Recently, during an interview at the World Economic Forum, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, shared his unique insights on the commercialization path of AI chatbots introducing advertisements. He openly expressed his "surprise" at OpenAI's early introduction of ads in its products.

Commercialization Struggle: Trust and Profit

Previously, OpenAI announced that to balance the huge infrastructure and energy costs, it would begin testing advertisements for non-subscribers among its 800 million weekly active users. While Hassabis acknowledged that advertising is a crucial funding source in the consumer internet, he raised deep doubts about the logic of advertising within the "AI assistant" model.

"If you want to trust your assistant, how can advertisements fit into this model?" Hassabis pointed out that chatbots aim to become "trusted assistants" for handling personal matters, which is quite different from the search scenario. He believes that search can better match intent with advertisements, but intrusive ads in highly personalized assistant experiences can easily damage user trust—just like the previous attempts by Amazon Alexa and OpenAI to recommend products, which faced user backlash.

OpenAI, artificial intelligence, AI

Google's Strategy: Careful, Scientific, and Not Hasty

Although advertising is a core business for Google, Hassabis clearly stated that Google currently has no plan to place ads in AI chatbots. Instead, the focus is on user feedback and personalized features.

  • Personalization Upgrade: Google is pushing Gemini to access Gmail, photos, and YouTube history to provide customized "personal intelligence" responses, enhancing the tool's functionality.

  • Strict Approach: Hassabis emphasized that although the team is seriously considering commercialization strategies, there is no pressure from Google's upper management. He said, "We will maintain a high level of scientific rigor and will not make any hasty decisions."

For DeepMind, ensuring the usefulness and purity of AI assistants is clearly a higher priority than short-term ad monetization.