AI is the new front door
Customers meet a brand in an answer before they meet it on a page. Sponsored intelligence is how that answer stays free to ask.
First edition · Concluded
Sponsored Intelligence Summit
Thrad’s own summit for the people shaping advertising in AI. The first edition brought marketing and technology leaders to London to set the terms of the answer economy.
200
attendees in the room20
speakers10
sessions in one afternoon
The programme
The Answer Economy
One track, one afternoon. How customers stop searching and start asking, and what that does to discovery, measurement and media planning.
- 2:00 PMDoors and registration
- 01
The Answer Economy: AI Is the New Front Door
- Andrea F. Tortella, CEO and co-founder, Thrad
The opening keynote. An answer now replaces a page of links, and advertising is what keeps AI cheap enough for everyone to use.
- 02
Performance in the Conversation: The New Funnel
- Matt O’Neill, founder of Teemo and co-founder of AdMonsters
Awareness, consideration and purchase inside one exchange, and why buying agents will find audiences without publications as proxies.
- 03
Sounding Like You at Scale
- Giuseppe Battista, senior solutions architect for startups, AWS
A live demonstration of brand voice extracted from published work into a style guide the model reads as context.
- 04
From Search to Ask: The New Front Door to Your Brand
- Mimmo Palmieri, founder of MIMMS, formerly of the Financial Times and Condé Nast
- Kim Tarantino, Transact Media Group
- Andrea F. Tortella, Thrad
The flagship panel. Publishers become media brands as AI takes over distribution, and attribution is the problem buyers still want solved.
- 05
Sponsored Intelligence, Live: From Brief to Live in Seconds
- Zizou and Aleksei, engineering, Thrad
Claude, connected to Thrad’s MCP, planned and launched a real campaign from one conversational brief, with different US and UK plans for the same product.
- 06
Placing the First Bets: The Twelve-Month AI Playbook
- Kevin Baragona, founder and CEO, DeepAI
- Karen Dumville, global VP of go-to-market intelligence and activation, Thoughtworks
- Hiral Shah, global head of social media, Thoughtworks
- Moderated by Alexandra Naomi Perez, chief of staff, Thrad
The closing session. What brands and agencies should test over the next year, and why serious LLM test budgets start in 2026.
- 6:00 PMClosing remarks and drinks
What the room settled
Five things the first edition agreed on
Publishers win on three things
Critical mass, a defined niche, and first-party data an agent can read. Buying agents go straight to the audience.
A voice can scale without slop
Extract the brand’s voice from what it has already published, hand it to the model as context, and generation sounds like you.
Supply is ahead of demand
New conversational inventory outruns the buyers for it, which is the early mover’s advantage. Attribution is the open question.
The test budgets start now
Thoughtworks committed a serious share of paid media to AI experimentation, beginning with how buyers phrase problems in conversation.
Sponsored intelligence enables us to subsidise AI, to democratise it, to make it cheaper and more accessible.
AI is flattening the world the same way that Google flattened the world.
In the press
Read the recap
Frequently asked questions
Who attends?
CMOs and brand marketers, agency leads, media owners and the people building AI platforms. The first edition was built around senior marketers already testing AI as a channel.
How do I get invited?
Request an invitation and tell us what you are working on. Places go to the people in the room who make the conversation better.
Is it free to attend?
Yes. There is no ticket. Places are allocated by invitation.
Can I speak or partner?
Speaker and partner slots for the next edition are by invitation too. Write to us with the session you would bring.
Where was the first edition?
At 10 York Road on London’s South Bank, on Friday 24 July 2026, from doors at 2:00 PM to closing remarks at 6:00 PM.
Is there a recording?
The Summit happens in the room. What the first edition settled is on this page, and the press coverage is linked above.
Next edition
Be in the room next time.
The Summit is invitation-only. Tell us who you are and what you are working on, and we will keep a seat in mind.