X may quickly supply a brand new advert format linked to product mentions inside person posts within the app, and launched a small-scale check of this new advert show.
Final week, X person @levelsio observed that X added a Starlink promotion beneath one in every of his posts that talked about Starlink.
The small “Get Starlink” CTA on the backside of this put up hyperlinks the reader via to the Starlink web site for extra details about the product.
Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, responded to the put up, and mentioned X is “trying to make an advert product that isn’t an advert.”
Bier then additional defined that the thought of the format is to tie into natural mentions within the app, and mentioned customers wouldn’t be compensated for advertisements displayed on this means as a result of it might skew the incentives for such mentions.
It’s an fascinating thought, although X will doubtless have to make sure that the advertisements are solely displayed in connection to constructive mentions of a product. But when X can work out that factor, it could possibly be a easy, helpful connector to related merchandise, based mostly on person mentions, with advertisers paying a variable payment based mostly on the quantity of instances these hyperlinks are exhibited to customers.
X is working to enhance the worth of its advert choices to be able to win again advert companions and produce in additional income to energy its increasing synthetic intelligence initiatives.
With the platform merging with xAI in March final yr, that implies that their sources are actually mixed. As Bloomberg reported in June, xAI is at the moment burning via $1 billion in money per thirty days as it really works to construct out its AI infrastructure. Which means each corporations want to seek out extra money, and quick, to keep up their momentum. Whereas xAI merged with SpaceX in February, additional increasing its mixed income pool, the brand new entity nonetheless wants to seek out extra funding sources to funnel into proprietor Elon Musk’s broader AI imaginative and prescient.
X reportedly introduced in round $2.9 billion in whole income for 2025, which might be a ten% year-over-year improve on its 2024 income consequence. However that’s nonetheless effectively under the $4.4 billion Twitter reportedly made in 2022, in keeping with Investopedia. That was additionally the ultimate yr earlier than Elon Musk took over the corporate.
X wants to spice up utilization and enhance its advert choices to win again advert companions and get its enterprise again on observe. It’s already lowered prices as a lot as it will probably via employees and infrastructure cuts.
Although on the utilization entrance, issues aren’t wanting nice.
X’s most up-to-date EU person disclosure report — the one perception the corporate shares now that it’s not a publicly listed entity — confirmed that X misplaced 15% of its energetic customers within the EU within the second half of 2025.
X had truly seen an uptick in utilization within the first half of 2025, reporting simply over 76 million energetic EU customers. However that dropped by 11 million within the final six months of the yr, with X registering 64.8 million customers within the area.
If that pattern holds for different markets, then X could possibly be in for a troublesome battle to win again advert companions. In the meantime, Musk’s previous criticisms of X’s potential advert companions doubtless additionally nonetheless sticks within the minds of no less than some high-powered execs.
However perhaps, with new advert choices, X may nonetheless drive extra curiosity, and contextual mentions could possibly be an fascinating choice. And with 100 million authentic updates shared within the app daily, together with one other 100 million replies, that’s quite a lot of potential for model mentions, assuming X chooses to maneuver forward with this undertaking.
