Today Ryan Hudson, Founder and CEO of ZeroClick, joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss creating advertising infrastructure for AI applications through paid inference-time consideration of advertiser content, examining how to build sustainable monetization for free-tier AI services while learning from the successes and failures of social media's attention economy.

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Today Ryan Hudson, Founder and CEO of ZeroClick, joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss creating advertising infrastructure for AI applications through paid inference-time consideration of advertiser content, examining how to build sustainable monetization for free-tier AI services while learning from the successes and failures of social media's attention economy.

Read the full transcript: https://storage.aipodcast.ing/...

Check out our sponsors: Google Gemini, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify.

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- ZeroClick's Evolution: Originally creators of Pi Ad Block, they've pivoted from ad blocking to building a native advertising system for AI platforms.

- AI Ad Platform Mechanics: Their system matches user queries with relevant advertising information in a contextual way, enabling paid inference time consideration of advertiser content.

- Developer Monetization: The platform helps AI developers monetize their free tiers while creating value for both users and advertisers.

- Shifting Intent Patterns: User queries in AI systems tend to be more exploratory and "upstream" in the funnel compared to direct search queries on Google.

- Multi-modal Potential: While ZeroClick is starting with text, there's future potential for visual advertising that could enhance AI experiences by showing real purchasable products.

- Market Void: There's currently a significant gap in the market for AI advertising solutions that ZeroClick is attempting to fill.


Sponsors:
Google Gemini 2.5. Model Family: The Google Gemini 2.5 family of models is now generally available, offering advanced reasoning for complex tasks and optimized performance for any scale. Start building in Google AI Studio at https://ai.dev

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is the next-generation cloud that delivers better performance, faster speeds, and significantly lower costs, including up to 50% less for compute, 70% for storage, and 80% for networking. Run any workload, from infrastructure to AI, in a high-availability environment and try OCI for free with zero commitment at https://oracle.com/cognitive

Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive


PRODUCED BY:
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Sponsor: Google Gemini
(00:31) About the Episode
(06:51) Zero Click Introduction
(11:37) Pi Adblock Origins
(20:26) Advertising Revolution Lessons (Part 1)
(20:31) Sponsor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
(21:41) Advertising Revolution Lessons (Part 2)
(32:32) AI Attention Economy (Part 1)
(32:38) Sponsor: Shopify
(34:34) AI Attention Economy (Part 2)
(47:44) Technical Implementation Details
(01:01:16) Market Dynamics Concerns
(01:16:34) SaaS and Development
(01:34:22) Browser Wars Future
(01:40:25) AI SEO Evolution
(01:46:15) Multimodal Advertising Future
(01:49:58) Outro

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