Time is testing a new kind of advertising pitch — one aimed not at people scrolling a webpage, but at the AI tools increasingly reading the internet on their behalf.
The move comes as bot traffic now exceeds human traffic on most days for the publisher, a sign of how quickly the web is changing.
What's happening?
According to Digiday, Time is now placing ads in markdown copies of its stories, using stripped-down, text-only pages that are easier for AI agents and large language models to read.
Mobian, an ad tech platform, is helping Time place those paid brand messages in the markdown versions.
Set up as FAQs and labeled as sponsored content, the ads are intended to help brands including Ally Bank and Project Management Institute influence how they are represented in AI-generated responses.
Time and Mobian believe this is the first example of a publisher serving ads specifically to AI agents.
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The rollout follows a surge in AI crawler activity, and Time chief operating officer Mark Howard told Digiday that bots now outnumber human visitors on most days.
That matches Cloudflare data showing automated traffic now makes up more than half of web activity.
Why does it matter?
This could affect the answers people get when using AI search tools and chatbots.
Because AI systems often rely on material pulled from established publishers, brand messaging placed there could start influencing the summaries users see about financial products, careers, shopping, and more.
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AI can help people find information faster, but it can also blur the line between editorial reporting and advertising in new ways.
There is also a transparency question, since it is still unclear whether LLMs treat sponsored material in markdown files differently from regular reporting.
AI depends on massive data centers that use large amounts of electricity and water, which can strain local grids and, in some cases, contribute to higher energy costs.
At the same time, AI can help optimize power demand, improve clean energy forecasting, and make grids more efficient.
What's being done?
Time says it is trying to build safeguards early.
Even without any formal rule requiring it, the company says its agent ads carry a sponsored-content disclosure.
Mobian monitors how the ads perform in AI systems by measuring visibility, favorability, and accuracy over time.
Howard said the ads can be placed around Time franchises such as the Time100 lists, where bot traffic often jumps.
Time is limiting each markdown page to a single agent ad and charging a premium, arguing that access to AI bots on authoritative pages is scarce and therefore valuable.
"This is a growing traffic source, and therefore a growing source of inventory that we believe has huge value if we can continue to develop this product," Howard said.
As Jonah Goodhart put it: "Maybe it's more important to influence the agent than even the human."
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