It’s Now Possible to Have a Conversation With an Ad.
Not long ago, this would have sounded completely absurd. Yes, people may talk back at ads, or at TV, because as consumers, we don’t always like what we see and feel the need to nag back. But ads don’t talk. They broadcast a message, online ones “hope” for a click, and move on.
But now, your customer can ask a question inside the ad. “Is this available in size 10?” or “How far is the ocean from the hotel?” or “Do you ship overnight?”And get a real answer. In your brand’s voice. In real time.
Generative Response Ads is Intentful’s patent-pending solution that unlocks something advertising has never done well: actual interaction. Not a chatbot bolted on the side, not a quiz, but a conversation embedded in the ad itself.
We sometimes call them Conversational Ads, but they’re more than that. They’re the starting point for two-way marketing communications, where the ad doesn’t just speak AT someone, but listens, responds with something meaningful, and speaks WITH the customer.
For years, digital ads have relied on a familiar formula: deliver a static message, measure ratings, impressions or clicks, and optimize based on performance. Even with attempts of personalization and dynamic creative, the ad itself has remained a one-way interaction.
You see the message. You click. Or you don’t.
The most advanced ads today may switch headlines based on audience segments or behaviors, but they still can’t respond. They don’t answer questions. They don’t adapt in real time. They continue speaking at the person, not with them.
And while targeting has improved, the ad experience for customers hasn’t changed in decades.
What Are Generative Response Ads?
Generative Response Ads, or GRAs for short, are a new type of ad format that turns passive impressions into real-time interactions. Instead of showing a static message and waiting for a click, a GRA invites the customer to ask a question directly within the ad space, and then answers it, instantly.
The response isn’t generic or scripted. It’s created in your brand’s voice, grounded in brand-approved facts, product details, and messaging. Everything the customer sees is on-brand, on-topic, and context-aware.
GRAs are powered by your own Brand Agent – an AI that is created specifically for your business and knows your products, SKUs, style, brand messaging and more. This ensures responses are actually useful, accurate, and aligned with how your brand should show up in the world.
How Generative Response Ads Work
At its core, a Generative Response Ad combines a traditional ad format with an intelligent layer powered by a Brand Agent. From the outside, the format looks like a traditional ad – be it display, video, or even a TV ad. But underneath, it’s something very different. It’s an intelligent surface for real-time communication, an ad that knows how to respond, not just promote.
When someone engages with the ad, they can type a question just as they would with an AI assistant. The system uses a brand-aware model to understand the question and generate a relevant, brand-safe response in real time. For display ads, the entire interaction happens inside the ad space, making it seamless for the customer and frictionless for the advertiser.
The intelligence behind GRAs ensures that every response feels like it came directly from your brand – relevant, consistent, and instantly available.
In most digital campaigns, engagement is limited to a single number: the click-through rate.
And that number is usually below 1%. That’s the reality of traditional advertising funnels. An ad delivers a message. A small percentage clicks. The rest – 99% or more – move on.
But even after the click, the journey is far from smooth. An impression leads to a click. A click leads to a landing page. A landing page leads to… maybe something. Maybe not. Every step creates friction. Drop-offs are common. Costs add up. And by the time a customer finally engages, you’ve already spent most of your budget trying to get them there.
Generative Response Ads flip this model. While initial engagement volumes may be modest at first, just like with any new behavior, the difference happens after the interaction begins. Instead of pushing users to another destination, GRAs enable one-step engagement, right inside the ad space. No redirects. No delays. Just an immediate, useful response that meets the customer where they are.
The benefits go beyond efficiency and cost savings. With every interaction, you get something that traditional funnels rarely (or really, never?) deliver: anonymized yet clearer, meaningful qualitative insights.
Why Qualitative Insights Have Always Been Missing
Let’s be honest. Most of what we call “understanding the customer” hasn’t been anything but that.
For decades, if marketers wanted qualitative insights – what people think, feel, or are curious about, they turned to focus groups or surveys. Small sample sizes, never in-moment, almost always filtered answers. Often far from how people behave in real life.
Meanwhile, all the data we celebrate as available is clicks, views, conversions, and it is quantitative. It tells us what happened, but not why. We see patterns, but we don’t hear people.
So we make assumptions, build segments, and confidently guess what someone like the customer might want. Then we broadcast a campaign, hoping it lands.
At Intentful, we truly believe the future of marketing communications is based on two-way conversations between brands and consumers, where a conversation is not a hypothetical one about an emotional connection, but a real one. This gives your audience a way to ask something in their own words. No filter and no script. Just real curiosity, real interest, all in the moment. And that creates something marketers have always wanted but rarely had: organic, anonymized, qualitative insights at scale. And a genuine connection with the audience.
This Is Just the Beginning
Generative Response Ads open the door to a new kind of marketing communications, where ads don’t just talk, they respond and campaigns evolve through real interaction.
At Intentful, we see this as Chapter One.
What comes next is even more exciting:
Smarter touchpoints.
Brand Agents that live across channels.
And a world where communication between brands and people is no longer one-way, but continuous and connected.
The era of two-way marketing communications has arrived.
And it’s only getting started.
