正文:为何你的 AI 助手突然开始向你推销

文章探讨了人工智能公司如何通过将聊天机器人转型为广告媒介，来应对研发成本高昂与传统搜索模式衰落的双重挑战。目前，OpenAI、谷歌和微软等巨头正积极测试嵌入式赞助信息，试图在保持用户参与度的同时实现商业变现。不同于传统的搜索引擎，这些AI助手往往表现得更像耐心观察的销售员，能够根据长对话的语境精准捕捉用户意图。尽管这种模式面临着品牌安全与转化率衡量的潜在风险，但早期数据表明，用户并未因广告的介入而停止交流，这预示着一种全新的数字营销时代正在开启。

The salesman in the machine
Why your AI assistant is suddenly selling to you
为何你的 AI 助手突然开始向你推销

Sponsored chats are changing the way digital advertising works
赞助聊天正在改变数字广告的运作方式
4月 23, 2026 03:39 上午

▶ 英文段落：
CHATBOTS ARE employed every day as teachers, counsellors, coders and escorts. Now they are taking on another role: salesmen. Advertisements are popping up ever more frequently in users’ conversations with large language models, punctuating chats with promotions. Consumers’ search queries, editing sessions and even intimate moments are increasingly at risk of interruption by sponsored messages.

▶ 中文翻译：
聊天机器人每天都被用作教师、咨询师、程序员和伴侣。现在，它们正承担起另一个角色：推销员。在用户与大语言模型的对话中，广告出现的频率越来越高，促销信息不时地穿插在聊天之中。消费者的搜索查询、编辑过程，甚至是个人的私密时刻，都日益面临被赞助消息中断的风险。

▶ 英文段落：
As chatbots become adbots, the future of two industries is at stake. For the artificial-intelligence business, ads represent a way to monetise a wildly expensive invention that most people currently use free of charge. For the ad industry, adbots are a possible answer to the existential question of how advertising will work if users move away from conventional search engines. Although it is early days, the outlines of a new kind of marketing are emerging.

▶ 中文翻译：
随着聊天机器人变为“广告机器人”（adbots），两个行业的未来都面临考验。对于人工智能产业而言，广告是将其这项造价极高且目前大多由用户免费使用的发明变现的一种手段。对于广告业而言，广告机器人可能为那个关乎生存的根本性问题提供答案：如果用户离开传统的搜索引擎，广告将如何运作？尽管目前仍处于起步阶段，但一种新型营销模式的轮廓已经显现。

▶ 英文段落：
Many of the AI giants are piling in. In February OpenAI said it would begin testing ads in ChatGPT, the most widely used chatbot. Google has been trialling them in its search engine’s “AI Mode” since last year, and Microsoft has woven them into its Copilot. Amazon’s shopping assistant, Rufus, allows brands to sponsor its replies. Meta’s chatbot does not yet show ads, but since December it has been passing on insights from chats to its sister companies, Facebook and Instagram, to help them serve better-targeted plugs.

▶ 中文翻译：
许多 AI 巨头正纷纷加入。今年 2 月，OpenAI 表示将开始在最广泛使用的聊天机器人 ChatGPT 中测试广告。谷歌（Google）从去年起就在其搜索引擎的“AI 模式”中进行试点，微软（Microsoft）则将其整合到了 Copilot 中。亚马逊的购物助手 Rufus 允许品牌赞助其回复。Meta 的聊天机器人虽然尚未显示广告，但自 12 月以来，它一直在将聊天中获得的洞察传递给其兄弟公司 Facebook 和 Instagram，以帮助它们提供更精准的推销。

▶ 英文段落：
For OpenAI, which reportedly expects to burn 25bn of cash this year and twice as much in 2027, the need for more revenue is acute. Although it sells subscriptions, most of ChatGPT’s more than 900m weekly users are on its free tier. Ads are a way to make money from them. And they may let the company make its best models available to users who do not pay, deepening their engagement, says Benedict Evans, a tech analyst. Even Google, with no immediate cashflow worries, has reason to bring ads to AI chats if these interactions are to replace search for some users. Already it is set to lose its crown as the biggest seller of digital ads: this year Meta will overtake it with ad revenue of $243bn, according to eMarketer, a research firm.

