SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As artificial intelligence reshapes how consumers discover products, research questions and make decisions, Koah, which enables native, contextual advertising inside generative AI, is building momentum in the emerging conversational AI market, helping brands reach consumers within AI-powered experiences.

Koah’s growth reflects increasing advertiser interest in understanding how AI conversations may create new opportunities for consumer discovery and engagement. The company’s gross merchandise value (GMV) grew fourfold in Q3 compared with Q2, signaling accelerating commercial activity across its network. Through its native advertising formats and growing network of AI applications, Koah is working to establish a new approach to digital advertising, one designed around the way people interact with AI.

“AI is changing how people discover products, evaluate their options and make decisions, creating an entirely new opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers in more relevant and useful ways,” said Nic Baird, CEO and co-founder of Koah. “We’re seeing growing interest from brands that want to understand this shift early and build a presence in these emerging environments. At Koah, we’re building the technology and advertising experiences to help brands show up in AI conversations in ways that add value to the consumer experience.”

Advertisers are moving early to understand the opportunity
For brands, conversational AI offers a new environment in which to engage consumers as they research products, compare options and evaluate recommendations. Rather than relying solely on traditional search queries or browsing behavior, consumers can describe their needs, preferences and circumstances in detail, using AI applications to help narrow their choices.

Kristin Secora-Sampat, VP of Growth at UrbanStems and a Koah advertiser, described the motivation behind exploring the channel during a recent Koah-hosted discussion on AI advertising: “The primary driver was wanting to know and not wanting to be behind. When this hits mass adoption, I want us to be ready to go.” The opportunity is not simply to replicate traditional search advertising in a new environment. AI conversations can give consumers space to explain their needs, preferences and circumstances in greater detail, creating a different context for discovering products and evaluating options. “On Google I show up and say ‘I need a red shoe.’ At an LLM I say ‘I’m going to a wedding, here’s the dress I have, what shoe do I need?’ It’s my thought partner, helping me narrow the field,” continued Secora-Sampat.

As these conversations bring research, comparison and consideration into a single interaction, advertisers have an opportunity to experiment with a developing channel and understand how their brands can participate in AI-powered discovery.

Building an advertising experience for AI conversations
As AI applications become more sophisticated, developers face growing pressure to build sustainable businesses around the experiences they create. Applications supporting complex, multi-step interactions may require significant computing resources, making monetization an increasingly important consideration as usage scales.

Koah is developing an advertising platform designed to help AI developers monetize their products while enabling brands to reach consumers within relevant conversational contexts. Its native ad formats are designed for generative AI-powered environments rather than simply replicating traditional display advertising. Koah’s Card ad format is designed to integrate advertising into the conversational experience. According to Koah, the format performs at a 1.96% click rate, roughly 40x the average of display ads.

“As AI becomes a more personal part of how consumers discover products and make decisions, advertising needs to evolve alongside it,” said Baird. “That means delivering relevant brand experiences that fit naturally into the conversation, while being transparent about when and how brands are showing up. The opportunity isn’t simply to put ads in AI environments; it’s to connect consumers with brands in ways that are genuinely useful to them.”

Understanding how consumers use AI
Koah is also analyzing activity across its network to understand how consumers engage with AI applications and where advertising opportunities may emerge. Data shows the differences between the AI applications represented on its network and the ChatGPT usage data used for comparison. Information-seeking prompts account for 41% of prompts on Koah’s network, compared with 24% in the reference data. Writing accounts for 3%, compared with 24%, while practical guidance represents 9%, compared with 29%. These differences suggest that consumer behavior varies across AI applications, creating opportunities for brands to better understand where and how people engage with AI and how to reach them in these emerging environments.

Koah’s network data also shows increasing interest in product discovery ahead of the holiday season. Daily queries containing the words “gift” or “gifts” have more than doubled since the first week of August, with recent daily volume approaching three times the early-August baseline. These findings offer an early look at how consumer behavior may evolve across AI applications and how brands could engage consumers as they research products, explore options and consider purchases.

Looking ahead
As advertisers continue to explore AI-powered experiences, Koah is focused on developing the advertising infrastructure, formats and insights needed to connect brands with consumers in conversational environments.

About Koah
Koah is building the advertising infrastructure for the AI-native internet. Its platform enables publishers and AI applications to integrate advertising directly into emerging user experiences, creating native, relevant and clearly labeled ad formats designed for the next generation of digital consumption. Koah works with publishers and advertisers to create a new model for monetization as consumers increasingly interact with AI-powered applications.

Media Contact
Rachel Jermansky, SamsonPR for Koah
rachel@samsonpr.com


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