IGN Entertainment Pairs IMAGINE Audience Intelligence With Firsthand Brand Agents to Make Advertising Adaptive

New integration pairs IGN Entertainment's IMAGINE audience intelligence platform with Firsthand Brand Agents, helping brands create adaptive experiences that respond to how consumers engage while complementing the reader experience IGN Entertainment has built over 30 years.

NEW YORK, September 17, 2026 — IGN Entertainment announces a partnership with Firsthand, the AI company helping brands turn ads and websites into adaptive experiences, to bring more relevant brand engagement to audiences across IGN properties. The integration connects IGN Entertainment's IMAGINE audience intelligence platform, which models audience selections/interests to build specific, sized audiences and the reasons behind them, with Firsthand Brand Agents, which turn those audiences into adaptive experiences grounded in a brand's own products and voice.

Together, IMAGINE and Firsthand extend IGN Entertainment’s audience intelligence beyond targeting and into the brand experience itself. IMAGINE determines which audiences a campaign should reach and why they are in market, and those personas then set where the Firsthand Brand Agent experience begins, so a reader who came for performance starts on performance rather than at the beginning of a brand's story. From there, the experience adapts to the context the reader is in and how they engage, meeting them wherever they are in their journey and guiding them to the action that matters most to the brand.

IMAGINE is IGN Entertainment's audience intelligence platform. Rather than relying on demographic segments, it models behavior across the company's digital properties, including what people read, what they compare, what they search for and what they return to, and turns an advertiser's brief into specific, sized audiences defined by why each group is there. Because IGN Entertainment's audiences arrive with intent, deciding what to play, what to watch and what is worth their money, those signals reflect real consideration rather than assumed affinity. The result is a set of audience personas an advertiser can plan and buy against, each one quantified and each one continuing to develop as behavior changes.

Brand Agents are AI-powered experiences built from a brand's approved knowledge, products, and voice. They give brands a way to adapt the experience to what consumers are interested in and how they engage, helping readers get to the information they’re looking for without leaving the trusted editorial environments they already rely on. A reader might land on an article, engage with a prompt related to what they're reading, and explore the brand’s products or expertise from there, with each interaction grounded in the advertiser’s own knowledge. Because the interaction feels native and additive rather than interruptive, Brand Agents generate as high as 3x higher engagement as compared to traditional ad formats.

The partnership is built to protect the trust IGN Entertainment has earned with its audience since 1996. Every Brand Agent is grounded in advertiser-approved content and the specific brand sources provided, with no broad web crawling and no AI-generated imagery. Human review is part of the process, and brands keep control of their voice and messaging at every step. For readers, that means brand interactions that respect the reason they came to IGN in the first place, which is to be informed and inspired by premium content.

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"Our audience has trusted IGN Entertainment for 30 years because we put great content and their experience first. Brand Agents let us extend that same standard to advertising," said Karl Stewart, SVP, Worldwide Marketing & Head of IMAGINE AI. "By bringing IMAGINE's model of why our audience is here into the brand experience itself, we can help advertisers meet readers with information that’s more relevant to what they care about and how they engage — making advertising more useful and additive to the experience rather than an interruption to it."

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“In the AI era, consumers expect brands to meet them where they are — with the right knowledge, at the right moment, ready to help them decide. But most advertising is still static. By combining IMAGINE's ability to understand why a reader is there with Firsthand Brand Agents, IGN can turn that audience intelligence into adaptive experiences that respond to what consumers care about and how they engage. More useful experiences create opportunities for deeper engagement, richer signals about consumer intent, and ultimately, better outcomes for advertisers. .” Michael Rubenstein, co-CEO and co-founder, Firsthand.

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The capability is already in market with partners such as AMD through a live campaign on IGN.com. At IAB PlayFronts, IGN and Firsthand demonstrated how IMAGINE audience intelligence helps shape the starting experience of an AMD Brand Agent, which then adapts based on the page context and how consumers engage.

Beyond engagement, every interaction can reveal what consumers are interested in, what information builds confidence, and what drives action. Those richer intent signals can inform future campaigns, content, and customer experience, helping brands make each experience more relevant over time. The program is fully managed, so advertisers need no AI resources of their own to take part.

Brand Agents are available now to advertisers across IGN properties. 

To learn more, contact: Andrea Bruns, IMAGINE Operations -  [email protected].

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About IGN Entertainment

IGN Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc., is one of the world’s largest gaming and entertainment media platforms and the go-to destination for fans to explore and celebrate games, film, TV, comics and much more. Across its 15 digital properties, IGN Entertainment reaches more than 470 million monthly users in 110 countries and engages with 96 million fans on social media. Its portfolio includes favorites such as IGN, Eurogamer, Outside Xbox, Rock Paper Shotgun, and MapGenie, delivering daily content across 30+ platforms, including YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and connected TV. Through its online digital store Humble Bundle, IGN Entertainment has donated over $282 million to more than 38,000 charities worldwide, underscoring its commitment to making a positive impact. Headquartered in Los Angeles, IGN Entertainment's content is localized in 20 languages. Learn more at corp.ign.com.