Earlier this year, OpenAI paid more than $100 million for TBPN, a daily tech talk show generating roughly $5 million in annual revenue. Paramount Skydance acquired The Free Press — the newsletter and podcast business built around Bari Weiss — for roughly $150 million in late 2025 and then named her editor-in-chief of CBS News. Joe Rogan renewed with Spotify at a reported $250 million. Alex Cooper moved her $60 million Spotify deal to SiriusXM at a reported $125 million. Pat McAfee licensed his daily show to ESPN at a reported $85 million. The Kelce brothers signed with Amazon’s Wondery for a reported $100 million.

None of these are traditional content or IP acquisitions. They are concentrated bets on human connection.

We’ve seen that the ability of creators to show up authentically, build fandom, and monetize that fandom across multiple revenue streams is a viable business. Authenticity, in this context, is not polish or production value. It’s a distinct, recognizable voice that audiences trust, unfiltered by institutional tone or corporate messaging.

Business Models

There are different business models for participating in the value that authenticity creates. Each starts from the same premise: authenticity is generated by human storytellers and cannot be directly acquired. The business which can be acquired is built around the fandom that forms and the monetization that follows.

The first model is the strategic acqui-hire: bring the voice inside and protect what made it work. This pattern is visible in OpenAI’s purchase of TBPN and Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of The Free Press. The bet is that a trusted voice can reposition the parent’s brand without compromising what made the voice trusted in the first place.

The second is infrastructure-as-a-service: provide production, distribution, and sales services to creators who retain editorial independence. Red Seat Ventures has built this model for commentators like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Bill O’Reilly. Following its 2025 acquisition by Fox’s Tubi Media Group and subsequent additions of Backtracks (ad tech) and Supercast (subscriptions), Red Seat offers a robust monetization stack. Fox gets a brand-building layer in return: talent gains access to Fox-owned channels, while their authentic voices strengthen the Fox brands.

The third is the institutional bundle: integrate creator-led podcasts into a subscription product. The New York Times did this early and effectively with voices such as Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ezra Klein and Michael Barbaro, and moved its podcast back catalog behind a subscription-based paywall in 2024. Netflix is testing the same logic. As Ted Sarandos put it on a 2025 earnings call, “the lines between podcast and talk shows are getting pretty blurry.” For both companies, podcasts are a cost-efficient way to build an audience and fuel subscriptions.

A Fourth Model: Convening

The fourth model is now emerging — and if the Vox deal closes, it is the clearest example yet: build or acquire trusted journalistic and creator brands as the editorial scaffolding for premium live experiences. Revenue comes primarily from sponsorships, ticketing, brand partnerships, and access to a curated audience who can be converted into subscribers. Journalism and podcasts are the inputs. The events can be a high-margin output, contributing to a sustainable portfolio of content and community that fuels monetization.

Jay Penske has been operating a version of this for several years, where Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Dick Clark Productions, and a stake in SXSW combine into a vertically integrated culture-and-events business. The Atlantic under Laurene Powell Jobs has been growing its AtlanticLIVE events business alongside its journalism.

James Murdoch has said publicly that “live events are the core business” of Lupa, and that his investment thesis centers on “the ability to gather communities around strong brands.” Tribeca and Art Basel already deliver that and with New York Magazine and the Vox podcast network, Lupa would be well positioned to connect naturally with audiences through live experiences across a variety of verticals including media, tech, culture and art. The Futurific Institute — a large-scale global ideas festival backed by Katheryn and James Murdoch, set to launch in 2028 — suggests where this portfolio could be headed.

Durability and the Risk

Authenticity as an asset comes with a question every investor should ask: how durable is it? The risk is not only scandal or controversy. It’s also audience fickleness. Talent can lose trust, seem overexposed, fall out of sync with the moment, or simply become less compelling. When the audience relationship weakens, the asset can erode quickly.

The strongest models mitigate this risk by allowing a company and talent to scale together, each strengthening the other while preserving the authenticity — and in doing so, build brands and drive value. The convening model adds another layer, creating a physical gathering that turns the audience into community and community into commerce. Fox’s Red Seat structure and the Times’ bundle strategy are good examples.

The Asset Class of the AI Era

AI will only increase the supply of content. The scarce asset won’t be more content. It will be trusted human connection at scale.

Podcasts and similar creator-driven shows are one of the clearest expressions of that connection. They’re intimate, recurring, personality-driven, and built on habit. When they work, they create more than attention. They create belonging. Live experiences extend that belonging into the physical world, where it becomes harder to replicate and harder to walk away from. This is the moat that Disney and NBCU have built so well in the parks business.

The winners in this next phase will be the companies that can build around human storytellers who have earned genuine trust at scale.

Authenticity is the scarce asset, and value is shifting toward it. AI cannot manufacture it. Human talent creates it. Fans return to it. Monetization follows it. And increasingly, communities gather around it.

A leader in the AI revolution paid over $100 million to prove it. If the Vox deal closes, James Murdoch will pay hundreds of millions more to confirm it.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.