YouTube: Are you ready for the new TPT? Exclusive Seller Membership

Read the open letter: To TPT, love Mike.

TPT is moving toward an AI-free teacher marketplace, and I’m out. But here’s the twist. I actually think many TPT sellers should stay.

Following TPT’s October 8, 2026 town hall, I’m taking a closer look at the new TPT Exclusive Seller Membership, TPT’s generative AI restrictions, and what these changes mean for teacher entrepreneurs.

In this video, we’ll look at four things:

Why I’m out: Why TPT’s direction on generative AI is a deal breaker for me, and the difference between low-effort AI-generated content and high-effort AI-assisted teaching resources.
Why TPT is making these changes: The business strategy behind exclusivity, commission rates, AI restrictions, and IXL’s long-term vision for TPT.
Why I think you should stay: TPT still has an enormous advantage in marketplace traffic. I’ll compare the numbers and explain why starting another marketplace isn’t as simple as it sounds.
What TPT sellers should do next: Whether you’re staying, exploring alternatives, or leaving TPT, how do you build a teacher business that can compete in a world of AI?

We’ll also talk about how AI watermarks work and whether TPT might be able to detect AI-generated content.

I’m on Team Teacher, not Team Platform. I think the important question isn’t whether TPT is making the right decision for everyone. It’s whether you’re making the right decision for your own teacher business.

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Video

Script

Introduction

Hey TPT Sellers. I’m out! This video was recorded on Wed Oct 14, 2026. Last week, TPT did a town hall about their exclusive seller membership and they’re heading in a direction that I can’t follow. But, not for the reason you’re thinking of.

Hi, my name is Mike Fuchigami, and I’m the host of the SEOTpreneur YouTube community. In this video, we’re going to look at four things. First, I’ll talk about why I’m out. Second, I’ll explain why I think TPT is making these changes. Third, I’ll explain why I think you should stay if you can. And fourth, we’ll look at next steps. Make sure to watch to the end because I’m giving away TPT gift cards. I’ll also explain how TPT might be able to detect if you’re using AI.

Someone asked me how much TPT was paying me to continue to say good things about them. Great question. TPT doesn’t pay me to make these YouTube videos. I have two stores. I’ve made $120K lifetime on my main store, and $7.5K on my TPT Seller store. If you want to know how I earn a living, please watch Part 1 of this video.

Before we start, let’s do a quick check-in. Here are some animals. Leave a comment and tell me which one you’re feeling right now

First, we have bear. Maybe you feel angry or betrayed. TPT is being unfair asking for exclusivity or taking a bigger commission. Second is turtle. Anxious or cautious. Maybe you’re worried about your earnings. Third is owl. Confused or uncertain. Maybe you have questions about the new exclusive seller membership and AI rules. Fourth is elephant. Sad or grieving. Maybe TPT has been an important part of your life and the relationship has changed. Fifth is squirrel. Overwhelmed or exhausted. There are announcements, emails, Facebook groups, watch parties, and different opinions everywhere. It’s a lot. Sixth is hawk. Calm or accepting. Maybe you’re trying to see the big picture and focus on what you can control. Seventh is beaver. Determined or defiant. Maybe you’re thinking about how to build a business with more independence. Eighth is fox. Curious or hopeful. Maybe you’re looking at possibilities you hadn’t considered before.

Ninth is your own animal. Or maybe you’re an animal I mentioned, but for a different reason. That’s okay too. So, leave a comment. Which animal are you feeling? For me, right now I’m feeling like a hawk. I’m trying to get a bird’s-eye view of where things are going. But I’m also an elephant. Because I’m a little sad things are changing. And that brings me to why I’m out.

1 Why I’m out (not selling on TPT) unless they change their AI policy

I love AI. I’m all in. And if TPT is saying no generative AI on their platform, it’s just not going to work for me. It’s like being in a relationship and one person says I wanna have kids and the other person says they don’t want kids. Both are valid life choices. The problem is if one partner is trying to convince the other partner to change their mind and this issue is a deal breaker.

