Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said he was “surprised” that OpenAI had already moved to introduce ads into its AI chatbot. In an interview with Axios in Davosthe AI lead responded to an issue about using ads to monetize AI services, saying the Google team had considered the thought “very fastidiously.”
Hassabis also said his team didn't feel pressure from the tech giant to make a “knee-jerk” decision on promoting, though ads are critical to Google's core business.
The DeepMind co-founder's comments followed Friday's news that OpenAI would begin Testing ads as a approach to generate additional revenue from the portion of the AI chatbot's 800 million weekly energetic users who don’t have a paid subscription.
While OpenAI could have been forced to think about promoting given its growth Infrastructure and energy costsits decision could change the best way users view the service.
“I’m just a little surprised they began this so early,” Hassabis said, referring to OpenAI’s ad launch. “I mean, look, promoting, there's nothing flawed with promoting… it's funded loads of the buyer web. And when done well, they may be useful,” he clarified.
“But in the world of assistants, and should you consider the chatbot as an assistant that's meant to be helpful – and ideally, for my part, the more powerful the style of technology that works for you as a person … the query becomes, how do ads fit into that model? … You wish to trust your assistant, how does that work?” he asked.
Repeat some early comments In one other interview in Davos, Hassabis also said that Google has “no current plans” to run ads on its AI chatbot. Instead, the corporate would monitor the situation to see how users react.
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Of course, we've already seen consumer backlash against the thought of promoting infiltrating people's conversations with AI assistants. For example, when OpenAI began testing a feature last month that suggested apps to try during users' chats, people reacted negatively, saying those suggestions felt like intrusive promoting. Shortly thereafter, OpenAI shut down the app suggestions, which it said weren’t promoting because that they had “no financial component.”
But whether money had modified hands or not wasn't what upset users. Rather, the app suggestions worsened the standard of the experience.
His comments suggested that this was something that also nervous Hassabis.
He explained that using a chatbot is a really different experience than using Google Search. With search, Google already understands a user's intent and might serve potentially useful ads. Chatbots, alternatively, are intended to change into helpful digital assistants that find out about you and might enable you in lots of features of your life, he said.
“I feel that's very different from the search use case, so I feel that should be thought through very fastidiously,” he added.
Another focus is on making Gemini more useful for each user Newly introduced personalization features for Google's AI Mode were announced today. Now users can decide to have Gemini's AI access their Gmail and photos for tailored answers in AI mode of search, much like how Gemini's app just added a Personal Intelligence feature that may reference users' Gmail, Photos, Search and YouTube history.
While personalized ad targeting is a business that preserves the free web, pushing an ad on the user while they're conversing with an AI assistant can seem off-putting. That's why customers rejected Amazon's previous attempts to integrate promoting into its Alexa experience – they wanted an assistant, not a private shopper that pitched them things to purchase.
Hassabis said he also didn't feel any pressure from above to force promoting into the AI product, although he admitted there could be a approach to get it right later.
“We don't feel any immediate pressure to make knee-jerk decisions like this – I feel that's the story of what we've done at DeepMind – we’ve got to be very scientific, rigorous and thoughtful in every step we take – be it the technology itself or the product,” he noted.
