Will Tech Giants Just Use AI Interactions to Create More Effective Ads? (seattletimes.com) 59
Google never asked its users before adding AI Overviews to its search results and AI-generated email summaries to Gmail, notes the New York Times. And Meta didn't ask before making "Meta AI" an unremovable part of its tool in Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
"The insistence on AI everywhere — with little or no option to turn it off — raises an important question about what's in it for the internet companies..." Behind the scenes, the companies are laying the groundwork for a digital advertising economy that could drive the future of the internet. The underlying technology that enables chatbots to write essays and generate pictures for consumers is being used by advertisers to find people to target and automatically tailor ads and discounts to them....
Last month, OpenAI said it would begin showing ads in the free version of ChatGPT based on what people were asking the chatbot and what they had looked for in the past. In response, a Google executive mocked OpenAI, adding that Google had no plans to show ads inside its Gemini chatbot. What he didn't mention, however, was that Google, whose profits are largely derived from online ads, shows advertising on Google.com based on user interactions with the AI chatbot built into its search engine.
For the past six years, as regulators have cracked down on data privacy, the tech giants and online ad industry have moved away from tracking people's activities across mobile apps and websites to determine what ads to show them. Companies including Meta and Google had to come up with methods to target people with relevant ads without sharing users' personal data with third-party marketers. When ChatGPT and other AI chatbots emerged about four years ago, the companies saw an opportunity: The conversational interface of a chatty companion encouraged users to voluntarily share data about themselves, such as their hobbies, health conditions and products they were shopping for.
The strategy already appears to be working. Web search queries are up industrywide, including for Google and Bing, which have been incorporating AI chatbots into their search tools. That's in large part because people prod chatbot-powered search engines with more questions and follow-up requests, revealing their intentions and interests much more explicitly than when they typed a few keywords for a traditional internet search.
"The insistence on AI everywhere — with little or no option to turn it off — raises an important question about what's in it for the internet companies..." Behind the scenes, the companies are laying the groundwork for a digital advertising economy that could drive the future of the internet. The underlying technology that enables chatbots to write essays and generate pictures for consumers is being used by advertisers to find people to target and automatically tailor ads and discounts to them....
Last month, OpenAI said it would begin showing ads in the free version of ChatGPT based on what people were asking the chatbot and what they had looked for in the past. In response, a Google executive mocked OpenAI, adding that Google had no plans to show ads inside its Gemini chatbot. What he didn't mention, however, was that Google, whose profits are largely derived from online ads, shows advertising on Google.com based on user interactions with the AI chatbot built into its search engine.
For the past six years, as regulators have cracked down on data privacy, the tech giants and online ad industry have moved away from tracking people's activities across mobile apps and websites to determine what ads to show them. Companies including Meta and Google had to come up with methods to target people with relevant ads without sharing users' personal data with third-party marketers. When ChatGPT and other AI chatbots emerged about four years ago, the companies saw an opportunity: The conversational interface of a chatty companion encouraged users to voluntarily share data about themselves, such as their hobbies, health conditions and products they were shopping for.
The strategy already appears to be working. Web search queries are up industrywide, including for Google and Bing, which have been incorporating AI chatbots into their search tools. That's in large part because people prod chatbot-powered search engines with more questions and follow-up requests, revealing their intentions and interests much more explicitly than when they typed a few keywords for a traditional internet search.
Betteridge law exception (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's one case where the answer to a question in the headline certainly isn't "no".
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Especially if you remove the word "effective".
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Especially if you remove the word "effective".
And add the words "useless" and "garbage".
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That will be superfluous, there's already 'advertisement' there :)
AI is B.S. (Score:2)
Effective ads is already an impossibility.
AI effective is just mind blowingly impossible.
they can make ads for other AIs, yes, but that would not be called an ad.
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It would be hilarious if AI agents led advertising clients to discover that ads rarely actually get people to buy enough things to justify the cost of the ad.
And the entire advertising echosystem collapses. Won't happen, but would be funny.
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Let's say you're starting a new business - say, an online webstore, offering something with an extra particular appeal to some particular group vs. their preexisting options. Precisely zero people know about your webstore. What exactly is your plan without some form of advertising - just hope that people randomly stumble into it and tell all their friends?
