Ads Ruined Social Media. Now They’re Coming to AI.
Chatbots are pivoting to the ad model and optimizing for eyeballs, just like social media did. Remember how that turned out?
Too personal?
Source: picture alliance
Chatbots might hallucinate and sprinkle too much flattery on their users — “That’s a fascinating question!” one recently told me — but at least the subscription model that underpins them is healthy for our wellbeing. Many Americans pay about $20 a month to use the premium versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini Pro or Anthropic’s Claude, and the result is that the products are designed to provide maximum utility.
Don’t expect this status quo to last. Subscription revenue has a limit, and Anthropic’s new $200-a-month “Max” tier suggests even the most popular models are under pressure to find new revenue streams.