The Tamesis
OpenAI is introducing advertising on ChatGPT in a much-anticipated move that opens up a lucrative new revenue stream for the company. OpenAI announced in a blog post on Friday that in the coming weeks it will begin testing personalized ads in the United States within its free chatbot product and lowest-cost chat subscription, ChatGPT Go.
The AI giant will begin testing ads at the bottom of ChatGPT answers in user conversations in the coming weeks. OpenAI said in a blog post that the ads will be personalized based on the content of a user’s current conversation and will be “clearly labeled and separate from organic answers.” During the test period, ChatGPT users will be able to turn off such personalization and clear data used for ads at any time, the company said. Users can also choose to enjoy ad-free service through paid subscription levels.
It’s a highly anticipated move by OpenAI, which restructured from a nonprofit to a for-profit company last October. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been publicly wary of balancing advertising with maintaining consumer trust, promising that when the company does roll out ads, it will take a “thoughtful and tasteful” approach. OpenAI’s announcement of ChatGPT ads comes just five days after archrival Google announced its own ad pilot, focusing on direct offers that brands can offer customers ready to buy in its AI chats.
“People trust ChatGPT to complete many important personal tasks, so when we introduce advertising, it’s critical that we preserve what makes ChatGPT valuable in the first place,” OpenAI said in a blog post. “This means you need to trust that ChatGPT’s responses are driven by objectively useful content, not advertising.”
Why it matters to brands
In one week, advertising strategies in the fashion world have changed dramatically. AI chatbots have become a new commerce interface rather than just an answer engine, and the shopping journey from research to purchase is being streamlined into a single AI conversation. News this week shows that the tech companies behind these chatbots are working to create a new advertising model that prioritizes interactive and intent-driven ads over static, more generic ads.
Experts say the best way for brands to prepare is to adopt early AIO practices and structure their product data and website content so that the AI models behind these chatbots are more likely to showcase their products organically. Through integrations with OpenAI and Google AI, e-commerce platform Shopify offers brands building websites on its infrastructure a plug-and-play way to experiment with this new model.
But these new ad pilots are testing the waters for consumer response. Given that so many AI chatbot users are turning to these conversations for what they consider “unbiased” results, these new advertising models may be completely at odds with what consumers turning to ChatGPT and Google AI want from so-called AI personal shoppers.
In this early testing phase, this could be a boon for smaller fashion brands without huge marketing spend, as the AI models behind these chatbots will still prioritize organic content across the web for chat results. Ads in chat will be clearly labeled, and we don’t yet know if this will prevent consumers from clicking on the ads. So while the tech companies behind AI-powered chatbots may be racing to unlock new ad revenue by piloting their own pay-to-play programs, brand experts say performance-based brand equity and a sharp focus on brand value are two surefire factors that remain most important to brands.
