Websites can now get paid in regular money when AI bots visit

Website owners can now charge AI bots for access and get paid in regular money. Amazon Web Services added Stripe as a payout option for its AI traffic monetization feature. Payments land in a Stripe balance in local currency, so no crypto wallet is needed.

What changed

AWS WAF is an Amazon service that filters traffic to a website. Its AI traffic monetization feature lets publishers, content owners and API providers set a price for bots and AI agents. Until now, bots paid in stablecoins, a kind of digital money. Stripe, a payment company, is now a second way to get paid. Here is how it works:

• Connect your Stripe account in the AWS WAF console through Stripe Connect.
• Your existing pricing and agent policies work unchanged.
• A bot asking for protected content gets an HTTP 402 reply listing the payment types accepted.
• Once the bot returns with valid payment, the content loads.
• Revenue from all payment providers shows in the console's revenue analytics.

Costs and what is unknown

The Stripe link costs nothing extra for AWS WAF customers who use Amazon CloudFront. Standard AWS WAF and Stripe processing fees still apply. The announcement does not give fee amounts, suggest prices, or say which AI bots are able to pay. AWS points readers to its WAF pricing page for details.