Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot will soon have more adverts
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Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot will soon have more adverts
More monetization for artificial intelligence
Microsoft has announced more adverts are coming to the Bing AI chatbot that was rolled out earlier last month.
In a blog post, Microsoft said it is “exploring placing ads in the chat experience to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response.”
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Bing AI chatbot ads
🤨 More adverts are coming to the Bing AI chatbot
📣 Microsoft announced the changes in a blog post
🤔 It hasn’t been revealed exactly where the ads will appear
📜 Early glimpses suggest they’ll be inserted as citations
It added: “We want to increase revenue to publishers. We seek to do this by both driving more traffic to them through new features like chat and answers and by also pioneering the future of advertising in these new mediums as I will describe below.”
Adverts have appeared in Bing’s AI chats since the tool’s launch and have included sponsored links to online retail stores. Adverts also, of course, appear in the search results of the traditional Bing search engine.
“Since the new Bing is in preview, there may be some variability in how it’s currently showing up. We’re still exploring new opportunities for ad experiences and will share more over time,” Microsoft’s director of communications told The Verge.
As software engineer Debarghya Das showed on Twitter, the ads look to be integrated directly into the chat’s responses. When asked what about the cheapest Honda car, the chatbot provided two responses – each labeled with a small “Ad” icon and a citation number for bing.com.
In contrast, ChatGPT isn’t currently built on ads but operates a freemium model. Users can use the chatbot at no expense, or opt into the ChatGPT Plus premium subscription tier at a $20 monthly fee for extra features and priority. We’ve no word yet as to what commercial model the rival Google Bard will use.
People are flocking to the Bing chatbot, even if it did stumble out the gate. The search engine crossed 100 million daily active users a few weeks ago, and after initially going live with a waitlist, it was flung open to everyone.
As other platforms across the tech sector continue to announce investments and moves into the burgeoning AI technology, expect more AI tools to appear – and more monetization models to accompany them.