PRESS RELEASE - For immediate release

Paris, April 17, 2026

Senthor reaches a milestone: the first French publishers are earning revenue from AI traffic

The French startup, which enables content websites to detect, control, and monetize access to their pages by artificial intelligence systems, announces that its first clients have begun generating revenue through the HTTP 402 protocol (x402). A European first, in a regulatory context undergoing a major shift.

A problem that has become structural for publishers

Since the explosion of generative AI, crawlers operated by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and others have been massively scraping editorial content to train their models or answer user queries. Without consent. Without compensation. Without publishers even knowing which of their articles are being used.

Marc Feuillée, President of the Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale, denounced last week in La Revue de la Tech this "industrial pillaging carried out in complete opacity." In the United States, AI-generated summaries at the top of search pages are already diverting between 30 and 60% of the visits that should have gone to news websites.

The Senthor solution: detect, prove, monetize

Founded in 2025, Senthor provides an operational response to this imbalance. The platform enables any publisher, media outlet, or content website to:

• Detect in real time which AI crawlers visit their content, on which pages, and how frequently

• Prove this usage with timestamped, sourced, and exportable logs, constituting the "body of evidence" provided for by the Darcos law on the presumption of use

• Control access: authorize, limit, block, or monetize according to publisher preferences

• Monetize directly through the HTTP 402 protocol (x402), an open-source standard that allows AI agents to pay in real time to access content

Installation takes less than three minutes, with a native WordPress plugin and integrations for Next.js, Vercel, and the main modern stacks.

The first revenues are coming in

For the past two weeks, Senthor's first clients have been receiving actual payments from AI agents accessing their content.

The amounts remain modest at this stage, but the signal is structural: for the first time in Europe, publishers are receiving direct, automated, and verified compensation in exchange for AI access to their content. Without bilateral contracts to negotiate. Without court proceedings. Without waiting for regulatory texts to be finalized.

"This isn't a laboratory experiment. It's an economic flow being put in place," explains Tristan Berguer, co-founder of Senthor. "The political texts are coming (the Voss report, the Balanant law, the Darcos law), but no law writes the check by itself. To negotiate, you need proof. To monetize, you need infrastructure. We're building both, and it works."

An aligned regulatory context

Senthor's arrival on the market coincides with an unprecedented regulatory convergence:

• The Voss report, adopted on March 10, 2026 by the European Parliament (460 votes in favor), requires AI companies to obtain licenses and compensate creators

• The Balanant law, adopted unanimously by the French National Assembly on March 26, 2026, strengthens the effectiveness of neighboring rights against platforms

• The Darcos law, currently under review, establishes a presumption of content use by generative AI providers

• The UK Creative Content Exchange, which organizes paid access to content for model training

A European ambition

Senthor currently works with several French publishers.

"Europe has a decisive role to play. American platforms have been imposing their rules for twenty years on search, advertising, and social networks. With AI, we can change the trajectory. But we need tools, not just texts," concludes Tristan Berguer.

About Senthor

Senthor (senthor.io) is a French platform that enables publishers, media outlets, and content websites to regain control over access to their pages by artificial intelligence systems. Founded by Tristan Berguer and Matt El Mouktafi, Senthor is a member of the OVHcloud Startup program.

Website: senthor.io