Comment by akoboldfrying
18 hours ago
You don't think putting ads in Gemini output has crossed Google's mind?
I've never understood the "AI is eating search! Google is dead!" theory. The specific mechanism (whether that be keyword search, LLM conversation or something else) by which users describe their needs to a company doesn't matter, all that matters is that (a) the company makes that mechanism available for free, (b) it does a good job of satisfying the user's need and (c) ads can be smuggled into it.
Why do you assume I don’t think that? Of course it will happen at some stage. But my comment wasn’t addressing the future, but now. Effectively ChatGPT is buying market share by not having ads; that’s clear. What’s not clear is whether there’s a more innovative model than inserting low-quality, mostly irrelevant ads into the body of the chat they way Google and YouTube do it today. In a Chat agent, advertising also will be an issue for credibility of results. So I think the ad model as we know it will need to change.
> You don't think putting ads in Gemini output has crossed Google's mind?
What do you think the mandatory youtube link in every conversation is, if not a link to an ad?
They have successfully monetised chatbot AI, while no one else has.