PARIS, September 14, 2026. Smalk, the advertising platform built for AI Search, today announced the launch of Content to Citation, a new solution that helps publishers analyze, optimize, monetize and measure their content in the era of AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI assistants. For the first time, publishers have one tool spanning the full chain, from the moment an AI agent reads a page to the revenue earned each time that page is cited.

To lead the launch, Smalk also announced the arrival of Victor Charpin as Co-founder & Global SVP Publishers & Partnerships. Olivier Debray joins at the same time as Co-founder & SVP Global Brands & Agencies to build the advertiser and agency network. They complete a founding team made up of Kristofer Moisan, Co-founder and CEO, and Antonin Lacombe, Co-founder and CTO.

From Content to Citation: A Page's Value Is No Longer Measured in Clicks

With Google rolling out AI Overviews and AI Mode, and ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity gaining ground, a growing share of answers is produced inside the AI interface itself, drawing on publisher content without a visit to the source. For twenty years, search engines sent traffic to publishers. AI Search channels read, synthesize and cite, and the click that paid the publisher is gradually disappearing.

Content to Citation lets a publisher see what AI systems are doing with its content, then earn revenue from it. "AI engines no longer simply answer: they compare, recommend and choose whom to cite," said Kristofer Moisan, Co-founder & CEO of Smalk. "With Content to Citation, we give brands a way to exist inside those answers, and we open a new citation-based revenue stream for the publishers whose content feeds them."

How Content to Citation Works

The solution installs in minutes and runs in four steps, each answering a question publishers are already asking:

  • Analyze: who is reading me? A dashboard, comparable to Google Analytics for AI agents, showing which assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode) visit the site, which pages they cite, and on which topics the publisher holds authority versus its competitors.
  • Optimize: how do I become the source AI relies on? The tool identifies topics where the publisher should be cited but is not, and helps turn its pages into the reference AI systems pick up organically in their answers, strengthening AI authority without touching classic SEO.
  • Monetize: how do I sell this new audience? Sales houses get a tool to build and sell their own GEO / GEA offer to their advertisers, while also tapping demand from Smalk's advertiser network. The publisher stays in control: it approves every campaign, sets its prices and excludes any advertiser it does not want.
  • Measure: is it working? For every campaign, the publisher can show its advertiser how its content moved the brand's visibility inside AI answers: whether the brand is present, how prominently, in what light, and whether it weighs more in the decision. Measurement follows the 4 P's of AI Visibility (Presence, Prominence, Portrayal, Persuasion) published by the IAB on August 3, 2026.

One Co-Founder for the Publisher Offer, One for the Advertiser Network

Like any advertising network, Content to Citation rests on two sides: publisher inventory and brand demand. Smalk has placed a co-founder at the head of each. The two met at Overture, acquired by Yahoo in the early 2000s, working on sponsored search, the auction model that first turned a search query into advertising inventory.

Victor Charpin leads the rollout of Content to Citation, the publisher network and the citation-based revenue model. He has spent twenty-five years on publishers and their monetization: launching one of France's first pay-per-click networks in 1999, building the country's first native advertising network at Ligatus, then leading programmatic and publisher monetization at Outbrain/Teads.

Olivier Debray builds the demand side: adoption of Generative Engine Advertising (GEA) by advertisers and media agencies. After more than a decade at Yahoo across sponsored search and business development, he joined Snap Inc. as one of its first French employees, helping build the local team and grow the platform's monetization.

That demand side is already well underway. After six months of testing, Smalk signed a first partnership with Dentsu France and is now rolling out with other agencies, with more than a hundred campaigns launched or running across France and the United States, delivering visibility and consideration gains of up to four times on priority search intents.

"ChatGPT Ads and ads inside Google AI Mode show that advertising is coming to AI. Our ground is the organic answer: getting the brand cited by the AI itself and lifting its consideration," Moisan added. "With Olivier and Victor, we finally have the expertise to turn this into a category of its own, the AdSense of the AI agent era."

A New Search Economy Is Emerging

The setup recreates, in a new form, the model both men helped make work earlier in their careers, when search advertising connected advertiser demand to publisher inventory. What changes is the medium: the query and the click give way to the conversation and the generated answer. Smalk positions Generative Engine Advertising (GEA) as the advertising category that reconnects the two.

"AI answers are built on publishers' work, but the click that used to pay for it is gradually disappearing," said Victor Charpin, Co-founder & Global SVP Publishers & Partnerships at Smalk. "I joined Smalk to help build a solution that lets publishers generate a new citation-based revenue and, in doing so, create an advertising lever that complements their existing offers."

"I have spent more than twenty years helping brands show up where consumers search. Overture, Yahoo, Snapchat: I saw each shift arrive," said Olivier Debray, Co-founder & SVP Global Brands & Agencies at Smalk. "This one is different. For the first time, an AI answers directly and chooses whom to mention. Brands missing from that answer lose visibility before the user ever clicks."

Publishers and sales houses can learn more or request a demo of Content to Citation at https://www.smalk.ai/contact.

About Smalk

Smalk is an advertising platform dedicated to AI Search, connecting the brands that need to appear inside AI-generated answers with the publishers whose content feeds those answers. The company operates native ad formats for AI agents (Generative Engine Advertising) and opens a new citation-based revenue stream for publishers in the agentic web era.

Press contact: press@smalk.ai.
Website: https://www.smalk.ai.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smalk-ai