People Inc. builds custom Markdown APIs for AI agents

People Inc. is developing custom APIs that deliver article text in Markdown and essential metadata, allowing AI agents to access its journalism more efficiently than through web crawling. According to chief innovation officer Jon Roberts, the approach cuts down on unnecessary tokens and browser junk, addressing a growing surge in automated traffic. Other publishers like Forbes, Time, and The Economist are similarly experimenting with alternative formats and MCP layers to structure their content for automated systems. Open article →