“While Quora has strict policies and guidelines for sharing knowledge to its users and ensure brand safety, it has also ventured into AI with the launch of its chatbot platform POE in February 2023. The platform is already growing steadily with a strong global adoption. One key feature is its multi-bot and multi-model capability used by creators worldwide, allowing users to access video, audio, chat, text, and image generation models in one place. Quora’s vision for POE is to make the latest AI products accessible to everyone, functioning as a consumer chat product that provides access to the latest AI models.”- Vinay Pandey, Chief Revenue Officer at Quora
In a Q&A with MediaAvataar India, Vinay talks about the Indian advertising industry and the ever-changing journey of artificial intelligence with Quora’s gateway to AI multi-bots Platform for Open Exploration or POE.
1. What impresses you most about the advertising/marketing industry in India?
I started my advertising career with Google India in Hyderabad. India is such a diverse place with so many languages, cultures, behaviors, preferences and so many other permutations and combinations to think about. And that is a fascinating thing in itself and there is so much for marketers to learn. I think the advertising industry in India is in tune with what is happening globally. So, the adoption, adaptation, and transition of technology is quick in India like the entire digital adoption, whether mobile or UPI or digital marketing. So, super quick adoption of new technology along with their understanding of consumer behavior and emotions and how to blend it all is very impressive. India is still a country run by emotions. And I think how you place the digital and the creative side of this together is always fascinating. And the best campaigns work that way where you speak to someone. I think, in the end, marketing, and advertising is all about trying to understand what is the consumer pain point and delivering some value to that. But there is also something deeper, at least in India, where you can speak to and connect with people at a more human level. I think that works absolutely.
2. Today, many of us want to rant on digital media anonymously. In this scenario, how does Quora maintain the quality, transparency, and relevance of user-generated content on its platform?
I think there are a few things I will say that tie into the previous discussion about connecting with humans. Part of the longevity and durability of Quora has been the strong sense of community. When you go to Quora, you can feel that people find a safe place to express themselves and get high-quality answers. Our mission is to share, and grow the world’s knowledge. Users come to Quora for specific information or topics of interest, and the high-quality content is maintained by the community through upvotes, downvotes, and comments. We have long had a “be nice, be respectful” policy and transparent community guidelines, with most users using real names instead of anonymous ones. You need to enable people to express themselves without harm. Most users provide their real names and credentials. The appeal lies in combining facts with human experience and emotion, offering multiple opinions and perspectives. This contributes to its durability. Stress in the system makes people want to talk, and the strong community and robust moderation help. We ensure safety with both human and automated tools. AI improves our ability to understand context and meaning, enhancing moderation. The real names policy has been super helpful. Overall, the platform is built to foster good, polite discussions, and we take firm action when that is not happening. The community also self-regulates. As a company, we are committed to safety and preventing harassment.
3. How does Quora maintain the integrity of its advertising solutions and safeguard the interests of brands?
We work with many large brands, and they all care about not being associated with harmful or unsafe content. On the organic content side, we strive to ensure high-quality content to prevent ads from being shown next to inappropriate material. On the advertising side, we have clear guidelines about what is allowed and what is not. We do not want advertisers using clickbait or low-quality ads, just as we do not want low-quality content. Clickbait is a concern for many brands because it detracts from the legitimate players in the system. We take firm action against advertisers who do not follow the guidelines or try to play with the system by penalizing them. For instance, if an ad is identified as clickbait, meaning it simply leads to another ad in a referral loop, it is deemed low quality and not beneficial to the user. Our system, like others, assesses the probability that a user will find value in the content or ad. That automatically determines the effectiveness of an ad, ensuring that only high-quality ads are shown to users.
4. How does Quora ensure brand safety for its advertising partners and address user concerns?
On the user side, the discussion focuses on not allowing low-quality ads. Our guidelines ensure that users see high-quality ads. On the advertising side, we use hyper-segmentation to determine appropriate ads, ensuring they do not appear alongside unsafe topics. For example, a large e-commerce or retail brand would select specific, safe topics for their ads and exclude topics with negative or competitive themes, or anything harmful or politically charged. We also partner with third-party organizations like IAS (Integral Ad Science) and DoubleVerify to independently verify that brand content appears next to safe content. Advertisers can use these third-party services to monitor their campaigns, ensuring their ads are shown in appropriate contexts. We provide transparency reports detailing where all ads are displayed, giving advertisers control and insight into their ad placements. We have numerous partners to support our advertisers. For more information on our marketing partners and verification services, visit business.quora.com, where we list various partners involved in measurement, implementation, and brand safety.
5. Quora has already ventured into the world of AI with POE. What is its new universal interface and how does it benefit users?
POE which stands for Platform for Open Exploration was launched in February 2023. Our vision for POE is to make the latest AI products accessible to everyone, functioning as a consumer chat product that provides access to the latest AI models. When you use POE, you can access models from major players like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Facebook. We have partnerships with these companies, allowing us to get the latest models as soon as possible, often on the same day.
I would describe POE as a browser for AI products. Without a browser, accessing websites would be complex and cumbersome. Similarly, POE simplifies access to various AI models through a single, user-friendly interface. We are the leader in the chat product space with multiple bots, offering users the best AI products and the latest models quickly. Users can access POE for free with some limitations or subscribe for more features. Instead of paying for each model separately, users can pay a single cost to access multiple models, making it affordable.
POE is already growing with a strong global adoption. One key feature is its multi-bot and multi-model capability, allowing users to access video, audio, chat, text, and image generation models in one place. Users can compare answers from different models, similar to how Quora provides various answers to a question. POE takes context from previous questions to seamlessly provide comparative answers from multiple models.
Additionally, developers can create custom bots on top of these models. There are over a million custom bots available, performing tasks like summarizing YouTube videos or creating advertising copy for Facebook and Quora. This makes POE highly efficient and useful for a variety of use cases. Users can compare multiple model answers within a single chat and call upon different bots as needed. The last key aspect of POE is monetization, allowing creators to benefit from their efforts.
6. How will POE’s new features benefit creators?
So, I’ll start with the creators. These people are putting in significant effort. Some use simple bots with basic prompting, while others use more complex prompting to generate high-quality answers. Some even use our APIs to create advanced bots. They invest time, effort, and sometimes money on server costs, and they expect to be rewarded. They can set their prices and see who subscribes to their bot, using a pay-per-message model that has proven beneficial for many.
Creators can charge based on the complexity and effort put into creating their bots. On the advertiser side, we currently do not have advertising on call. Our focus is growth and ensuring that many users can access and use our features. We are constantly developing new features, and the landscape changes almost daily. The marketing AI space alone has around 500 apps, highlighting the rapid development. While we currently do not have advertising, many brands and advertisers utilize POE’s multi-bot facility to generate assets and content.
7. On a personal note, what have been the highlights of your career so far? Your key learnings?
I captained large cargo ships in the maritime industry for a decade before moving to advertising with Google India handling online sales and operations. Before joining Quora, I headed the Global SMB Sales and Marketing department at Twitter in San Francisco. Currently, I lead Quora’s revenue functions comprising advertising, subscriptions, and data businesses. While I started my advertising journey in India and as mentioned earlier, the diversity in India is amazing, and adapting to it is something every marketer needs to learn.