Social media platform X has unveiled a new 44-slide pitch deck aimed at reestablishing its credentials as a safe advertising environment. The deck, which was presented to brand and agency-side advertisers last week, highlights various tools and initiatives the company has rolled out to enhance transparency and brand safety from 2022 to 2025. Key features promoted include keyword controls, blocklists, and partnerships with media quality firms such as DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science (IAS), and Trustworthy Accountability Group.
A central aspect of the pitch is Grok, an AI chatbot developed by X’s parent company xAI, which the company claims is integral to its brand safety mission. According to the presentation, Grok boasts “enhanced contextual understanding” of posts and the ability to identify sensitive topics based on cultural trends on the platform. It also claims superior text recognition capabilities across various content formats, including images with distorted text.
However, Grok’s track record raises concerns about its effectiveness in safeguarding brand safety. Over the past year, the AI has been linked to several incidents that contradict its safety assertions. In January, a wave of users prompted Grok to generate approximately 6,700 sexually explicit nonconsensual deepfake images each hour. This incident has since triggered regulatory investigations worldwide. Earlier in the year, Grok had disseminated violent and antisemitic content, including graphic fantasies of sexual violence.
Despite these challenges, the pitch deck claims that Grok “exceeds industry benchmarks” for brand safety, with an average safety score exceeding 99.99% as reported by IAS and DoubleVerify. However, the company did not disclose the methodologies behind these assessments. Notably, DoubleVerify previously stated that X’s brand safety rate of 99.99% referred to the effectiveness of its proprietary systems and not specifically to Grok’s capabilities.
A spokesperson for X emphasized that the presentation was part of their ongoing effort to foster transparency and control in communication with clients. DoubleVerify and IAS neither confirmed nor detailed their methodologies in relation to the partnership with X.
Besides Grok, the pitch deck features other tools designed to enhance advertiser control over ad placements. Significant attention is given to Community Notes, a crowd-sourced fact-checking feature that allows users to add context to potential misinformation. Research from Sorbonne Université Paris, Cornell University, and the University of Washington indicates that posts receiving Community Notes are 80% more likely to be deleted. X has also announced a pilot program for an AI Note Writers API, which aims to automate the proposal of Community Notes.
The document suggests specific controls that advertisers might consider, including pre-bid adjacency controls and limited sensitivity settings for various ad types, such as timeline and profile ads. These recommendations come as X faces substantial challenges in rebuilding advertiser trust, particularly after a tumultuous period following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the platform in late 2022. Musk’s leadership saw significant staff cuts, a reworking of the blue check verification system, and relaxed content moderation policies, all of which led to a mass exodus of advertisers concerned about brand safety.
While some major companies, including IBM, Disney, and Apple, have since returned to the platform, estimates from Emarketer indicate that X’s total ad revenue for 2025 will reach only $1.25 billion—around half of the $2.43 billion recorded in 2021 prior to Musk’s takeover.
In a bid to recover lost advertising revenues, X appointed Monique Pintarelli as the global head of advertising at xAI in January. Pintarelli has highlighted X’s focus on creating user experiences that also benefit advertisers. As the platform seeks to reassure advertisers about content moderation, the effectiveness and reliability of Grok remain critical to its future strategy.
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