Brands Must Renegotiate AI Access or Lose Commerce Revenue

Brands face urgent deadline on AI commerce strategy

Publishers and consumer brands have a narrow window to capture value from AI-powered commerce before losing audiences and revenue permanently, according to executives speaking at an Axios event in Cannes on June 25.

The Atlantic's publisher and chief revenue officer Alice McKown warned that AI companies are profiting from content they never paid for while intercepting audiences before they reach original sources. Brands that don't act quickly risk being cut out entirely.

"The value exceeds the risk, but only if you act before the window closes," McKown said during discussions moderated by Axios journalists Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn. The event was sponsored by Cheq.

Why it matters

AI agents are fundamentally changing how consumers discover and purchase products. Brands that fail to restructure their content and negotiate licensing deals now will find themselves invisible in AI-powered search and shopping experiences — losing both direct traffic and the ability to monetize their data.

Licensing deals and access control

The Atlantic has already signed licensing agreements with OpenAI, Particle, and Parallel. But McKown emphasized the real frontier is managing AI agents that access content on behalf of users, not just direct human subscribers.

The publication now operates under a strict policy: AI systems can only crawl its content if they have a licensing deal in place. Without an agreement, The Atlantic will block access despite potential security and technical challenges.

With 1.5 million paid subscribers, the publication is actively exploring whether subscriptions could be sold directly through AI chat platforms, according to details first reported by Axios.

Content must be rebuilt from scratch

Brands cannot simply repurpose existing content for AI discovery, according to Ekta Chopra, chief technology and AI officer at Elf Beauty. The entire content structure must change to accommodate how AI agents process information.

Search queries have transformed dramatically. The average search used to be five words. On ChatGPT, queries now average 23 words, Chopra said. A simple "I need a red lipstick" has evolved into "I need a red lipstick for brown skin under $5 — I'm going to France."

"If it's not in the right structure, it's not going to show up on an LLM," Chopra explained.

AI tools require full conversational context rather than keywords, demanding significantly more content in different formats.

First movers gain structural advantage

Elf Beauty has already established three dedicated internal teams focused on agentic commerce, back-office AI operations, and workforce restructuring. This organizational commitment gives early adopters a competitive edge.

Employee roles are evolving rapidly. Supply chain planners who previously built complex models now need to think like data scientists, Chopra noted.

Cheq CEO Guy Tytunovich and chief revenue officer Rory Stern added that brands must learn to distinguish between human customers and AI agents. "Entity, identity, intent — that's what you need to decipher," Tytunovich said. "Is it a human or an agent? Is it the real person or someone pretending to be them? And what are they here to do?"

These details were first reported by Axios from the June 25 Axios House event in Cannes.