I made that animal check-in using generative AI. First I had AI analyze my emails. Those feelings are in order of popularity. Then, I came up with the idea of using animals to represent different emotions. Thank you to everyone who responded to my email newsletter. I said I was taking a personal day away from the internet with my dog to process my thoughts about TPT. People responded with stories and images of their pets. So I knew animals were a good way to broach this topic. I asked AI to come up with a list of animals and matching emotions. Once I vetted that list, I asked it to create a google slide. The first suggestion included emoticons. It looked boring, so I asked AI to use photos. I didn’t like the layout so I adjusted a slide and asked AI to update the other slides. Some of the photos looked a little off, so I asked AI to use higher resolution images. But, then I realized that some images were fake, so I asked AI to find real stock photography. AI found some nice images from Unsplash. I knew these images needed attribution, so I added a source credit on the first slide and asked AI to create the links. I needed a summary page, so I asked AI to put the images together. Then I fixed the formatting for one image, adjusted the size, and asked AI to make the other images look like the example.

There are different ways we can use AI. One way is to type a simple prompt into ChatGPT, take the first response it gives, and call that a teaching resource. This would be a low-effort AI generated resource. The other way is to do what I did: go back and forth with AI and use your pedagogical know-how to guide AI into creating something quicker or better than what you could do by yourself. I call this a high-effort AI assisted resource. Both approaches use AI, but the educational quality of what you produce is very different.

The problem is sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between low-effort and high-effort AI resources. TPT (and competitor teacher marketplaces) are facing an impossible decision. How do you quickly tell the difference between low-effort AI slop and high-effort AI assisted, teacher-created, classroom-ready resources?

On Thu Oct 8, 2026, TPT held a town hall where they signaled the direction of the new TPT. Matt Fitzpatrick is a group product manager for IXL. His linkedin says he’s helping IXL’s marketplace products (TPT, Wyzant, MyTutor). Notice how IXL employees work across different companies in the IXL portfolio. We’ll talk more about that later on. At the town hall, he said: “We’re committing to keeping TPT teacher-created, classroom ready and AI free.“

“You can expect to hear more from us in the next few weeks about how we’re approaching this change. In the meantime, generative AI should not be used to create images or text in resources or product listings on TPT. This includes resource files, cover images and thumbnails, preview files, or product descriptions. Here’s what this means more immediately for you as a teacher author. First, please do not use AI-generated content in your products or listings going forward. Again, that’s inclusive of covers, thumbnails, previews, and descriptions, not just the resource files. Second, if you’ve already published AI-generated content in your existing resources and listings, please replace it with your own content.”

This is a material change in the kind of marketplace TPT is. Let’s say you dated someone for years. Things are going great. You get married. And then one day, your partner says they don’t want kids. You’ve never talked about this before, but you always wanted kids. Now what? Everyone needs to reflect on where they draw the line in the sand and what is a “hard no”.

I have a few hard nos. If TPT announced, you have to be teaching in the classroom, I’m out. I don’t meet that criteria. Watch Part 1 to find out why. If this was ten years ago, and I was still in the classroom, and TPT announced, you can’t use a computer to create teaching resources, I’m out. I used a computer all the time to create what I used in my classroom. Fast forward to today. If I was still in the classroom teaching, and TPT announced, you can’t use generative AI to create teaching resources, I’m out. I would use ChatGPT all the time to create lessons to engage my students. But, I wouldn’t be able to sell those resources on TPT.

TPT doesn’t want to have kids. And that’s okay. I want to have kids. And that’s okay, too. There’s no right or wrong decision, but if you haven’t thought about whether you want kids, now might be a good time to reflect. If you learned a new perspective, can you please like this video? It encourages me to make more content like this one. TPT is not making this no generative AI policy lightly.

2A Why TPT is going exclusive seller

So let’s look at the business side. At the October town hall, TPT identified two problems.

