See how the world’s first eco-friendly AI app turns Koah’s user-friendly ads into reliable revenue and real-world climate impact.

TL;DR

• Viro pursued monetization to offset API costs and support its sustainability goals

• Traditional ad formats couldn’t be customized to Viro’s user experience, so the company deployed Koah’s lightweight, intent-based ads

• Viro generates enough ad revenue to supercharge its eco-friendly mission—without sacrificing retention

About

Viro is the first AI chat platform designed with the planet in mind. By tracking the energy use of every AI query and matching it with renewable energy generation, Viro converts everyday conversations into measurable climate action.

Challenge

Monetizing AI Answers to Cover API Costs and Support Climate Resilience Projects

Viro’s climate-conscious take on ChatGPT has attracted a loyal GenZ following from day one. But delivering on its signature promise to power AI conversations with renewable energy was costly.

To keep up its clean energy donations, cover API costs, and fuel further growth, Founder Nick Arbuckle naturally looked to ads monetization. While he knew users are generally wary of ads, he had a hunch that Viro’s audience might be willing to accept them as a necessary tradeoff for sustainable AI use. 

Nick initially considered monetizing with Google Ads, but found that its traditional ad formats couldn’t be neatly integrated into Viro’s web and mobile interfaces. And there wasn’t a way to fix this because Google didn’t offer any customizations.

“We couldn’t risk running ads that biased our models—or even appeared to. Pushing products on people cheapens our value proposition and sends them straight to other answer engines.”

If Nick wanted to retain user trust and drive conversions, he needed to run ads that complemented, not disrupted, the Viro user experience. In other words, ads that:

• Naturally integrated with Viro’s conversational interface

• Matched the intent of the queries they were paired with 

• Didn’t influence the AI answers

These considerations led Nick straight to Koah.

“Everyone wants a free product, but no one actually likes ads. Koah found a way to deliver AI-native ads that our user community actively welcomes.”

Solution

Contextual Ad Placements That Drive Revenue and Amplify Sustainability Efforts

During a turnkey onboarding, the Koah team helped Nick integrate contextual ads into Viro, carefully configuring the SDK for web and mobile placements. The result is an effortless monetization program and a new revenue stream that, in Nick’s words, immediately began “going up and to the right.”

Although one of every four AI responses now includes a suffix ad, the ads integrate so smoothly that users aren’t deterred. Every single Koah placement feels natural on the page and relates to the content of the query—without ever skewing Viro’s trustworthy answers.

Koah also helps Nick fill these placements with the most relevant advertisers to both the queries themselves and Viro’s climate-conscious user base. Say a user asks Viro for help planning a hike near Marin’s Stinson Beach. Koah will pair the organic answer with an ad for an organic food company’s trail mix.

“Koah helped us put our own stamp on LLM-native ads. Every ad format we run serves our niche and reaffirms our mission.”

Nick now logs into Koah’s Publisher Dashboard daily to track the impact of these highly targeted ads. Over the past few months, he’s noticed steady performance across CTR, CVR, and eCPM. He also tracks latency, which is down to under one second for the vast majority of queries and decreasing every month. And, whenever Nick wants to tweak ad match rates or test new formats, the team quickly ships the updates and helps him fine-tune based on the results.

But the true impact runs deeper than performance KPIs. Beneath every ad Viro runs is a note declaring some variation of, “This ad displaces fossil fuels.” With this context, users are more willing to accept ads as the cost of using AI responsibly.

These disclaimers aren’t empty promises, either. Since partnering with Viro, Koah has dramatically expanded its contributions to climate change nonprofits. In fact, Nick recently used Koah-generated revenue to partner with The Ocean Cleanup and get 1,600 plastic bottles removed from the ocean.

“Koah is incredibly easy to onboard, and their team is a pleasure to work with. Now, I’m essentially monetizing our app on autopilot.”

Results

Relevant Ads, Strong Retention, and a New Revenue Stream

Nick no longer has to worry about generating enough revenue to cover API costs and meet strict sustainability commitments. His new, Koah-powered monetization program gives him the flexibility to fund it all while continuing to evolve Viro’s first-class user experience.

Outcomes:

• 30% fill rate

• 30x increase in DAU

• 1M queries and 14,000 kWh of new renewable energy funded through Koah in 2 months

Nick imagines a long future with Koah. Few ad providers have discovered how to balance monetization with a user-friendly GenAI experience, and Nick is glad to have a long-term partner who’s already cracked the code.

“Koah understands and actively fuels our climate restoration mission. Needless to say, we will be partnering with them for a long time to come.”