By Daniel DiLallo
Special to YNOT

Three ways AI is being used to bring better ads to the online adult consumer:

Recommendation Engines Powering Ads

Both Pornhub and Youporn have openly stated they are using AI on their platforms to improve the user experience. Recommendation engines could be a driving force for a lot of their content searches and can be a driving force for online ads. If the user watches only a few seconds of a video and never returns to it, that is still not a loss. Perhaps he or she is very quick, and may be even better than data that can be used to drive another sale!

Today’s online recommendation systems go way beyond simple information filtering guidelines. They have full-fledged recommender systems and are capable of pulling detailed, nuanced data to draw conclusions from behaviors, actions, time and many more variables. They analyze not just what kind of content a person is consuming, but what’s skipped, the rate the content is consumed, the re-consumed data, the review data, the recommendation data and many other small behaviors happening during the read.

This data is then being compared to millions of other people’s data and where their decision tree led them next. The actual recommendation is then presented to the user. It is often appreciated and well received by the users because it was what they wanted but may not even have known they did. Pornhub and Youporn are both using recommender systems and both have been using AI for cataloging and tagging content along with improving user search results.

Machine Learning & Facial Recognition

Pornhub has been using machine learning to catalog its video and has deployed facial recognition software to detect porn star faces. I believe eyetracking data is going to be a huge factor moving into the future, helping marketers study human behavior and predict what users really want.

Pornhub VP Corey Price told VentureBeat, “Ultimately, we want to provide our fans with whatever it is they have a penchant for, and our new model will be able to surface more accurate results for them, which will hopefully keep them coming back. The easier it is to navigate and access what they want, the happier they will be.” Pornhub’s machine learning models will improve over time as users verify its guesses.

AI Driven Dynamic Pricing

Prices fluctuate online for certain products and services like airline fares, hotel rooms etc. Today you score a great deal, tomorrow you end up paying a bit more than you wanted. Most people focus on the bargain they got, but what if such flexibility was a feature of all your shopping?

New developments in artificial intelligence are radically changing the relationship between sellers and customers. What’s becoming important is the maximum price you’re willing to pay — and that calculation is made not by you, but by an algorithm. Welcome to the world of dynamic pricing!

The days of one price are becoming a thing of the past. Dynamic pricing plays on our desire to find that next bargain. The main goal of dynamic pricing is to benefit the seller. By gathering enough personalized data, the algorithms can ultimately ensure that the seller wins overall. But the customers will feel like they are winning as well and getting a bargain. Just like gambling the customers enjoy the rush, but the house always wins online. I am aware of a few NEW adult sites already using this AI feature.  AI Driven Dynamic pricing has arrived, and it is making a difference in bottom lines.

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Daniel DiLallo is a former Activision game developer now known as an adult industry pioneer in VR and AR. He is the creative director for 3x Studios, which achieved prominence with its work on blockbuster games including Transformers, Guitar Hero and Spider Man. 3x Studios works exclusively with Vivid Entertainment toward the common goal of redefining what adult entertainment can be. To see their work, visit VividVirtual.com. DiLallo welcomes readers’ questions and may be reached at dan@3xstudios.com.