Advertising is coming to AI chatbots — and it could influence the answers you get

AI systems are increasingly being used to search for information and make decisions, creating new questions about how commercial incentives may shape the answers users receive. (Unsplash) When Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were still university researchers, they warned that advertising could undermine the trustworthiness of search engines.

In their landmark paper presenting Google, they also wrote: “The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users[…]We expect that advertising-funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” More than two decades later, a similar question is emerging around artificial intelligence.

As companies race to commercialize AI systems to offset the amount of cash they are burning through , advertising is becoming an increasingly attractive source of revenue.

But advertising within AI systems presents a new challenge.

Unlike online ads, which generally appear alongside information as banners or sponsored links, AI advertising is being integrated into the conversation itself, potentially changing the answers you receive.

AI’s advertising model Today, around half of consumers report using AI conversations for search.

Indeed, conversations with AI are becoming so common that some even develop dependencies with AI companions.

As advertising merges with AI, it could reshape these conversations.

OpenAI has introduced ChatGPT ads designed around the way people interact with AI assistants, while Google is testing sponsored answers within Gemini conversations.

Both approaches appear to follow closely how advertising technologies currently work, including real-time bidding and micro-targeting users, which allow advertisers to reach individual users based on behavioural data.

Organizational theorist Henry Chesbrough has argued that “technology by itself has no inherent value; that value only arises when it is commercialized through a business model.” His insight suggests that emerging technologies can only be examined as commercial systems shaped by financial incentives.

AI companies say advertising will not change answers .

Yet advertising technology is difficult to audit because outsiders often lack access to the data, and AdTech companies weaponize complexity to prevent oversight.

Preventing paid influence from shaping AI-generated answers remains largely voluntary and depends on AI companies honouring their promises.