VerticalScope, which runs more than 1,200 enthusiast forums holding more than 2 billion user-generated posts, said in its third-quarter 2026 results that a new AI-powered commerce experience contributed to a 29% year-over-year rise in affiliate commerce revenue, PYMNTS reported. The AI recommends products inside discussion threads, and the company earns a commission on qualifying purchases. Overall revenue fell 11%, and monthly active users averaged 76.8 million, down from 83 million, which the company attributed to lower organic search traffic. VerticalScope has not disclosed how the feature works or how much revenue the AI generated on its own.
The company signed its first two agreements with frontier AI labs in October without naming them. One is a non-exclusive training license priced on content volume; the other pays VerticalScope when its content contributes to an AI-generated answer and started in November with a subset of communities. Revenue is expected to begin in the fourth quarter. CEO Chris Goodridge said AI companies, search engines and agents made 115 million attempts to access the communities over the past 30 days, and that VerticalScope blocks those without an agreement.
Goodridge said the company plans to let vendors bring product catalogs directly into the communities. PYMNTS also cited its own August survey of 2,191 U.S. consumers, which found 23% start online retail research with AI and that Amazon closed 60% of respondents' most recent AI-assisted purchases.