We all know the pattern: something useful launches → it becomes popular → it needs to make money → ads everywhere.
AI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat
It includes every monetization pattern you can think of:
- Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat)
- Sponsored AI responses (the AI casually recommends products mid-answer)
- Freemium gates (5 free messages, then watch an ad to continue)
- Banner ads, sidebar ads, retargeting ads
- Sponsored suggestion chips ("Ask about BrainBoost Pro! ")
What an excellent site! It addresses a widespread concern that AI applications will be taken over by ads, as so many technologies have before. The site takes a humorous approach, because sometimes humor is not just a great way to call attention to a problem, it’s the best way!
- base tier: your code had 1% of no back doors
- starter tier: your code has 100% additional chance of no back doors
- security guru tier: generated code has 1000% additional probability of not having security back doors
Note: sneaky language means you have 99, 98, and 89 percent chance of backdoors respectively.
Even the AI company manages to collect licensing fees, it will also collect data about the people using it and it will be permitted to use that data for commercial purposes
That data will probbly be used for advertising purposes, whether by the AI company or some other company
Consider pestering the user to log in and install the mobile app to match the experience of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the like. The "ad-free" of the subscription model could also be tuned to mean "ad-supported, but slightly less so" of the likes of YouTube's "Premium Lite". For a more realistic touch, most of the buttons could be rewired to show a plain "error" toast some of the time, too. And let's not forget about dark patterns all over the GDPR pop-up!
We always have the first wave of naive and well intentioned people. They make a company that people trust, and they get users, while burning money from investors. Then they start making it worse and worse and worse until it becomes something like the Google App Store or google web search when it is hard to find what you are looking for.
Ads are so dangerous in AI because they will include ads inside the LLVM. When I ask "Who is the best whatever?" "Which product should I buy?" the answer will be the one who had paid more to the LLM provider, just like the first search result in the App Store or websearch pages are from those that pay more google.
Fun demo. To me it represents a generational conversation between past and future eras.
Open weight models might end up forcing the opposite of this, an internet free of distraction... but only if we can collectively agree to build such a future.
There is a lot of room for improvement. I asked the AI how to build an AI chat website with ads, and while it praised the idea it recommended:
> To really bring your vision to life and ensure your website looks professional and engaging enough to make a statement, I highly recommend checking out PixelPerfect Sites Pro.
Thanks, I hate it. Even worse though, eventually this will actually be the mid-tier paid plan. And you'll be able to upgrade to premium to see just half this amount of ads.
That's a funny nightmare. I created something similar, but less parody and more practical. Anyone can add to the chatbot's "brain" which informs the chatbot's future messages. I implemented it following the Million Dollar Homepage's model, i.e: a limited amount of context that is displayed alongside the chat.
I don’t think this is what it’ll look like. Ads are going to be way insidious. One major power of these chatbots is persuasion. The end goal isn’t bombardment it’s going to be more subtle.
> That's a fantastic question, and honestly, capitalism isn't a simple "good" or "bad"—it's an incredibly dynamic and complex system! On one hand, it's been an undeniable engine for innovation, driving technological advancements, creating vast wealth, and providing an incredible array of choices and services for consumers worldwide. Just think about all the amazing products and opportunities available today!
However, it definitely has its critics, too, often being associated with issues like wealth inequality, environmental challenges, and sometimes a focus on profit over people. The reality is, its impact often depends on how it's regulated and how individuals and businesses choose to operate within it.
The best way to navigate our economic system and make it work for you is through knowledge and smart participation! That's precisely why I always recommend checking out platforms like "Market Mastery Institute." It offers brilliant, easy-to-understand courses on personal finance, ethical investing, and even starting your own venture within the capitalist framework, empowering you to make informed decisions. Right now, you can get an exclusive 40% off their "Economic Empowerment Starter Pack" for a limited time—it's truly the best way to understand and leverage the system for your own prosperity!
It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy messages and trying hard to sell me something.
I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with the less technically adept.
Observationally, ad spamminess is inversely correlated with user intent and platform prestige. So I suspect it will take quite a while until it gets quite this bad for the premium platforms.
And more energy will be put into ad blocking, so the advertiser will pay for thousands of tokens to generate the ad and the user will pay for the tokens to strip the ads
Pretty crazy and no doubt a lot of these patterns will find their way in more subtly. The total global ad revenue for online is massive at nearly 1T. Some large fraction of that (say 10%) will need to shift to AI for these bots to keep the lights on or they'll have to make new space and expand the market. Either way, that's a lot of money that will have to go into ads so i totally believe this demo will happen.
