Ad-supported AI chatbots could be nearer than we thought

In a piece about how Meta is planning on adding more conversational voice features into its latest large language model, the Financial Times noted that the social media company is “considering introducing paid advertising or sponsored posts into the search results of its AI assistant.”

Told you advertising was coming to chatbots! As we’ve previously noted, the advent of DeepSeek’s lower-cost, comparable models has caused a number of AI companies to offer up their AI chatbots to consumers for free — something that’s not very sustainable given the huge capital outlays these companies are making to invest in AI.

“Generative AI, it seems, has become a commodity for typical consumers... As far as consumer generative AI, you have a situation where there’s more and more money going out and now potentially less coming in. Something has got to give.

It’s likely we’re about to see the end of truly free gen-AI chatbots. To help recoup costs from consumer models, ad-supported generative AI is likely coming soon.”

Meta, which is launching as a stand-alone Meta AI app, has hinted at advertising in AI before.

As my colleague Jon Keegan wrote regarding Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call: “Anytime you hear the word ‘personalization’ in a Big Tech product, that means it will be used for ads. None of the big AI players have integrated ads into their chatbot products, but if anyone is prepared for this, it’s Meta.”