Despite the claims of X's stunted growth, the platform itself is touting new record high engagement numbers for the Olympics, as it looks to showcase the ad placement opportunities that this provides for its partners.

And X really needs those partners to run more campaigns. Recent reports suggest that X's overall revenue is down around 50% year-over-year, and has continued to slide since the switch to the X name.

So, X is looking at the Olympics to be a silver lining for its ad business and hoping that these new engagement numbers can bring things up.

X Says:

"A global audience came to X to be part of the lively conversation. Fans, commentators, brands, and athletes all came together to share memes and reactions for the momentous Opening Ceremony.".
That interest has now bled into the Games itself, X reports noting that 87% of its users report planning on following the event.
To help try to help brands tap into that Olympics hype, X just launched a "Portal to Paris" activation: a portal all Olympics trends and clips in a dedicated space.
Still, the video aspect is somewhat tricky, as X owner Elon Musk has criticized the IOC's ban on video clips from the event.

I mean, attacking the IOC doesn't tend to end well for those willing to test them, but sure, take your shot.

But for what X can host, the "Portal to Paris" does provide a centralized space that is "designed to help drive more dedicated engagement.".

X believes that brands can get in on this through advertising within the stream, and using its new "Trend Genius" ad offering to serve their ads adjacent to trending topics.

Brands can curate, or hand-select, which conversations they'd like to associate themselves with: conversations about athletes, sports, or even teams they sponsor. And then, when conversation around those topics organically grows to a critical level or velocity on X, ads featuring pre-programmed creative are automatically activated on the platform.

As noted, the Olympics represent an very significant opportunity for X, which is working to win back advertisers who are still circumspect about placing their promotions into the app.

The New York Times report recently claims that X is resting a great deal on the Games to increase intake of ad revenue, with the periphery chatter to ideally attract more interest from advertisers.

It will be intriguing to determine how much X can amass in terms of performances in the next couple of weeks, as the Games goes on.