Publishers on Fastly can now identify the AI crawlers accessing their content, publish machine-readable RSL licensing terms, and allow, block, or charge for AI access at the edge, without changing CDNs
NEW YORK, NY, October 12, 2026 (EZ Newswire) -- Supertab today announced that Supertab Connect, its AI bot classification and licensing product, is now available on Fastly Compute, Fastly’s edge cloud platform. Publishers on Fastly can now classify AI bot traffic, publish machine-readable RSL licensing terms, and allow, block, or charge individual AI crawlers at the edge, without adding new infrastructure.Fastly serves a large share of the world’s media companies, publishers, and content platforms. Those publishers can turn on Supertab Connect directly through Fastly Compute, giving them a practical way to set licensing terms for their content and start earning from AI traffic without rebuilding anything. With this integration, Supertab Connect is now available through Fastly Compute, while remaining compatible with other major CDN environments, as well as through our WordPress plugin and SDK.
Bots now make up more than 49% of all traffic, according to Fastly’s Threat Insights 2026 report, and most of it generates no revenue for the publishers whose work it consumes. That traffic still costs publishers in infrastructure load, bandwidth, and server capacity. Publishers who take no action are giving their work away for free, with no visibility into how or where it is being used.
"Fastly has always been about speed and protection, and for the past year we've been extending that to the economics of content access. Publishers shouldn't have to choose between being crawlable and being compensated. We've been working with publishers, standards bodies, partners, legislators and AI companies to make sure that they can stay discoverable without the threat of going out of business,” said Simon Wistow, co-founder and VP of Strategic Initiatives, Fastly.
To date, Publishers have generally had two options: block every AI crawler or let every one through. Blocking cuts off legitimate, revenue-generating traffic along with the rest. Letting everything through leaves publishers with no terms, no data, and no revenue. Supertab Connect gives Fastly’s publisher network a third option: decide, per crawler and per AI company, whether to allow, block, or charge for access, with Fastly’s network giving that option real reach.
“Your next audience isn’t entirely human. Bots, agents and AI systems are already accessing content at scale. With Supertab, publishers on Fastly now have a straightforward way to make sure that access comes with terms attached,” said Cosmin Ene, founder and CEO of Supertab.
Publishers on Fastly can now use Supertab to publish machine-readable RSL licensing terms for their content, identify the AI crawlers requesting it, and validate each one’s Crawler Authorization Protocol (CAP) token before deciding whether to let it through.
Supertab Connect identifies AI crawlers by the company behind them, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Google, and by the kind of activity they represent, from collecting training data to AI agents fetching pages on a user’s behalf.
Licensing terms are published using RSL (Really Simple Licensing) 1.0, an open standard that lets publishers post machine-readable terms for AI use on their own domain. With this integration, Supertab and Fastly support RSL at the edge: Supertab Connect publishes a publisher’s RSL terms, and every AI crawler request is checked against them.
Access is enforced by the Crawler Authentication Protocol (CAP), which validates a crawler's license token at the edge to confirm it is authorized under the publisher's terms. When AI companies access content under a publisher's terms, Supertab records every licensed request, giving publishers a verifiable account of exactly what AI systems consume.
Publishers set the terms; Fastly and Supertab apply them at the edge, before a request ever reaches origin. The result is AI traffic that is no longer invisible and uncompensated, but auditable and monetizable.
How Supertab Connect Works on Fastly Compute
- Enable Supertab Connect on Fastly Compute: The Supertab Connect SDK runs as a service at the edge.
- Set licensing terms: Define terms in Supertab Connect and publish them as a machine-readable RSL license on the publisher's own domain.
- Detect and verify at the edge: Automated traffic is identified, and each crawler's license token is validated by the Crawler Authentication Protocol (CAP) before the request reaches the origin. Human visitors pass straight through.
- Allow, block, and record: Licensed requests are allowed; unlicensed ones are blocked and pointed to the publisher's license terms. Every licensed request is recorded, so publishers can see which AI systems accessed which content.
No DNS changes are required, and the typical time for deployment is 2-3 hours.
Publishers on Fastly can get started today: read the integration guide or start a free trial of Supertab Connect at supertab.co.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI bot classification tools work on Fastly?
Supertab Connect runs natively on Fastly Compute. It classifies AI crawler traffic by the company behind it, validates CAP tokens, and applies a publisher’s licensing terms at the edge.
Can publishers who aren’t on Cloudflare classify and license AI crawler traffic?
Yes. Publishers on Fastly can use Supertab Connect to identify AI crawlers and allow, block, or charge for their access without changing CDNs.
Should publishers block AI crawlers?
Blocking every AI crawler also cuts off legitimate, revenue-generating traffic. Supertab Connect lets publishers decide, per crawler and per AI company, whether to allow, block, or charge.
How do publishers publish AI licensing terms on their own domain?
Supertab Connect publishes machine-readable terms on the publisher’s own domain using the open RSL (Really Simple Licensing) 1.0 standard, so AI crawlers can read the terms before requesting content.
How can publishers get paid for AI access to their content?
Supertab meters, prices, and settles AI access under each publisher’s terms, so publishers are paid for what AI systems consume.
About Supertab
Supertab is the infrastructure for consumption-based commerce. Its products include Supertab Connect, which classifies the automated traffic reaching a website by the operator behind it and the kind of activity it represents, and a licensing layer that publishes machine-readable terms on a site owner's own domain using the open RSL 1.0 standard. As AI agents and automated systems become major consumers of content, services and compute, Supertab meters, prices, and settles that usage across humans, agents, and enterprises in a single economic layer, so that what machines consume can be measured and paid for as it happens. For more information, visit supertab.co.
Media Contact
Cosmin Ene
Founder and CEO, Supertab
press@supertab.co
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