This article was based on the interview with Andrea Tortella, CEO at Thrad by Greg Kihlström, Thought leader on AI and Marketing Technology for The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. Listen to the original episode here:
We’ve all been in the boardrooms and on the strategy calls where “AI” is the topic du jour. The discussions often revolve around generative AI’s capacity to create ad copy, design visuals, or segment audiences with terrifying precision. These are, without a doubt, powerful applications that are reshaping our operational workflows. But they represent only one side of the coin. The more profound, and frankly more interesting, shift is not in using AI to make ads, but in learning how to advertise within AI itself—specifically, within the conversational interfaces that are rapidly becoming the new front door to the internet for millions. This is uncharted territory, a frontier where the old rules of interruption and impression-based value simply do not apply.
As marketing leaders, our fundamental challenge has always been to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. In the age of conversational AI, we must add a new dimension: the right context. The large language model (LLM) chat is an intimate, goal-oriented space. A user isn’t doom-scrolling; they are actively seeking answers, solving problems, or creating something new. To enter this space uninvited is to guarantee failure. To enter it as a valuable, additive contributor, however, is to unlock a new paradigm of brand engagement. This is the promise that Andrea Tortella, CEO of Thread, is building his company on—the idea that this new medium offers a chance to finally fulfill advertising’s true purpose: to inform, assist, and inspire.
From Annoyance to Added Value
For decades, the digital advertising ecosystem has been built on a foundation of interruption, a model that often pits the user’s experience against the brand’s objectives. We’ve all been on the receiving end of irrelevant banner ads and disruptive pre-roll videos. It’s a reality that has led many to view advertising as a necessary evil at best. Tortella argues that conversational AI offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally reset this dynamic. The goal is not just to be complementary to the user’s experience, but to be actively additive to it.
“The ads should bring so much value that actually I prefer the experience with the ads rather than without the ads. If I could choose, we want to get to a point where everyone, or as many people as possible, say, ‘wow, this is so helpful to me. I had a problem. You showed me something that is so relevant to me. It solved my problem. I really want to make sure that you show me more of that.’”
This is a high bar, to be sure. It requires a complete reframing of what an “ad” is. In this context, it’s not a creative asset pushed at a user; it’s a piece of information or a solution surfaced at the precise moment of need. Think of a user planning a fitness routine. The AI can provide workout suggestions, but a well-placed, native ad can introduce a relevant protein powder to aid recovery or a smart watch to track progress. The brand becomes a partner in the user’s goal, not an obstacle. This philosophy moves the brand’s role from a passive announcer to an active problem-solver, integrating it seamlessly into the user’s journey in a way that banner ads and pop-ups never could.
The Cardinal Sin: Inertia in the Face of Innovation
When faced with a paradigm shift of this magnitude, the temptation for large organizations can be to wait, to observe, to form a committee. We analyze, we strategize, and we wait for the “best practices” to emerge. According to Tortella, this is the single greatest strategic mistake a marketing leader can make today. In a landscape that moves at the speed of an algorithm update, inaction is not a safe bet; it’s a guaranteed way to fall behind.
“The single one mistake, which is the denominator across all marketing teams and marketing leaders is inertia. It’s a lack of movement, it’s lack of experimentation, right? Action creates information which allows for iteration… The best marketers that I see… are the marketers that move at light speed. They’re the marketers that are able to advertise at a speed of thought.”
This concept of “advertising at the speed of thought” is particularly salient in the LLM environment. The traditional campaign development cycle—briefing, creative development, media planning, execution, reporting—can take weeks or months. Conversational AI advertising collapses this timeline into minutes, or even seconds. Because the ad creative is generated in real-time based on the immediate context of the conversation, the need for extensive pre-production vanishes. A brand can simply provide a URL and a budget, and the AI handles the rest, crafting a relevant, native text ad on the fly. This agility allows brands to operate at the speed of culture, news cycles, and user feedback, creating a powerful arbitrage opportunity for those willing to experiment. The winners in this new era won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets, but the ones with the fastest feedback loops.
Beyond the Click: The New Frontiers of Targeting and Measurement
For years, our industry has been tethered to metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions. While valuable, they often fail to capture the full picture of brand influence and user intent. The rich, semantic nature of a conversation within an LLM provides a dataset of unparalleled depth, unlocking new methods for both targeting and measurement that go far beyond what’s possible in search or social. It’s not about what keywords a user types; it’s about the problems they are trying to solve, the tasks they are trying to complete, and even the sentiment they express.
“What we need to do is to facilitate this attention shift from the publisher to the advertiser… you can look at the shift of the conversation before an ad and then after an ad. If I didn’t have the ad, would the conversation be the same? Well, actually, because I had the ad, has the conversation pivoted towards the advertiser?”
Tortella calls this metric “attention shift,” and it represents a move towards measuring genuine influence. By analyzing the conversational vectors before and after a sponsored message, it’s possible to quantify whether an ad successfully redirected the user’s focus. Did a user asking about fitness start asking specific questions about protein supplements? That’s a measurable shift in attention far more valuable than a simple click. This same data depth enables what Tortella calls “task-based targeting”—serving ads relevant to the task a user is delegating to the AI. If someone is drafting a business plan, ads for financial software or legal services become incredibly relevant. This level of contextual understanding moves targeting from broad demographic buckets to hyper-specific, in-the-moment needs.
The Ultimate Prize: The Data Itself
While the performance metrics and customer acquisition potential of this new channel are compelling, they may not be the most valuable asset it provides. The early days of any major new platform—search, social, video—always present an arbitrage opportunity for savvy marketers. But the true, lasting value lies in the data. Every interaction within a conversational ad is a direct, unfiltered dialogue with a customer or potential customer, happening at scale.
“In that sense, I think about us not only as an advertising company, but nearly or even more as a data company… a lot of the alpha is not only on the pure advertising in terms of customer acquisition… The most, coolest thing is the data. That’s the insight. That’s like a new world. It’s like discovering a new continent.”
This is the strategic prize. For the first time, brands can listen in on the questions customers ask before they even get to the company website. Why are they looking for a new pair of shoes? Are they asking about waterproofing, weight, or ethical manufacturing? This is not just marketing intelligence; it is business intelligence. These insights can and should inform everything from product development and R&D to customer service scripts and future marketing campaigns. Viewing this channel merely as another line item in the media plan is to miss the forest for the trees. It is a direct line to the voice of the customer, and the leaders who recognize this will gain an informational advantage that will be difficult for competitors to replicate.
The emergence of conversational AI as a primary user interface is not an incremental change; it is a categorical one. It demands more than just a tactical adjustment to our media mix. It requires a philosophical shift in how we view our role as advertisers—away from being interrupters of attention and toward being facilitators of solutions. The brands that succeed will be those that embrace experimentation over inertia, value insight over impressions, and understand that the most effective ad is one that doesn’t feel like an ad at all.
As we plan for the year ahead, the directive is clear. The time for observation is over. The technology is here, the audiences are adopting it at a historic pace, and the platforms are beginning to open up. The real risk is not in allocating a small, experimental budget to this new frontier and learning from the results. The real risk lies in doing nothing at all, in assuming the old models will suffice in a world that is fundamentally changing. The conversation has already started; the only question is whether your brand will be a welcome part of it.
