Scott Purcell (above) co-founder of Man of Many

Having spent over a decade watching digital platforms promise plenty but deliver little to content creators, seeing journalism repeatedly undervalued, it felt counterintuitive for Man of Many to voluntarily license our premium content to yet another tech platform.

But becoming the first Australian lifestyle publisher to formally license our content to an AI platform, ProRata.AI and its answer engine, Gist.ai, isn't about chasing short-term revenue. It's about setting standards and proactively shaping the future of digital publishing, informed by hard-learned lessons from our industry's past.

Australia's experience with the News Media Bargaining Code offered a brutal yet valuable lesson: waiting for platforms to set terms almost always results in publishers losing out. Big tech’s initial response, including threats to withdraw services, underscored just how dispensable local publishers were viewed. However, collective publisher action showed that fair compensation is achievable when we proactively assert our value.

The rise of AI presents a similarly pivotal moment but with higher stakes and a tighter timeline. Publishers face a stark choice: actively shape how AI engages with our content or passively watch platforms extract value........

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