We’ve all been waiting for this moment: Bing’s AI-powered chatbot will soon receive advertisements. On Wednesday, Microsoft’s corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi wrote in a blog post that the company is “exploring placing ads in the chat experience.” When we inquired for additional information, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that you might begin to see them.
In a statement provided, Microsoft director of communications Caitlin Roulston stated, “Yes, ads will show in the new Bing, specifically in chat (as they do in the traditional search results).” “Since the new Bing is in preview, there may be some variability in how it’s currently showing up. We’re still exploring new opportunities for ad experiences and will share more over time.”
Microsoft has been experimenting with ads in Bing for some time, and in February, it reportedly discussed them with advertising agencies. Check out this illustration that Debarghya Das provided in response to a query regarding inexpensive Honda automobiles if you want an idea of how the advertisements might appear. There are citations with a small “Ad” box that appear to link back to Bing after two of the sentences.
You unable to to see any Bing Chat advertisements, thus We can’t tell you whether the “variability” that Roulston referred to in the statement exists. But, the example given by Das sounds like a sensible approach for Microsoft to identify an advertisement, and if everyone finally experiences that, Then don’t believe it would be overly intrusive.
The problem is that we do not yet know how many ads we might see or how Microsoft will decide whether to show ads or get responses directly from websites or publishers. Mehdi writes in the blog post that Microsoft wants to “share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response.” However, this does not provide an answer to the question of how Microsoft intends to strike a balance between ad responses and responses that do not include ads. Whatever that balance is, including advertisements will make it even more difficult to assess whether a response can be trusted.
If you want to see a Bing Chat ad for yourself, you probably won’t have to wait long to get on the list.