Problem #1: Sellers cannibalize repeat buyers. A teacher marketplace is like a destination mall. People go to the mall for the selection. Yes, big flagship stores attract people, but while you’re wandering around, you might discover something from a smaller boutique shop. What happens if every store in the mall tries to entice shoppers to buy directly from them online, instead of coming back to the mall. Well then you don’t need to go to the mall anymore, traffic drops and all stores are affected. Now in reality, stores do that – they try to get you to buy from them online. Physical malls have a traffic problem with the shift towards online shopping.

The TPT mall is offering two options. If you agree not to sell anywhere else, TPT will give you 77.5%. This means customers can only find your products on TPT which improves the attractiveness of the TPT mall. If you decide you want to sell other places, that’s okay. You can still have a store in the mall, but you only get 55%.

Now previously, TPT had a publisher seller membership for big companies that already sold on their own. The payout was 50%. The publisher membership is going away and they’re becoming basic seller memberships. So now, they’ll earn 55%. This means big publishers are getting a 5% raise while loyal TPT exclusive sellers who swear fealty to TPT are getting a 2.5% reduction in pay. This is making some people upset.

Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL said at the TPT townhall that there’s a conflict between sellers “where one group is supporting TPT fully. And the other group. while paying the same commission rate is supporting the community far less. This has placed an unfair burden on the former group. And it’s time to resolve it.”

Now I’m not sure I agree with that language that big sellers are supporting the community far less. I think they do a lot of intangible support and good will for the TPT brand and seller community. But, to be fair, I’ve privately wondered what’s the difference between a publishing company and some of the larger TPT sellers who no longer create content themselves, but have VAs do the work. It’s not a popular opinion but I think it’s a valid question.

Problem #2: TPT needs an AI policy because anyone can publish low effort AI content. TPT did a survey and discovered 83% of teachers had used AI for school-related tasks. This is an increase from the previous survey where only 80% of teachers had used AI. Why would teachers need TPT if they can make AI content on their own?

“Teachers have free access to a wide range of generative AI tools that they can use to create educational materials on the fly. They’re getting professional development and being directed by their principals and district administrators to get familiar with these tools and to use them. We believe that it is increasingly important that when teachers visit TPT, they immediately recognize that the resources here are not AI-generated. Teachers come to TPT to benefit from and to support expert educators like you. They do not come to TPT for low-effort, AI-generated resources that they could generate on their own.”

I think that’s a legitimate issue. If I can ask ChatGPT to make a worksheet in seconds, why would I pay someone? (Well, there are many reasons why a teacher would still pay for high effort AI assisted resources and I’ll talk more about that later.)

I love IXL’s decision to be AI free on TPT. I think it’s a great move for them to niche down. But I’m on Team Teacher, not Team IXL. So I need to explain to teachers why something might be good for Team TPT or Team IXL but not necessarily be good for teachers or students. Back when TPT launched school access, I wrote a blog post about why I wouldn’t be joining it. Basically I thought it was taking money out of school budgets and I didn’t think that was fair to students.

TPT is owned by IXL which has a portfolio of many educational companies. It’s okay for the TPT brand to go all in on the “teacher created, classroom tested, AI free” direction because TPT is one of many companies in a portfolio.

It’s kind of like how a parent company like Kraft Heinz can diversify risk by having completely opposing companies in their portfolio. They own Oscar Mayer which sells meat products. And they own Boca which sells meat alternative products. You’re looking for hotdogs? We have Oscar Mayer for you. Oh, you don’t eat meat? No problem. Here’s a veggie burger from Boca. You’re looking for high quality teaching materials? We have TPT. Oh, you’re a school district and you’ve banned TPT? Well we’re tidying up to remove AI slop and have exclusive content. Here’s a gift card. Still no? Okay. What about our IXL content instead?

If the Boca ship fails because it turns out people really prefer meat products, then the parent company is fine because it’s diversified risk. And if all of a sudden the pendulum swings away from eating meat; then the parent company is positioned to do well because they have an exclusively no meat company. But what happens if you work on the wrong ship and it sinks?

