AI-powered search is reshaping how consumers discover products, and it's creating urgent monetization challenges for publishers, browsers, and commerce platforms. Consumers spend an average of at least 23 minutes a day in AI chat platforms, and that time will more than double by 2028, according to industry experts.

"Consumers on average spend at least 23 minutes within AI chat today, and that will more than double by 2028," said John Nitti, global chief business officer at adMarketplace, during a panel at Advertising Week New York this week. "Advertising expenditure is actually a two-year lag. So the consumer has always been ahead of marketing."

The panel brought together executives from Qwant, Klarna, Mozilla Firefox, and Vox Media to discuss how AI integration is transforming search behavior and commerce.

Conversational queries provide richer context but demand new approaches

AI chat is transforming how users express intent, with queries far longer and more detailed than those in traditional search. At Qwant, a European privacy-focused search engine, traditional search queries average three words while AI chat queries span 14 to 20 words, according to Isabelle Pasquesoone, business director at Qwant.

Qwant's AI chat users don't just ask longer questions; they stay longer. Sixty percent of them migrate from traditional search results pages, seeking more comprehensive information than standard results provide, and 60% of those users exchange more than three messages within a single conversation.

The extended interactions create opportunities for contextual advertising.

"People are adopting AI. The queries are longer, the prompts are longer, so more information, which is also a very good fit for advertising because we know more about the user, we have more context," Pasquesoone said.

Conversational AI collapses the traditional marketing funnel by enabling highly specific queries that combine discovery and purchase intent. A prompt like "running shoes for flat feet under $150" provides actionable context that keyword targeting cannot match. Platforms still need strategies to drive transactional behavior, though: 80% of Qwant's AI chat queries currently focus on news rather than commercial topics.

Product feeds and data accuracy become nonnegotiable requirements

As AI reshapes shopping behavior, comprehensive and accurate product data has become the baseline requirement for merchant visibility. Four in 10 US consumers have used AI for shopping, according to Adobe data cited during the panel.

"Product data is so so so important. And without a product feed, you are not going to be a part of the conversation," said Zac Bishop, head of global commerce media and agentic growth at Klarna. "These AI agents and AI chatbots need uniform and robust data to kind of query and work with."

Getting into the feed is only the start. Data accuracy determines sustained performance, because price discrepancies or out-of-stock items damage both merchant credibility and platform trust.

"If John clicks on a product and he sees a price difference of 20 bucks or maybe it's out of stock, he's probably not going to obviously buy that, but he also probably won't click on that merchant again," Bishop said.

Marketers have to get two things right. Product feeds earn them a place in AI-generated recommendations, and real-time data accuracy maintains consumer confidence. "Your product feed is going to get you into the conversation, but your data integrity is going to keep you there," Bishop said. That's a higher standard than traditional search, where outdated information might go unnoticed.

Trust demands clear separation between content and advertising

Privacy-focused platforms emphasize that maintaining user trust requires explicit boundaries between AI-generated answers and paid advertising, particularly as AI monetization models take shape.

"AI should never shape what the answer says, and it needs to be clear for the user also because he trusts your product," Pasquesoone said. "If ever he thinks that the answer is not correct or is being influenced, then he will stop using your product."

Mozilla Firefox, operating under nonprofit ownership with privacy as a founding principle, applies similar standards. "That line that you don't cross is anything that damages the brand's trust or the user experience," said Victor Silva, head of ads business development at Mozilla Firefox.

Publishers need control over advertising placement, format, display timing, and volume to maintain this separation. European neighboring rights regulations add complexity by requiring clear revenue attribution between advertising and content sources.

Because AI advertising is still emerging, platforms can set trust standards before problems scale. Clearly labeled paid advertising can improve user experience by ensuring current pricing and inventory information while keeping AI-generated content independent. That separation guards against the credibility issues that emerged when social platforms struggled to distinguish real content from AI-generated material.

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