More people are starting to lean on AI tools like ChatGPT to ask questions, compare different options, and do little bits of research before making a call. Andrea Tortella, co-founder and CEO of Thrad, an ad infrastructure company that’s built for this exact shift, recently talked about how all of this is shifting the advertising space during an appearance on The Tim Castle Show.
Context Is Becoming More Important Than Tracking
As third party cookies get phased out,Tortella said advertising is shifting to a new base, more like context and relevant AI advertising. Rather than leaning on what someone did before, brands can now react to what a person is actually looking for, right in the moment. Tortella framed it as a change from tracking user behavior toward grasping real time intent, which flips the whole logic.
Relevance Matters More Than Clicks
According to Tortella, the standard for a good ad is different, inside an AI conversation, than it is on a typical webpage. He said that if an ad shows up at the wrong moment it can mess with how much a person trusts the whole product they’re using. Because of that, he noted advertisers should focus on being useful and relevant, not just mechanically producing clicks or attention.
Effects Are Seen Across the Decision-Making Process
Tortella said that these AI conversations usually pop up right at the moment when somebody is weighing options, or about to make a call. So in other words, he suggested the ad effects here might go further than just first brand awareness and drift into the later phases of a buyer decision process.
Companies Testing Early May Gain Experience
In closing Tortella said that, because advertising inside AI conversations is still a new format, companies that start testing now, could build valuable experience and insight ahead of the wider adoption.
About Andrea Tortella
Andrea Tortella is co-founder and CEO of Thrad, a company that builds advertising infrastructure for AI conversations. He launched Thrad in 2024, after doing growth marketing at Perplexity, before that. He has also talked about all this on the TECS Lens podcast, and on the Tim Castle Show.
About Thrad
Thrad builds advertising infrastructure for AI conversations, connecting brands to AI apps and chatbots through contextual, intent-based placements. The sponsored stuff is labeled clearly , and it ’s withheld from touchy conversations, so nothing too sensitive gets mixed up.
Company Details
Company Name: Thrad
Contact Person: Alexandra Naomi Perez
Email: press@thrad.ai
Phone: +41 78 899 00 35
Address: 650 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Website: https://www.thrad.ai/
