$AppLovin(APP.US) rallied intraday and after-hours, driven by two catalysts. While neither has seen material progress or confirmation, they help ease recent negative sentiment tied to AI and competition with META.

(1) APP is considering building a social platform

This stems from a backend engineering role posted on APP's website to help design and build a next‑gen social platform, stating: 'As a founding Backend Engineer for this venture, you will architect the digital backbone of our next‑generation social platform.' The posting highlights a 'content distribution engine.'

The rationale is to secure 1P user data to improve e‑commerce ad targeting. This is not a one‑off idea; APP previously sought to bid for TikTok and may either build or acquire a social platform.

Dolphin Research has noted that AXON's edge in gaming comes from comprehensive 1P user data — amassed from hundreds of titles built by studios APP acquired, plus data obtained through Adjust's partnerships with game developers.

To deliver similarly strong ROI in e‑commerce, 1P data is also essential. In early tests, APP asked merchants to first spend $600k on META and share META's performance data for backtesting, offsetting its non‑gaming data gap.

(2) Rumor: OpenAI to partner with APP

The chatter originated from a post on X by finance influencer Jonah Lupton (himself long APP) after hours that quickly spread: 'OpenAI mentioned today on their capital raise call that they're now starting to work with $AppLovin(APP.US) (AppLovin) on monetizing ChatGPT through ads.'

Specifics remain unclear and there is no official confirmation yet. Operationally, collaboration faces no hard blockers; OpenAI's monetization push this year makes partnerships with mature ad platforms likely, potentially with multiple partners in parallel.

On APP's Q4 call, mgmt. noted AXON is highly effective for brand discovery among SMBs. That aligns with LLM‑driven insights into user preferences, enabling niche brand seeding and related marketing.