2B Why TPT is heading towards a no generative AI policy

There were four presenters at the October TPT townhall. If you look at the linkedin profiles and posts by the four presenters, one person worked exclusively at TPT, and the other three people were in charge of several IXL departments. So one of the paradigm shifts that I think TPT sellers need to accept is that TPT is not a small town anymore. It actually hasn’t been a small town for a while. For a long time, it was a big city that had a small town feel. But now, IXL is telling us that it’s time to make big city decisions.

Paul Mishkin said this about the decision to ask for exclusivity: “The fact is, TPT should have made this change a long time ago. This has been a concern for many years. Past management teams were troubled by the business implications. And yet they tried everything possible to avoid making this kind of sweeping change. And that’s been true for us as well. We’ve spent the past 3 years working vigorously on every other aspect of TPT. If you remember the surveys we’ve done. Asking you about your pain points, we’ve methodically checked off nearly every single one of those, and went far beyond.”

If IXL is now operating TPT with a big city playbook, it’s fair to look at other big cities to get a hint of what might be coming next. There’s a book called Chokepoint Capitalism, by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow. One of the ideas is that when a platform becomes the main way a creator reaches customers, that platform has a lot of bargaining power. Think about your own TPT store. You can create the lessons, write the descriptions, answer questions, and build your reputation. But you don’t control the search algorithm, the marketplace rules, or the share of each sale that you receive. That’s not necessarily a bad relationship. It’s just how the structure works. So let’s consider three large corporations for a glimpse into our future.

Go to Costco and you’ll find products made by different businesses. Right beside them you’ll also see Costco’s Kirkland brand. And Costco requires a membership fee. Is TPT heading this way? Maybe. Consider Amazon. If you do well on Amazon, it’s easy to imagine they’re going to create an Amazon Basics competing product. Where do they get the data for what to make?

We know there’s going to be competition. So why do people buy your brand of salsa instead of the generic brand? Because you have a certain spice that makes you stand out. And you’ve communicated your unique value proposition so people choose you.

I’m not saying it’s wrong for a retailer to sell a house brand. My question is about scale. Do all corporations inevitably end up in the same place? When you’re the company that runs the marketplace, you have access to a lot of information. In the age of AI, training data, and digital products, where are we heading? Go read Chokepoint Capitalism and wonder.

Now TPT can get bigger… but it could also disappear entirely. Remember Blockbuster? They were the marketplace leader, but they weren’t able to keep up with the times. Netflix began mailing DVDs and eventually moved toward streaming. Blockbuster wasn’t completely asleep. It tried online rentals and digital distribution too. But knowing that your industry is changing and successfully adapting your business are two different things.

TPT knows teachers are using AI. Maybe the answer is to niche down and become the trusted place for human-created educational resources. Teachers who are tired of poor-quality AI materials might turn to TPT even more. Maybe. Or maybe taking such a hard stance against generative AI will make it harder for teacher authors to create the kinds of resources their customers want in the future. We don’t know yet. Time will tell.

Some sellers are wondering if IXL is trying to destroy TPT. I don’t think so. In June 2026, IXL bought the domain TPT.com. We don’t know how much it cost. But for context, AI.com sold for 70 million dollars and Chat.com sold for 15.5 million dollars. The broker involved in the sale of TPT.com reported more than 15 million dollars in total premium domain transactions in June, and named both TPT.com and Thursday.com among those deals. This doesn’t tell us the price of TPT.com but if you owned TPT.com and you knew a very large, established company wanted that exact name, how much would you sell it for? My guess is $10 million, but it’s just a guess. Regardless of whether the domain cost $5 million or $15 million, IXL buying TPT.com is a deliberate investment in the TPT brand. That doesn’t look to me like a company that simply bought the business in order to shut it down. But there’s a difference between growing the TPT brand and preserving every part of TPT exactly as it is today. IXL has a vision. I wonder if they’ll launch the “new” TPT with a domain change and AI free policy.

