4 ms·

The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business.

by oezi 1y ago

pryelluw 1y ago
Not tricky at all. This is a new line of business that provides them with more ad space to sell. If the overview becomes a trusted source of information, then all they need to do is inject ads in the overviews. They already sort of dye that. Imagine it as a sort of text based product placement.
- NoPicklez 1y ago
  I'd say putting ads into AI search overviews is absolutely tricky. You might think that's the correct way to do it, but there is likely much more to it than it seems. If it wasn't tricky at all you'd bet they would've done it already to maximize revenue.
  - pryelluw 1y ago
    Product teams in big companies move slow. But soon enough all the shit ads are going to pop up.
- stevenAthompson 1y ago
  > If the overview becomes a trusted source of information It never will. By disincentivizing publishers they're stripping away most of the motivation for the legitimate source content to exist. AI search results are a sort of self-cannibalism. Eventually AI search engines will only have what they cached before the web became walled gardens (old data), and public gardens that have been heavily vandalized with AI slop (bad data).
kozikow 1y ago
Ads inside LLMs (e.g. pay $ to boost your product in LLM recommendation) is going to be a big thing. My guess is that Google/OpenAI are eyeing each other - whoever does this first. Why would that work? It's a proven business model. Example: I use LLMs for product research (e.g. which washing machine to buy). Retailer pays if link to their website is included in the results. Don't want to pay? Then redirect the user to buy it on Walmart instead of Amazon.
- msgodel 1y ago
  People are already wary of hosted LLMs having poisoned training data. That might kill them altogether and push everyone to using eg Qwen3-coder.
  - landl0rd 1y ago
    No, a small group of highly tech-literate people are wary of this. Your personal bubble is wary of this. So is some of mine. "People" don't care and will use the packaged, corporate, convenient version with the well-known name. People who are aware of that and care enough to change consumption habits are an inconsequential part of the market.
    - msgodel 1y ago
      I don't know, a bunch of the older people from the town I grew up in avoided using LLMs until Grok came out because of what they saw going on with alignment in the other models (they certainly couldn't articulate this but listening to what said it's what they were thinking.) Obviously Grok has the same problems but I think it goes to show the general public is more aware of the issue than they get credit for. You combine this with Apple pushing on device inference and making it easy and anything like ads probably will kill hosted LLMs for most consumers.
      - tokioyoyo 1y ago
        Yeah, average people that I know (across continents) just ChatGPT their way into literally anything without a second thought. They don't care.
      - manmal 1y ago
        Maybe Grok was just pushed by their political influencers. It’s a republican, anti-woke LLM after all.
- enahs-sf 1y ago
  Forget links, agents are gonna just go upstream to the source and buy it for you. I think it will change the game because intent will be super high and conversion will go through the roof.
Gigachad 1y ago
I’d guess that the searches where AI overviews are useful and the searches where companies are buying ads are probably fairly distinct. If you search for plumbers near you, they won’t show an AI overview, while if you search “Why are plants green?”, no one was buying ads on that.
ahartmetz 1y ago
Somebody is working on "native advertising" in AI slop, surely? Barf.
- bethekidyouwant 1y ago
  you can’t make the slop have a nice clean ad in it. Also: as soon as your slop has ads in it, I’m going to make Polpot advertise your product.
josteink 1y ago
> The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business This is not for Google to decide. The users have spoken clearly that (when given an option) they will not tolerate or succumb to the SPAM of shitty SEO-optimized content-farms which has been plaguing the internet for the last decade. If Google don't provide meaningful results in their search page, people will use ChatGPT or something else to sidestep the SEO SPAM issue all together.
weatherlite 1y ago
Everyone is talking about it , and it is a big concern, but the last 2 years (ever since ChatGPT showed up) ad revenue keeps growing at the same 10%+ . It seems like the money queries (adidas shoes size 45) are still better served with links than overviews, and those are where most of the money comes from. Searching for "what cooking temperature is pork safe to eat" is not something you can easily monetize. Disclaimer: google stock holder.

