He underscored his confidence in the partnership, noting: “Kontext brings incredible innovation, and together we’re turning conversational AI from a niche channel into a high-intent, scalable media channel.”
Early tests of the integration have shown positive results. One pilot campaign recorded a 70% higher return on ad spend than the client’s target benchmark and a click-to-convert rate 50% higher than on other platforms.
The collaboration will initially be available only to advertisers engaged in one-to-one private marketplace (PMP) deals, invite-only programmatic auctions through which a publisher offers premium inventory to a specific advertiser. However, PubMatic and Kontext plan to expand the offering to additional kinds of PMP and open exchange transactions in the future.
The chatbot inventory will be available through PubMatic’s media buying platform Activate, as well as via any demand-side platform an advertisers so chooses.
For publishers, the arrangement could provide a way to monetize AI products without the heavy lifting required to build out new adtech infrastructure. Advertisers, meanwhile, could gain greater access to high-intent audiences in new environments.
“People ask chatbots the kinds of questions they used to ask search engines, but with far more intent behind them,” Kontext CEO Andrej Kiska told ADWEEK in a statement. “That creates an entirely new surface for publishers and a completely different kind of opportunity for marketers. Our goal at Kontext is to make those moments both monetizable and respectful of publisher control. Partnering with PubMatic, who shares not only this goal but a dedication to innovation, gives us the scale and infrastructure to do that at speed.”
He added: “This isn’t about squeezing ads into AI conversations, it’s about designing a new advertising model that fits how people actually make decisions in an AI-driven world.”
PubMatic and Kontext are inviting select brands and ad agencies to partake in early testing of the program.
Shares of PubMatic are down about 46% over the last 12 months, a slide that’s been attributed to a wide variety of factors including a dropoff in political ad spending after the 2024 U.S. election cycle, macroeconomic uncertainty, and reduced spend on the PubMatic platform from a specific but unnamed DSP.