3. Why you should keep selling on TPT (if you can)

If you don’t use AI to create resources, I think you should seriously consider staying with TPT if you can. Here’s why. It’s easy to set up an online shop. If you click on the link on my YouTube home page, you’ll see I have some lovely merch. I made this store on fourthwall in less than 24 hours. But just because you have a store, doesn’t mean you’ll sell anything. The challenge is finding customers.

TPT is the largest teacher marketplace in the US. Full stop. We can use third party clickstream data to estimate how much traffic a website gets. This isn’t first party Google analytics data but it is a useful way to compare websites. Based on clickstream data, TPT had an estimated 153.9 million visits in the past 12 months. In comparison, madebyteachers.com had around 1.2 million visits and classful.com had around 0.6 million visits. In other words, TPT has 123 times more traffic than Made By Teachers. It has 263 times more traffic than Classful.com

But Mike, that’s with the big sellers sending their traffic to TPT. What if they all leave? Okay. Let’s break this down. During the past 12 months, 76 Million people went directly to teacherspayteachers.com. That’s 49.6% of the traffic. 48 Million people went to TPT through organic search. Sure that 31.4% includes google search traffic to product pages for big seller products, but a lot of that also includes traffic to the search listing result pages as well. Referral traffic accounts for 16.1M visits to TPT. This means 10.5% of traffic came from website links. Some of that traffic will be big sellers with blog posts going to TPT. Email traffic accounted for 2.7 Million visits (or 1.8% of traffic to TPT.) Let’s say that all of the referral traffic and email was from sellers who are going to leave TPT. TPT’s traffic would drop from 153.9 M to 135.0 M visits. That’s still 108 times bigger than Made by Teachers and 230 times bigger than Classful. If you want to go where the fish are, that’s still TPT.

But Mike, what if a group of large, successful TPT sellers decides to start a new marketplace? Awesome. I love it. Those sellers already have thousands of products, recognizable brands, and audiences that know their work. That’s an advantage a completely new marketplace doesn’t have. But here’s the problem. If I have a successful TPT store, how many of my sales happen because people specifically came looking for me? And how many happen because teachers visited TPT and discovered one of my resources? If several big sellers bring their own audiences, are their followers going to shop across the whole new marketplace? Or are they just going to buy from the one seller they already know?

Running a marketplace is different from running a store. Yes, you need sellers and resources. But you also need search, browsing, payments, customer support, trust, and a way for people to discover products from sellers they’ve never heard of. You have to deal with technology infrastructure, SEO, AEO, and GEO, privacy laws, sales tax, intellectual property, terms of service, take down requests, cyber security, and other fun stuff.

A smaller marketplace might work very well for the people who run it and the sellers who use it. But giving sellers a better payout rate doesn’t solve the problem of finding customers. Giving sellers access to buyer email addresses doesn’t automatically create more demand. The problems that TPT faces are not unique to TPT. How will a new marketplace deal with the problem of stores not bringing back repeat buyers? How does the next marketplace deal with AI slop?

Consider this. Amazon launched Amazon Ignite back in 2019. They had an enormous shopping audience. Ignite gave educators a way to publish digital educational resources, but after four years, Amazon canceled the program. What lessons can we learn from Amazon Ignite? If you’re looking at a possible new marketplace being born out of this TPT drama, ask AI if it thinks you oh should join. Then ask AI to play devil’s advocate and argue the opposite side. What if it’s not just about the platform or marketplace? What if it’s about the community to support the sellers?

4 Next Steps if you’re a TPT Seller

What’s next? If I’m saying I’m out, what does that mean for the people who come to me for help? Here’s how I look at it. I’m on Team Teacher, not Team Platform. A lot of teachers have built real businesses on TPT. They have products, reviews, repeat buyers, and customers who find them through TPT search. If that’s where your business is, I still want to help you understand what the numbers are telling you and what you can do next. That’s where SEOTpreneur comes in.

