The Indicator from Planet Money · Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Mark Howard, COO of Time Magazine, revealed the publication's strategy to adapt to the 'zero-click internet' by blocking some AI crawlers and forming partnerships with AI companies like OpenAI. A novel approach involves creating stripped-down 'markdown pages' specifically for AI bots, optimizing content delivery for them while humans experience the site as usual. This effort aims to ensure Time's journalism remains discoverable within AI search results.
“Humans continue to come to the site the way that they always have, and the way you experience time.com today, but the AI bots go to what we call a markdown page.”
“A markdown page, essentially a stripped down bot friendly version of the website.”
“So we've taken all the visual design cues, all the HTML off the page, and all it is is the actual content itself with the metadata that supports the content on the page.”