X is experimenting with a new advertising format that blurs the line between conversation and commerce.
Instead of displaying traditional promoted posts, the platform is testing a feature that inserts a product recommendation directly beneath a post that mentions a brand or product.
The first example spotted in the wild involved a post praising Starlink’s satellite internet service in Portugal. Beneath the post, some users saw a small prompt reading “Get Starlink,” linking directly to the company’s website.
X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, confirmed the test and summed up the ambition in a single sentence: “Trying to make an ad product that isn’t an ad.”
For now, the experiment appears to be limited. Users outside the test markets don’t see the Starlink recommendation itself, but they can still spot the placeholder box where the suggestion would appear.
If you visit the original post from X user @levelsio published on March 6, you’ll notice an outlined section beneath the post text. In most regions, that box currently displays a random X post instead of the product recommendation.
Where the test is active, the feature has already sparked discussion in the replies. One user jokingly asked the original poster: “lmao, did you add this Starlink button?”
Bier also addressed a suggestion that the feature could allow users to attach affiliate links. His response was blunt: “No, then people will lie. I want to trust recommendations on here.”
The test arrives at the same time as another new feature: “Paid Partnership” labels for creators. These labels allow creators to disclose sponsored posts without relying on hashtags like #ad or #paidpartnership.
If combined with the new product recommendation slot, the feature could become a more structured way for brands to connect creators, conversations, and direct product links inside a single post.
For years, X has tried to position itself as a home for creators with initiatives like ad revenue sharing, subscriptions, payouts for viral posts, and more recently monetization of individual threads.