SEOTpreneur is for TPT sellers. We look at data, keyword research, search analytics, product performance, and try to keep a level head as we grow our TPT businesses. I’m not abandoning my family because I disagree with one direction IXL is taking. But at the same time, I’m thinking more broadly about what it means to be a teacher entrepreneur.

That’s where TeacherpreneurAI fits. Katie and I are creating a space for teachers who are excited by high effort AI assisted resources. That includes teachers who are staying on TPT, teachers who are exploring other options, and teacher businesses who are evolving into something completely different.

Regardless of whether you’re staying with TPT or leaving, the real question is this. How can a teacher business stay competitive in a world of AI? By building relationships with our customers to create superfans. By superfans, I mean people who love what you make. They trust you. They buy from you. They keep coming back. They bring their friends because you’re that good. It’s no longer about the first sale. It’s about the third sale to the same customer.

Yes, teachers can use AI to create worksheets, differentiate assignments, and create sub plans. Yes, ChatGPT and Claude have education versions which are powerful. And yes, there are teachers who are doing incredible things with AI. But just because teachers have access to power tools, doesn’t mean they have the time or the skill to build a masterpiece with it. The more you use AI, the more you realize what it can and can’t do easily. Sure you can create low-effort content. But creating high-effort AI assisted resources takes, well, effort.

What about AI slop on TPT. To be fair, TPT also has a problem with human made cutesy slop long before generative AI, but that’s a different story. Yes, you could download an alphabet coloring worksheet from TPT that was missing the letter F. But it’s also easy to imagine a teacher making that themselves using AI, printing the worksheet, giving it to their kids, discovering their mistake, and being frustrated with AI. Checking AI generated content for mistakes takes time and effort. Teachers are busy and stressed out. So yes, a teacher could create a lesson with AI and double-check it to make sure it’s okay… but it’s easier and more convenient to just buy a lesson from a teacher seller they trust.

It comes down to the marketing adage: know, like, and trust. People find out about you. Maybe they download a freebie. Maybe they try out a $3 resource. They start to like you when the resource actually works. When the answer key is correct. When the students actually learn something. They like you even more when you produce consistent resources that eases their pain and gives them their weekends back. They start to trust you. They keep coming back for more. SEO can help you get the first sale. But how do you provide exceptional value and easy pathways to build a relationship to get the second, third, and fourth sale?

If you’re staying on TPT, awesome. How can you make better use of the customers already discovering you? Check out TPT Seller Tip 33. It’s free for the first little bit as a thank you to TPT Sellers who follow this channel. There’s a tutorial video in there and it explains how to calculate your 90-day second purchase rate.

In plain language, out of the buyers who’ve had enough time to make another purchase, how many came back and bought something from your store again within 90 days? If we’re only looking at the first sale, I wonder if we’re missing the opportunity to create superfans.

If you’re staying on TPT, but considering your options, awesome. Ask AI to help you with a SWOT analysis. Give AI the google sheet from TPT Seller Tip 33 and ask: What are the strengths of your teacher business? Where are the weaknesses? What opportunities do you see? And what threats could affect the way you sell?

If you’re using AI to help you do this analysis, make sure you’ve changed the default privacy settings so you’re not training the next model of AI. If you don’t know how to do this, leave a comment. Also make sure to use the highest model and thinking effort that you have access to. Otherwise, it’s like asking a 5th grade student for advice about your business when really you should be asking a business professor.

If you’re leaving TPT, awesome. Where are your next customers going to come from? If you have products that teachers want, that’s a start. But how will those teachers discover the products? What makes them trust you? And how are you going to know if your marketing is actually working? How are you using AI to migrate or rebuild your business?

Some sellers have talked about a one-day boycott. There’s a business question hidden in that discussion. If it’s difficult to persuade teachers to avoid TPT for one day, how difficult might it be to persuade those same teachers to shop somewhere else every time they need an educational resource?

