commodity? SEO sage Barry Adams discusses hallucination-prone slop, the need for publishers to stand out and whether unique value is optional, or needed for survival.
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Where news dries up, so does democracy
Turns out that when local papers vanish, legislative transparency quickly follows suit. Two new studies, aptly named Dark Deserts and Hometown Transparency, which came out of the University of Florida's Brechner Center led by David Cuillier, show that states which lack newspapers also lack transparency. Those states are more secretive, and less averse to fees, delays, and excuses. Turns out that newspapers aren't just good at informing - they keep democracy alive.
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No PR, just press
Twice a year, the last few of America's family-owned newspapers retreat behind closed doors to compare notes. The Independent Newspaper Group (ING) has been trading both numbers, war stories, and survival hacks for nearly 40 years. Members are swapping ideas that are actually working, and admitting to those that aren't.
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