To be clear, advertising doesn't just mean "banner ads", it can be all sorts of things. Maybe you give a Youtube influencer who makes videos on subjects
Skippy's law of headlines (Score:2)
Here's one case where the answer to a question in the headline certainly isn't "no".
I think we need to take a page out of the book of Skippy the Magnificent... because the answer to this question is a very sarcastic "duuuuuhhhh".
!NIMBY (Score:2)
Hypocrisy (Score:2)
[...] a Google executive mocked OpenAI, adding that Google had no plans to show ads inside its Gemini chatbot. What he didn't mention, however, was that Google, whose profits are largely derived from online ads, shows advertising on Google.com based on user interactions with the AI chatbot built into its search engine.
What percentage of news stories these days is about hypocrisy of some sort?
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Remember, Google IS evil. Would an evil company lie to you about showing ads in AI interactions?
Damn straight. They also explicitly took down the sign in their main office that said "don't be evil." So it's not like they are even trying to hide it.
Probably not (Score:2)
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we don't want effective ads.
We don't want ads at all.
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Then be ready to pay for the content you're consuming.
Re: Probably not (Score:2)
That content is now mostly ads, interspersed with AI hallucinations. Put up as many paywalls as you like.
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You're consuming content literally as we speak.
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You're consuming content literally as we speak.
And I am seeing no ads at all. Which is the only way I will carry on consuming this content. Fuck ads.
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There are ads on the site. If everyone blocked them, then the site could not exist in a non-subscription form.
Re: Probably not (Score:2)
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ads don't fix a broken business model.
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The people blocking ads are the ones breaking it.
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nope.
(victim blaming does not work)
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I don't like ads because they don't offer me anything useful.
I'm old, I already own everything I need.
I don't need to replace anything - except my toaster which, oddly for a purely mechanical device, stopped working a day ago. And I'll take it apart (after unplugging it) to see if I can fix it before buying a new one. And I don't need ads for toasters, I know where I'll get a new one and what it'll cost.
But in general, adverts offer me nothing but annoyance via occupying screen space and often blocking what
Re: Probably not (Score:2)
It's always about ads and marketing (Score:3)
Every advancement put forth by Big Tech ever since the dotcom boom has been about advertising and marketing. Their goal is to optimize personalized mattress sales.
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Their actual goal is to profit from consumer surplus.
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They definitely see you as surplus.
"It's where the money is" (Score:2)
As Willy Horton observed about banks, for most Big Tech companies, advertising is their primary source of revenue. So it's no surprise they'd look to increase the profitability (reducing costs, increasing "effectiveness") for advertising.
My question remains "Who actually reads those ads?" and more importantly "Who responds to all the shit on websites?" (I don't...)
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Every advancement put forth by Big Tech ever since the dotcom boom has been about advertising and marketing. Their goal is to optimize personalized mattress sales.
I wonder why? Who will they sell their mattresses and such to? They don't pay their own workers enough to afford that crap. Who do they think will be buying it?
If you see an advert, it means you don't need it (Score:2)
This is a simple rule to live by - if you see advertising, start by assuming you don't need it. If it's for a brand, assume that brand is overcharging you. If you see product placements or informal/influencer content, assume that's a paid advertisement. Think very carefully about what you need, make a shopping list and monitor the prices, so you know when to buy (and give yourself a cooldown to avoid impulse buying - if you haven't needed it while waiting for a special, maybe you don't need it at all).
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not only a good idea. It's a necessity from the IT security point of view.
Re: If you see an advert, it means you don't need (Score:2)
I don't use ad blockers because I just don't see ads anymore...I trained my eyes to avert them.
Ads on Google (Score:2)
Adverts are now a product / brand warning.
Don't waste your time on ads. (Score:2)
Why no use adblock ?
Don't waste your time on ads.
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They are easy to ignore and I have the channels I watch listed do I can go to them directly.
It works well enough that I can not be bothered putting in any more effort, but the sentiment applies to ALL sources of adverts, TV, Radio, News Papers etc...treat them all as scams.
meh (Score:2)
Advertisers have moved away from tracking everyone ? I believe that as much as a believe the content of their ad copy.