The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business.

by oezi 1y ago

The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business.

Not tricky at all. This is a new line of business that provides them with more ad space to sell. If the overview becomes a trusted source of information, then all they need to do is inject ads in the overviews. They already sort of dye that. Imagine it as a sort of text based product placement.

NoPicklez 1y ago
I'd say putting ads into AI search overviews is absolutely tricky. You might think that's the correct way to do it, but there is likely much more to it than it seems. If it wasn't tricky at all you'd bet they would've done it already to maximize revenue.
- pryelluw 1y ago
  Product teams in big companies move slow. But soon enough all the shit ads are going to pop up.
stevenAthompson 1y ago
> If the overview becomes a trusted source of information It never will. By disincentivizing publishers they're stripping away most of the motivation for the legitimate source content to exist. AI search results are a sort of self-cannibalism. Eventually AI search engines will only have what they cached before the web became walled gardens (old data), and public gardens that have been heavily vandalized with AI slop (bad data).

kozikow 1y ago

Ads inside LLMs (e.g. pay $ to boost your product in LLM recommendation) is going to be a big thing. My guess is that Google/OpenAI are eyeing each other - whoever does this first. Why would that work? It's a proven business model. Example: I use LLMs for product research (e.g. which washing machine to buy). Retailer pays if link to their website is included in the results. Don't want to pay? Then redirect the user to buy it on Walmart instead of Amazon.

msgodel 1y ago
People are already wary of hosted LLMs having poisoned training data. That might kill them altogether and push everyone to using eg Qwen3-coder.
- landl0rd 1y ago
  No, a small group of highly tech-literate people are wary of this. Your personal bubble is wary of this. So is some of mine. "People" don't care and will use the packaged, corporate, convenient version with the well-known name. People who are aware of that and care enough to change consumption habits are an inconsequential part of the market.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    I don't know, a bunch of the older people from the town I grew up in avoided using LLMs until Grok came out because of what they saw going on with alignment in the other models (they certainly couldn't articulate this but listening to what said it's what they were thinking.) Obviously Grok has the same problems but I think it goes to show the general public is more aware of the issue than they get credit for. You combine this with Apple pushing on device inference and making it easy and anything like ads probably will kill hosted LLMs for most consumers.
    - tokioyoyo 1y ago
      Yeah, average people that I know (across continents) just ChatGPT their way into literally anything without a second thought. They don't care.
    - manmal 1y ago
      Maybe Grok was just pushed by their political influencers. It’s a republican, anti-woke LLM after all.
enahs-sf 1y ago
Forget links, agents are gonna just go upstream to the source and buy it for you. I think it will change the game because intent will be super high and conversion will go through the roof.

Gigachad 1y ago

I’d guess that the searches where AI overviews are useful and the searches where companies are buying ads are probably fairly distinct. If you search for plumbers near you, they won’t show an AI overview, while if you search “Why are plants green?”, no one was buying ads on that.

ahartmetz 1y ago

Somebody is working on "native advertising" in AI slop, surely? Barf.

bethekidyouwant 1y ago
you can’t make the slop have a nice clean ad in it. Also: as soon as your slop has ads in it, I’m going to make Polpot advertise your product.

josteink 1y ago

> The tricky thing for Google will be to do this and not kill their cash cow ad business This is not for Google to decide. The users have spoken clearly that (when given an option) they will not tolerate or succumb to the SPAM of shitty SEO-optimized content-farms which has been plaguing the internet for the last decade. If Google don't provide meaningful results in their search page, people will use ChatGPT or something else to sidestep the SEO SPAM issue all together.

weatherlite 1y ago

Everyone is talking about it , and it is a big concern, but the last 2 years (ever since ChatGPT showed up) ad revenue keeps growing at the same 10%+ . It seems like the money queries (adidas shoes size 45) are still better served with links than overviews, and those are where most of the money comes from. Searching for "what cooking temperature is pork safe to eat" is not something you can easily monetize. Disclaimer: google stock holder.