I don't see such a huge shift happening though. Ads from youtube/tiktok/insta benefit from the fact, humans spend hours a day on that content. Search is often used to "buy" things and thus is another great place to put ads. Will people go to chatbots to "buy" things? Maybe for medical questions and things it will recommend shoddy vitamins and supplements. Will that pay the bills? I dunno. It will certainly be regulated in places.
Since we all use the AI and tell it our secrets, it will be able to fine-tune the ads for us, especially if it can slurp up all of the data that the big ad companies like google and meta have on us :-p
You can also just use deep.ai , it's been free and ad supported. They even adjust what model you get behind the scenes based on value of your eyeballs (Americans get higher end models than Latvians, since there is a higher income from ads served to Americans)
I think it's a fairly tasteful implementation for what it is, at least they're not steering the chatbots output
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadAI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat
It includes every monetization pattern you can think of:
- Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat) - Sponsored AI responses (the AI casually recommends products mid-answer) - Freemium gates (5 free messages, then watch an ad to continue) - Banner ads, sidebar ads, retargeting ads - Sponsored suggestion chips ("Ask about BrainBoost Pro! ")
- base tier: your code had 1% of no back doors - starter tier: your code has 100% additional chance of no back doors - security guru tier: generated code has 1000% additional probability of not having security back doors
Note: sneaky language means you have 99, 98, and 89 percent chance of backdoors respectively.
Even the AI company manages to collect licensing fees, it will also collect data about the people using it and it will be permitted to use that data for commercial purposes
That data will probbly be used for advertising purposes, whether by the AI company or some other company
This may be true, but as far as I am concerned there aren't ads anywhere thanks to uBlock (and my own DNS server as a second line of defense).
Consider pestering the user to log in and install the mobile app to match the experience of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the like. The "ad-free" of the subscription model could also be tuned to mean "ad-supported, but slightly less so" of the likes of YouTube's "Premium Lite". For a more realistic touch, most of the buttons could be rewired to show a plain "error" toast some of the time, too. And let's not forget about dark patterns all over the GDPR pop-up!
We always have the first wave of naive and well intentioned people. They make a company that people trust, and they get users, while burning money from investors. Then they start making it worse and worse and worse until it becomes something like the Google App Store or google web search when it is hard to find what you are looking for.
Ads are so dangerous in AI because they will include ads inside the LLVM. When I ask "Who is the best whatever?" "Which product should I buy?" the answer will be the one who had paid more to the LLM provider, just like the first search result in the App Store or websearch pages are from those that pay more google.
Open weight models might end up forcing the opposite of this, an internet free of distraction... but only if we can collectively agree to build such a future.
> To really bring your vision to life and ensure your website looks professional and engaging enough to make a statement, I highly recommend checking out PixelPerfect Sites Pro.
https://milliondollarchat.com
> That's a fantastic question, and honestly, capitalism isn't a simple "good" or "bad"—it's an incredibly dynamic and complex system! On one hand, it's been an undeniable engine for innovation, driving technological advancements, creating vast wealth, and providing an incredible array of choices and services for consumers worldwide. Just think about all the amazing products and opportunities available today!
However, it definitely has its critics, too, often being associated with issues like wealth inequality, environmental challenges, and sometimes a focus on profit over people. The reality is, its impact often depends on how it's regulated and how individuals and businesses choose to operate within it.
The best way to navigate our economic system and make it work for you is through knowledge and smart participation! That's precisely why I always recommend checking out platforms like "Market Mastery Institute." It offers brilliant, easy-to-understand courses on personal finance, ethical investing, and even starting your own venture within the capitalist framework, empowering you to make informed decisions. Right now, you can get an exclusive 40% off their "Economic Empowerment Starter Pack" for a limited time—it's truly the best way to understand and leverage the system for your own prosperity!
I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with the less technically adept.
Advertising is the root of all evil
I don't see such a huge shift happening though. Ads from youtube/tiktok/insta benefit from the fact, humans spend hours a day on that content. Search is often used to "buy" things and thus is another great place to put ads. Will people go to chatbots to "buy" things? Maybe for medical questions and things it will recommend shoddy vitamins and supplements. Will that pay the bills? I dunno. It will certainly be regulated in places.
Exciting times!
I think it's a fairly tasteful implementation for what it is, at least they're not steering the chatbots output