It was inevitable, but we would have preferred to wait a little longer. After several testimonials on Reddit, indicating that ads appear within Bing Chat, Microsoft has confirmed its intention to monetize its conversational AI by renting space to advertisers. Several methods are being developed, more or less invasive.
We know Microsoft’s attraction to advertising. It is not uncommon to see the Redmond giant test new ways of promoting its products within Windows or its 365 suite. poorly received by users, difficult to be surprised to see the firm do the same with Bing Chat, its latest star tool of the moment. Except that this time, Microsoft is not self-promoting, but instead offers advertisers to infiltrate conversations with users.
It’s been a few weeks already on concordant testimonies appear on Reddit. Recently, Reuters also reported that Microsoft would be in talks with an advertising agency to introduce advertising spaces within your chatbot. The publisher ended up confirming the information in a blog post published this Wednesday, March 29, admitting “explore new solutions for advertisers, including our more than 7,500 Microsoft Start partner brands”.
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Advertising is coming to Bing Chat
Microsoft nevertheless assures that it wishes “continue to distribute content in a way that is meaningful in terms of traffic and revenue for [ses] partners ». In its blog post, the firm explains that it is exploring several solutions for displaying advertising in Bing Chat. One of them is to add a sponsored link at the end of the chatbot’s response, related to the topic raised by the user.
On Twitter, D.ebarghya Das shared another way to implement advertising in Bing Chat. This consists of incorporating a hyperlink directly in the AI response, with an “advertisement” displayed next to it. It would seem that users each have access to different versions of these advertising spaces.
Bing Chat now has Ads!
It’s going to be fascinating to see how the unit economics of Ads in language models will unfold and affect search advertising.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/o5YjRjikOP
— Deedy (@debarghya_das) March 29, 2023
“Because the new Bing is in preview, there may be some variability in how it currently displays. We continue to explore new possibilities for ad experiences and will report more as time goes on.”Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, told The Verge.
Source: Microsoft