Searches are increased because of AI ? Yes, because they are using AI to make searching more difficult.
AI is all about billionaries feeding from us (Score:2)
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"AI" has not made one positive contribution to our society. The people who own it gulp our electricity, buy out our RAM, tell us that their programs are actually intelligent, when they are not. Day by day, billionaires are using their "AI" software to destroy our society, because that's what billionaires do.
I think "billionaire" should be reclassified as a mental illness. Anyone with a billion dollars could retire RIGHT NOW and spend literally the rest of their life doing whatever they want. They'd never have to cook their own food or clean their home ever again if they didn't want to. They could fly to a different tropical island every week for the rest of their lives, or conversely, follow winter around the globe and ski every day. They could hang out with their families. They could plant trees, or read stor
If they can get a dime from it, sure they'll do. (Score:2)
No matter whether it's evil or illegal.
Effective ads. What the f*ck does that mean. (Score:2)
imagine the gall (Score:2)
You're telling me that now companies are trying to sell people things that they might want to buy? Oh noes! How horrible!
There are lies, bigger lies and statistics. (Score:2)
And on top of it all, statistically-generated misinformation.
Search Is Up Because Search Quality is Down. (Score:2)
Nobody can find *hit on the first search, so they have to click again. You are sucked into clicking on "classic search", "people also ask", "click here to open", to try to get away from Google Spam and all that then counts as two searches for Google.
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Nobody can find *hit on the first search
I agree with you, but FYI we're still allowed to say "shit" on Slashdot.
Duh and or Hola (Score:2)
Building consumer profiles and creating new and better ways to shove ads down your throat is what the tech industry is all about. Social media, cookie tracking, free email - itâ(TM)s always been about serving ads. If its free you are the product
What more effective ads? (Score:2)
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How long have you been sleeping? (Score:2)
In the backend ads are using AI (and more general data mining) since at least a decade. What do you think why they grab every data about you that they can get? Because they use it to predict what ads you're likely to click before deciding what ad to serve to you. That are systems that are specially trained to predict your next move, not generalist chatbots.
The word JUST makes the answer NO (Score:1)
Selling ads isn't even the primary reason the tech companies are inserting an AI into every human interaction they can.
Selling ads is how they are gaining the money and data to compete in the largest arms race in history.
The winner of that arms race will be the first to develop faster, better working, and more energy efficient models of the processes of human thinking and interactions at scales from the most intelligent and creative individuals to the most effective national policy producing groups.
Reverse
Crackdown? (Score:2)
Get rich(er)! (Score:2)
Step 1: Saturate the web with nearly unavoidable ads to get revenue for more ad infrastructure
Step 2: Build, fund, and promote AI to help make web advertising better targeted and more effective
Step 3: Work to make AI so ubiquitous that it supplants humans, who are then jobless and don't have disposable income
Step 4: Profit? By selling products to AI, instead of to the humans who are now jobless and destitute?
If handled properly, AI and robotics have the potential to help us create utopia. Why is it that
Re: Get rich(er)! (Score:2)
Because up until now, humans have been to stupid to come up with an economical system that protects itself from greed. Karl Marx may have come closest to doing it, but a bunch of greedy tyrants set up systems and called it communism so now Marx's name is forever tainted and any system that looks similar will never be tried.
More effective? (Score:2)
How is that going to work? Do they mean to piss me off more than they already do? Because that is the only increased effect they are getting from me.
I have never bought anything because of an ad and I will not start now. I have looked for alternate products to some things because ads for something I was buying or planning to buy got on my nerves.
ads_1 and ads_2 (Score:2)
There are two ways ads can be more effective:
1. Offer user something that will alleviate a pain point.
2. Trick user into buying something that he doesn't need or doesn't work.
AI sucks at real work (Score:2)
LLMs have proven to be unreliable at doing actual work. They make up "facts," they summarize text incorrectly, they fabricate references, they write code that doesn't compile. LLMs haven't replaced doctors, lawyers or programmers. The phrase "plausible bullshit" has been thrown around. Pretty much the only real-world use for plausible bullshit is in advertising. The owners of these LLMs need *something* to justify all the hype and expense. Given that advertising is already a filthy amoral industry, it seems