X retires ‘unnecessary’ ads hashtag to help eradicate spam

Social platform X has retired the ad hashtag (#ad) on all of its adverts because it says they are “no longer necessary” due to the platform’s integration of xAI’s Grok.

The move, according to X, has been made to "optimise" user experience and ad performance.

A spokesperson for X told Campaign: “X’s user recommendation system is now powered by xAI, significantly optimising both the experience for users and performance for advertisers. Hashtags in ads are no longer necessary with xAI’s Grok integration in the X platform. This enables more effective engagement and improved measurement.”

As of 27 June, the word “Ad” in the top right hand corner of X posts is now how the platform shows users they are viewing paid-for advertising. Campaign understands the removal of #ad on posts is also designed to help X eradicate spam ads due the hashtag’s use on junk posts.

X chairman and chief technology officer Elon Musk announced the change in a post on 26 June. In the post he wrote: “Starting tomorrow, the esthetic nightmare that is hashtags will be banned from ads on X.”

Grok is the name for both a large language model developed by Musk’s AI tech company xAI and the chatbot on X powered by the LLM. The Grok chatbot was unveiled by xAI in November 2023 and was made available to X premium subscribers in March 2024. 

Since integrating Grok on X, the platform has also launched new tools for conversation analysis including Radar, which enables verified organisations to monitor keywords and follow trends.