Microsoft has come up with a new solution to monetize their AI-powered search engine, Bing which is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that has taken over the digital discourse. In order to allow advertisers to use the Bing platform, the company has rolled out a chat API which app developers, publishers and online businesses can use to choose precise ad formats that are suited to their target audience.
Breaking down the official blog post from Microsoft, the company claims that with this new initiative, everyone can now ‘thrive in this new era of search’ as it enables integration of advertising into chat and conversation flow. In order to promote user engagement and avoid excessive disruptions, Microsoft has slowly started dripping ads of hotels and will slowly move to travel and real estate focusing on optimization of ad experience.
Kya Sainsbury-Carter, Microsoft’s VP Global Partner and author of the blog post, states that this API can be used on platforms apart from Microsoft’s as well – which means that ads may soon be popping up in ChatGpt itself. Such ads will be relevant to the user’s query, meaning that if one is searching for places to stay on their vacation, they will start seeing offers of hotels, similar to the general results page.
Microsoft’s plans to monetize the new Bing AI with ads is certainly not unexpected but still relatively speedy – given that the technology launched in February and has already seen the active use of 100 million people. Microsoft claims that the AI-driven search engine should provide users gains of relevance and context – however, given the vulnerability of user data and the general dislike of targeted ads, the move proves to be rather troublesome.
It’s important to note that this is yet another software and application that uses targeted ads for generating revenue, which normalizes the utilization of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence technology, inviting both benefits and concerns.
