We regularly see the impact of AI engines on traffic and conversions in GA4 and whilst conversion orientated data from ‘organic’ AI is currently relatively low, the trend is only likely to go one way as the various players push for market share.
With Google and Meta’s AI driven capabilities and audiences already established with advertisers, the obvious question is what about paid AI options for advertisers and what will likely be available? We’ve rounded up a few of the more likely players in the market that will soon offer paid ads services.
If you’d like to see the impact of AI traffic in your GA4 profile or want to talk about how best to optimise your website for AI, please do get in touch.
Perplexity is now actively pitching to global brands with its sponsored follow up questions and sidebar display/video ads, reportedly priced around £37–£52 CPM (not cheap then!).
The emphasis is on serving high intent, educated users—30% in professional senior leadership roles. Early ‘invited’ collaborations include Nike, Marriott and large agency groups, all are piloting or in advanced talks, with campaigns built around answer engine integration rather than ‘click-bait’. It’s reported that some UK broadcasters are championing AI powered advertising and running local pilot campaigns for regional travel and retail partners using generative AI enhanced content.
Perplexity’s model seems to include a direct revenue share when brands’ answers reference publisher content—an attractive sweetener for news/media groups.
Despite maintaining the public stance that ad formats were not part of the plan, sponsored answers and product links are reportedly under development, likely launching in the UK in 2026. These new options may run on CPC, CPM, and CPL models, reported to be ‘affordable’ for early adopters although no rates are yet publicly available.
Claude’s “Keep Thinking” campaign is certainly lofty in its ambition… It reportedly marks the first mass market, cross platform AI branding push to hit both US and UK audiences using TV, print, digital, OOH, and influencer channels. UK specific executions appear in out-of-home (OOH) in London and across influential press, aimed at business decision makers and researchers.
Anthropic is apparently targeting some large UK B2B, legal, and creative/tech brands for bespoke API sponsorships and partnerships, but there is no self service platform yet that we can find plans for.
Pricing is also premium, reflecting the scale: multimillion-pound brand investments with smaller UK pilots planned for 2026.
Grok is reportedly building in chat ad placements that brands can pay for. This direct placement of ads as ‘sponsored solutions’ in conversational answers, especially at moments of high purchase or brand consideration intent is potentially quite appealing.
Interestingly the ad format may be a little different to other AI offerings as all placements are natively “in the answer” as user advice. Pricing is anticipated to be premium, CPC/CPM auction based, with UK pilot brands in automotive, finance, and consumer tech sectors.
Because Grok leverages X/Twitter’s data, targeting is theoretically in line with X’s capabilities, but then again there lies its potential weakness as X/Twitter may not be that good a match for many client campaigns.
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