Stack Overflow Unveils New AI Data Products Aimed at Industry

Podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience Fan
Host: The Joe Rogan Experience of AI
Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Overview

This episode dives into Stack Overflow’s reinvention as an AI data provider, analyzing how legacy Q&A and forum-based sites are adapting to the post-ChatGPT world. With direct comparisons to other platforms like Wikipedia, Chegg, and Reddit, the host explores the strategies these companies are deploying to stay relevant, focusing especially on Stack Overflow's latest enterprise AI offerings and their implications for the broader industry.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Impact of AI on Forum-Based Websites

• Declining Traffic: The host outlines how AI tools like ChatGPT have led to a dramatic decrease in user visits to sites that were once the go-to places for Q&A content, including Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, and Chegg.
  • “Stack Overflow is one that has been reported on extensively and seen a dramatic drop in usage.” [00:29]
• Shift in Web Usage: The traditional pipeline—users asking questions, human experts replying—is being replaced by AI agents capable of instantly providing answers based on scraped data.
• Industry-Wide Phenomenon:
  • “We're going to see this exact same trend played out with a ton of different online companies that are struggling with...lower web views, lower usage. After ChatGPT and a lot of these other AI tools came out that will answer questions for you.” [00:29]

2. Data Monetization and Licensing Deals

• Content Licensing as a Lifeline:
  • Reddit and Stack Overflow are highlighted for their new business models: selling access to their data via blanket licensing deals to big AI companies.
    • “Reddit has went ahead and made these deals where they'll license their content to companies...The Reddit deal has brought in more than $200 million for Reddit, just, you know, kind of giving. Like, I think Reddit is working with OpenAI and Google specifically.” [approx 06:30]
• From Scraping to APIs:
  • Forums like Stack Overflow and Wikipedia, seeing most new traffic coming from bots, pivot from passive content scraping to formal APIs, forcing companies to pay for structured, legal access.
• Legal Safeguards:
  • “If you're an AI company, you should use our API for training or you have to as our term service, otherwise we're going to sue you.” [05:30]

3. Stack Overflow’s New Enterprise Offering

• Stack Overflow for Enterprises:
  • A new product, “Stack Overflow Internal,” is described as an enterprise-targeted version of the classic Q&A site, with built-in administrative controls and security, intended for organizational knowledge management and integration with internal AI agents.
    • “It's essentially an enterprise version of the web forum that they have, but they have a bunch of additional, like, security and admin controls on it.” [04:52]
• Data Uniqueness and Value-Add:
  • Despite the widespread web scraping by AI, Stack Overflow can offer metadata not in public models—like answer dates, responder reputation, tagging accuracy, and a “reliability score.”
  • “Beside the questions and answers...the data also includes some information like who answered the question and when they answered...So what's interesting here is because they have that date, not a lot of these AI models scraped that.” [07:30]
• Reliability Metrics:
  • The platform uses contributor reputations and timestamps to help AI agents assess the trustworthiness and relevance of answers.
    • “They’re actually able to assign this sort of like an assessment score...how likely the answer is to be trusted.” [08:45]

4. CTO’s Vision: Enhanced Knowledge Graphs and Agent Interactions

• Dynamic Tagging and Knowledge Graphs:
  • Stack Overflow’s CTO, Jody Bailey, describes future plans for dynamic metadata and automated knowledge graph creation.
  • “The customer can set up their own tagging system or we can dynamically create that for them. What we'll be doing in the future is really leveraging that knowledge graph to connect people and to connect concepts and pieces of information...” (Jody Bailey, CTO) [11:35]
• AI-Written Questions:
  • AI agents will no longer only “read” Stack Overflow, but may also actively participate by creating new questions—automating the identification and filling of knowledge gaps.
    • “Bailey said that the writing function is going to allow agents to create their own Stack Overflow questions. If they can't answer a specific question or they notice there's like a knowledge gap, they're actually able to ask a question on Stack Overflow.” [12:05]
  • Raises the provocative question: “Will real humans, seeing AI bots ask questions on Stack Overflow, feel obligated to answer a bot?” [12:27]

5. Industry Implications and Broader Trends

• Blueprint for Other Platforms:
  • The host sees Stack Overflow’s innovations as a model that will be adopted industry-wide.
    • “I think we're going to see a lot of other companies that have these kind of question and answer forums, which are essentially deep sources of data, will have to monetize it in one way or another.” [14:06]
• Beyond Blanket Deals:
  • The real future lies in value-added data and tools—not just selling raw data dumps, but building APIs, context-aware systems, and platforms that surface unique metadata to enterprise clients.
    • “The blanket deals are one thing, but I think it’s great if they’re actually building tools and software that people can use and and add extra context and data that the scrapers don’t have access to.” [14:30]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Transformation of Legacy Forums:
  • “This is kind of a new take for the company. Stack Overflow definitely struggled after ChatGPT came out...” [03:44]
• On Data Quality and AI Training:
  • “They know who answered the questions, so they're actually able to look at those accounts and see, you know, how legitimate the accounts are, how, you know, how good of a developer they are, how good their solutions are...” [09:30]
• On Human-AI Community Dynamics:
  • “Will real humans, seeing AI bots ask questions on Stack Overflow, feel obligated to answer a bot?” [12:27]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:29–02:29 — Overview of AI's impact on question/answer forums: Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, Chegg.
• 04:30–06:45 — Introduction of Stack Overflow’s new enterprise product and explanation of blanket content/data deals (including the Reddit analogy).
• 07:30–09:58 — Stack Overflow’s value-add: metadata, answer quality, and reliability metrics.
• 11:35–13:10 — CTO Jody Bailey’s input: Knowledge graphs, tagging, and AI-driven participation.
• 14:06–15:04 — Industry implications, future tech trends, and closing thoughts.

Conclusion

The host provides a deep dive into how Stack Overflow is adapting to the AI era: from suffering under web scraping and declining traffic, to pivoting as a data partner for AI companies and creating new enterprise tools that leverage their unique metadata. The conversation anticipates similar strategies from other Q&A and forum-driven platforms, marking a new era where data-rich sites transform into essential infrastructure for next-generation AI systems.