Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®

Episode #726: How AI is Changing the Search Experience and What to Do About It

Guest: Sean King, Chief Revenue Officer & GM of Media and Entertainment at Veritone
Date: September 1, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Greg Kihlström sits down with Sean King of Veritone to dive into the transformative impact of AI—especially large language models (LLMs) and AI chatbots—on how audiences search for and discover content. They discuss the challenges and opportunities for publishers and brands as traditional search traffic is disrupted, strategies for maximizing content value in the age of AI, and critical considerations for responsible AI use and data monetization. The episode gives marketing leaders actionable insights for staying agile and future-ready in a shifting digital ecosystem.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Disruption: AI’s Impact on Search and Content Discovery

• AI Search is Siphoning Off Traffic
  • Gartner projects traditional search traffic could drop by 25% by 2026.
  • Nearly 49% surge in retrieval bot visits seen this year.
  • “It’s a wakeup call to a lot of these groups. ...Major publishers have to pivot from the traffic they depended on coming from the search into new ways.”
    — Sean King (03:23)
• The Internet is Being ‘Rebuilt’ by LLMs
  • More users turn to AI tools (OpenAI, Gemini Cloud) as trusted entry points over classic search engines.
  • Declining organic search means publishers must adapt quickly.

2. Content as Data: The Mindset Shift Publishers Need

• Making Content AI-Ready

  • Publishers must reframe all media (text, audio, video) as structured, data-rich assets (not just “stories” or “films”).
  • “You have to kind of think about that the same way ...Each thing I'm creating every day ...all of that is data.”
    — Sean King (06:32)
  • Critical to label and enrich content (metadata, frame-by-frame analysis) so AI tools can discover and leverage archives.

• Operationalizing for Monetization

  • Strategic partnerships and the right technology stack (like Veritone’s AIware) are needed to turn assets into discoverable, licensable datasets.

3. The Role of Veritone and Practical Adaptation (09:02–11:18)

• Veritone’s Approach
  • Ingesting more than 150,000 hours of customer content daily; over 58 million hours processed in 2024.
  • Platform (AIware) appends metadata, making content easily searchable and discoverable.
  • Example: Like the Microsoft Office suite for content data—different applications serve different industry use cases (e.g., media licensing, police video archiving).
  • “For us, a camera is a camera ...But the workflows are very different.”
    — Sean King (10:09)

4. Protecting and Monetizing in a Changing Landscape (13:18–16:40)

• Licensing Leverage for Mid-Tier/Niche Publishers

  • Unique, domain-specific content offers valuable training data for specialized AI applications.
  • Rather than “piecemeal” deals, forming alliances or joining platforms can amplify collective power.
  • “If I can work with a partner that I know has many other different partners in that space, there's opportunities in what I'll consider more of the tonnage.”
    — Sean King (15:17)

• Alliance Strategies

  • Strength in numbers can help small and mid-tier players negotiate with tech giants and AI platforms.
  • Looking to the past: parallels with YouTube and online publisher collaborations.

5. Responsible AI & Future-Proofing Content Use (16:40–24:03)

• Principles of Responsible AI

  • Transparency, trust, compliance, and empowerment—essential for sustainable AI usage in media.
  • “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
    — Sean King (17:22)
  • Need for radical transparency: Ownership principles must extend into digital and AI realms (e.g., digital twins).

• Guardrails for Data Use

  • Legal and ethical considerations are vital as content is licensed for AI training.
  • “You have to start thinking about your media, your content as data, because if you're not thinking about this way, how are you going to be able to track, govern and make sure anything is being safely deployed in these environments?”
    — Sean King (19:53)

• Preparing for Regulation

  • Anticipate evolving legal standards (fair compensation, transparency in usage).
  • “Regulation will evolve as things happen. ...It’s really important to be proactive and ...minimize your future risk.”
    — Sean King (22:08)

6. Actionable Advice for Publishers and Brands

• Visibility & Flexibility First

  • Build frameworks for tracking, licensing, and monitoring how/where content is used by AI and LLMs.
  • Be ready to adapt to new regulations, business models, and technology shifts.

• Stay Agile Through Curiosity

  • “Sounds corny and cliche, but I like to play. ...I love trying all the different models. ...If you’re unsure, play around.”
    — Sean King (23:22)
  • Experimenting with new tools and actively learning is key to staying ahead.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On urgency for publishers:
  “It’s a wake up call to a lot of these groups. ...It puts an added pressure on these groups to be that much more agile to make sure that they can meet the demands of where their consumers are going to.”
  — Sean King (03:23)

• On content as a data asset:
  “You need to make sure that you have a partner that can ingest all of that content, that can append the necessary data to that on kind of a frame by frame rate. ...You got to make that a data centric approach.”
  — Sean King (06:32)

• On alliance strategy:
  “Well, when you put the 15 others, you actually have something that's quite meaningful and valuable and it helps bring more opportunity to all those groups.”
  — Sean King (15:17)

• On ethical AI and digital ownership:
  “It’s not the outcome, it’s the training data that’s the value...those same principles of ownership need to make sure that they’re protected in these digital use cases.”
  — Sean King (19:27)

• On adapting to rapid change:
  “I love trying all the different models. ...I always joke around that I'm technical enough to be dangerous but not enough to do any real work ...And I encourage everyone, just if you're unsure, play around.”
  — Sean King (23:22)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:08] The challenge: What happens if Google search traffic disappears?
• [03:23] The urgency: Gartner’s and Tolbert’s numbers—the AI search shift
• [05:32] Reaching real people vs. AI bots
• [06:32] Shifting to a “content as data” mindset
• [09:02] How Veritone’s platform supports this transformation
• [13:18] Protecting & monetizing content: Publisher alliances and licensing
• [16:40] Responsible AI: Principles and customer safeguards
• [21:12] Future-proofing: Regulation, legal and ethical frameworks
• [23:22] Final advice: The importance of curiosity and experimentation

Tone and Language Notes

• Both speakers maintain an energetic, forward-thinking, and pragmatic tone.
• Emphasis is on practical steps, collaboration, and a healthy balance between innovation and ethical responsibility.
• Sean King frequently uses analogies (e.g., content/data as code in GitHub; Office suite) for clarity.

Summary Takeaway

This episode delivers a roadmap for publishers, marketers, and media leaders wrestling with the realities of AI-driven search and content aggregation. The call to action is clear: see your content as data, invest in making it AI-discoverable, build alliances for better leverage, and ensure your frameworks are agile enough to flex with regulatory and ecosystem changes. Embrace experimentation and stay ethically grounded as you navigate the next era of digital content.

For more resources or to connect with Veritone, see the show notes.