Why AI Needs Advertising | Andrea Tortella

from Paying Attention · host Choy Travers

Why AI Needs Advertising | Andrea Tortella Andrea Tortella is the co-founder and CEO of Thrad, building advertising infrastructure inside AI, and previously worked on advertising at Perplexity. In this episode of Paying Attention, we discuss why Andrea believes advertising can be a force for good, why AI may need advertising to remain broadly accessible, and what he calls “sponsored intelligence.” We get into: why Andrea is obsessed with advertising what he learned working on ads at Perplexity why chat interfaces are becoming a new form of advertising inventory what “sponsored intelligence” means for the future of AI why fewer clicks could reshape the economics of publishing how publishers might capture value as distribution shifts towards AI agents the attribution problem facing AI-native advertising Anthropic’s anti-AI-ad campaign, and why Andrea loved the creative but disagreed with the argument why one of the most underrated advantages in marketing is speed Andrea’s thesis is that advertising doesn’t have to be something users tolerate. Done well, it can fund access, drive discovery and become part of the value itself. Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:48 From Perplexity to Thrad 04:31 Why advertising can be a force for good 06:46 What is an “AI publisher”? 07:59 Sponsored intelligence 09:34 The death of the click and the zero-click economy 11:37 Publishers, AI and the broken value exchange 12:36 AI-agent advertising, Perplexity and attribution 14:32 Turning AI traffic into a new advertising channel 17:07 Why AI platforms still need publishers 19:13 What AI advertising needs to become mainstream 20:02 Conversational AI as a new advertising channel 21:43 The growth of advertising inside AI 22:42 Anthropic’s anti-AI-ad campaign 24:47 What marketers should be paying attention to 25:02 Why speed is underrated in marketing 26:17 Where to find Andrea Paying Attention is hosted by Choy Travers and explores how media, advertising, AI, adtech and commerce are changing the way attention is won, valued and monetised.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Sep 16, 2026

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Why AI Needs Advertising | Andrea Tortella

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