Someone in the PRO community reminded me of an old story about a Chinese farmer. The farmer’s horse runs away. His neighbours say that’s terrible news. But he says, “Maybe.” Then the horse returns with more horses. The neighbours say that’s wonderful news. He says, “Maybe.” His son gets hurt riding one of the horses. That’s terrible, the neighbours say. “Maybe.” Then soldiers come to take the young men away to war, but his injured son doesn’t have to go. Is that good news? Maybe.

I think that’s a great story to keep in mind as we get new information about TPT’s exclusive seller membership or new AI policy. We don’t know exactly how this is going to work out for each seller. A change that hurts one business might create a different opportunity for another. Maybe.

That doesn’t mean you sit around waiting for the future to decide for you. It means you look at your own numbers, understand the rules, think about your hard nos, and make the best decision you can with what you know. And everyone makes the decision that’s best for them. It’s okay to want kids. It’s okay to not want kids.

How can TPT tell if something is made using AI?

Earlier in the video, I said I’d talk about how TPT can tell if something was made using AI. TPT has said it’s already using algorithms to identify low-quality AI-generated content, but they haven’t told us exactly how those algorithms work. Here’s one technology that could help.

In 2026, a new EU law started requiring AI companies to make AI-generated content detectable by computers. Some companies are doing this by adding invisible digital watermarks. Claude made headlines in August 2026 when it announced text watermarking, but Google has already been using watermarks since 2023.

What about free AI detector tools and watermark removal tools? That’s not the same as checking for an actual AI watermark. You’ve probably have questions about how these watermarks work. Ask AI the following prompt: “Under what circumstances is it possible to remove AI watermarks? If I copy and paste text, will that remove the watermark? Pay attention to the Google SynthID research paper. Explain like I’m 5.” Then ask it about your particular situation.

Watermarking text at the AI level isn’t about adding an invisible character that you can simply delete. It’s about using math to slightly change the words AI chooses when it generates text. Every time AI has a choice between different words that would work, there’s an opportunity to leave the watermark. And when you look at longer passages, it’s easier for detection tools to recognize those AI patterns. It’s not perfect. Short passages, factual writing, and heavily edited content are harder to detect. Now, does that mean TPT is checking for these invisible watermarks? We don’t know. But the technology exists, and it’s important to understand what it can and can’t tell us.

As TPT moves into this new era, I keep thinking about Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. Christopher Robin had to grow up and leave the Hundred Acre Wood. Just because you start another chapter of your business, doesn’t mean you have to stop caring about Winnie the Pooh. I love TPT. It’s been an important part of my entrepreneurial adventure. I can appreciate that, and I can keep helping teachers who are building businesses on TPT. At the same time, I can see that the direction I want to go with AI is different from the direction TPT is choosing. Make the decision that makes sense for you and your teacher business.

Now, I have two free email lists, depending on where you want to go next. You can sign up for one or sign up for both. The links are in the video description. If you’re staying on TPT, sign up for my free SEOTpreneur newsletter. Right now, I’m doing a TPT gift card giveaway. Reply to my email newsletter with a screenshot of your 90-Day Second Purchase Rate activity for a chance to win a $25 TPT gift card. Contest ends on Saturday Oct 17, 2026 at 11:59 PM (ET). Terms and conditions apply. If you miss the deadline, still sign up for the email newsletter. I like contests. If you’re interested in AI or you’re building a teacher business that grows beyond TPT, check out the free TeacherpreneurAI email list. In an upcoming newsletter, I’ll be posting a video that explains exactly how AI watermarks work.

And if you haven’t already, go back to the animals from the beginning. Are you a bear, a turtle, an owl, an elephant, a squirrel, a hawk, a beaver, a fox, or something else? Leave a comment and tell me what you’re thinking, especially if your answer has changed. We might not agree about every TPT policy. We might not all make the same business decision. But we can still help one another understand what’s happening through a lens of equanimity. See you in the next video. Bye for now.