With ads coming to Gemini, clues about potential in-app ad products appearing in ChatGPT’s code, and ads already running in Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s AI Mode, it’s clear that the world’s leading AI labs are looking to brands to monetize their multibillion-dollar products.
Supply-side platform (SSP) PubMatic wants to help brands make the most of the opportunity with a new integration that will allow advertisers to place generated text ads directly within AI chat interfaces using standard adtech tools.
The SSP has tapped Kontext, a startup founded in 2023 that helps publishers feed their content to AI systems while ensuring they get revenue and credit for that content. Kontext’s technology can create and serve custom text ads within AI chat interfaces, generated off the cuff with the help of context clues from the conversation, and informed by brand suitability and safety considerations.
Starting today, this capability will be folded into PubMatic’s platform to help advertisers place ads in consumer AI interfaces using familiar programmatic workflows. Within PubMatic’s SSP, or the DSP of their choice, advertisers can select the chatbots they would like to appear in from a list of available partners.
For now, that list does not include any of the top AI products like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity, although a spokesperson told ADWEEK that Kontext is “growing [its] platform partnerships.” Today, options include Liner AI, Deep AI, and others.
As with standard digital ads, users will be able to apply their own specific targeting criteria, data, and measurement preferences. Advertisers can also rest assured that their messages will appear in brand-safe environments and contexts, the companies said, with guidelines informed by PubMatic’s global publisher standards and Kontext’s AI capabilities.
“Advertisers are already seeing consumer attention shift into chatbots and AI assistants, but the industry hasn’t had a real way to buy into those moments until now,” Kyle Dozeman, chief revenue officer of the Americas for PubMatic, said in a statement to ADWEEK.
