A marketing professor says that advertisements in chatbots are inevitable, but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a bias against them.
What Happened: Chuck Byers, a professor at University of Santa Carla, told Inc. that AI-powered chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Alphabet Inc’s Google Gemini could follow a similar path to programmatic advertising.
The advertisements often clog social media and search results with content tailored to a user's interactions and searches.
However, Altman thinks that while internet advertising was necessary for "a bunch of reasons," the industry is transient in nature.
"I kind of hate ads just as an aesthetic choice. I think ads needed to happen on the internet for a bunch of reasons, to get it going, but it's a momentary industry," Altman told Lex Fridman in a podcast that was posted on Monday.
Fridman then said that it was "really bold" of Wikipedia not to do advertisements. Still, it makes the business model challenging and asked Altman if OpenAI is "sustainable, from a business perspective?"
In response, the OpenAI CEO said, "If the question is do I think we can have a great business that pays for our compute needs without ads, that, I think the answer is yes."
When pressed further, Altman said, "I guess I'm saying I have a bias against them."
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Why It's Important: While using chatbots, users aren't bombarded with sponsored content or advertisements. However, major players in the AI arena are actively exploring ways to monetize these platforms. Google and Microsoft Corporation have previously made efforts to integrate AI into their ad strategies and received backlash for it as well.
As per the Inc., Google isn't currently integrating ads into its chatbots, but Microsoft Copilot occasionally includes ads in conversation footnotes.
Meanwhile, OpenAI appears to have reiterated its old sentiment of not incorporating ads into ChatGPT. The company told The Observer last year, "No plans to put ads in ChatGPT."
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