Our AI chatbots could soon be acting as advertising vehicles

Our trust in AI makes us vulnerable to sponsored manipulation

- PARMY OLSON

Chatbots might hallucinate and flatter their users too much, but at least their subscription model is healthy for our well-being. Many Americans pay about $20 a month to use the premium versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini Pro or Anthropic's Claude. The result is that the products are designed to provide maximum utility.

Don't expect this status quo to last. Subscription revenue has a limit. Even the most popular models are under pressure to find new revenue streams. Unfortunately, the most obvious one is advertising—the web's most successful business model. AI builders are already exploring ways to plug more ads into their products, and while that's good for their bottom lines, it also means we're about to see a new chapter in the attention economy that fueled the internet.

If social media's descent into engagement-bait is any guide, the consequences will be profound.

One cost is addiction. OpenAI says a cohort of 'problematic' ChatGPT users are hooked on the tool. Putting ads into ChatGPT, which now has more than 500 million active users, won't spur the company to help those people reduce their use of the product. Quite the opposite.