▶ 中文翻译：
据报道，OpenAI 预计今年将烧掉 250 亿美元现金，而 2027 年这一数字将翻倍，因此其增加收入的需求十分紧迫。尽管公司销售订阅服务，但 ChatGPT 每周 9 亿多用户中的大多数使用的是免费版本。广告成了从这些用户身上赚钱的一种方式。科技分析师本尼迪克特·埃文斯（Benedict Evans）认为，广告或许能让公司向不付费的用户开放其最先进的模型，从而深化用户粘性。即便像谷歌这样没有紧迫现金流压力的公司，如果 AI 交互在某些用户心中取代了搜索，也有理由将广告引入 AI 聊天。事实上，谷歌即将失去数字广告最大销售商的宝座：研究公司 eMarketer 的数据显示，Meta 今年将以 2,430 亿美元的广告收入超越谷歌。

▶ 英文段落：
So far the experiments are modest. Similarweb, a data provider, estimates that ChatGPT is showing ads in only about 1% of conversations, and Google in an even smaller share of AI Mode queries. But they are due to rise fast. OpenAI is said to have told investors that it expects ChatGPT to generate 2.5bn in ad revenue this year and $11bn in 2027, with a goal of hitting 100bn by 2030.

▶ 中文翻译：
到目前为止，这些尝试规模尚小。数据提供商 Similarweb 估计，ChatGPT 仅在约 1% 的对话中显示广告，而谷歌在 AI 模式查询中的广告占比更低。但这些数字预计将迅速增长。据称，OpenAI 告诉投资者，预计 ChatGPT 今年将产生 25 亿美元的广告收入，2027 年达到 110 亿美元，目标是在 2030 年前达到 1,000 亿美元。

▶ 英文段落：
The early evidence suggests that OpenAI and Google have different approaches to how a chatbot should sell. According to Similarweb, 98.5% of the ads in Google’s AI Mode appear in response to the user’s first query, rather like a conventional search engine. ChatGPT, by contrast, bides its time. Less than half its ads come in the chatbot’s first response, and nearly a third come after the tenth turn in the conversation—like a shop assistant waiting for the customer’s intent to become clear before they make their pitch. “This is not search. This is a new category of advertising,” argues Harel Amir of Similarweb.

▶ 中文翻译：
初步证据表明，OpenAI 和谷歌在聊天机器人如何进行推销方面采取了不同的策略。Similarweb 的数据显示，谷歌 AI 模式中 98.5% 的广告出现在响应用户第一次查询时，这与传统的搜索引擎非常相似。相比之下，ChatGPT 则在耐心地等待时机。它只有不到一半的广告出现在机器人的首次回复中，且近三分之一的广告出现在对话进行到第十轮之后——这就像一名店员在向顾客推销之前，先等待顾客的意图变得清晰。Similarweb 的哈雷尔·阿米尔（Harel Amir）认为：“这不是搜索，而是一个全新的广告类别。”

▶ 英文段落：
So far the results are mixed. ChatGPT’s targeting sometimes seems sophisticated: for instance, advertising job-interview coaching to a user drafting a professional email. At other times it is comically literal. One user asking about cryptographic “private keys” was served an ad for metal safety-boxes from Bed Bath & Beyond. OpenAI’s fledgling ad service so far offers advertisers little in the way of performance data or the ability to target specific demographic groups, says Caelean Barnes of Gauge, which helps brands track how chatbots talk about them.

▶ 中文翻译：
到目前为止，效果毁誉参半。ChatGPT 的精准投放有时显得很老练：例如，向一名正在起草专业电子邮件的用户推荐面试培训广告。但有时它又死板得滑稽。一名询问加密学“私钥”（private keys）的用户竟然收到了一条 Bed Bath & Beyond 公司的金属保险箱广告。Gauge 公司的凯莱安·巴恩斯（Caelean Barnes）表示，OpenAI 尚在起步阶段的广告服务目前无法为广告商提供多少性能数据，也无法针对特定的人口统计群体进行投放。

▶ 英文段落：
OpenAI and Google also seem to be going after different kinds of advertisers. Google’s Direct Offers allow companies to promote a discount code for a product the user is researching in AI Mode. OpenAI, meanwhile, is focused on brand-building ads designed to burnish a firm’s image rather than trigger a click. So far 81% of its ads fall into that category, by Similarweb’s analysis. OpenAI may reckon that users deep in a coding or editing session are unlikely to break off to pursue an offer.

▶ 中文翻译：
OpenAI 和谷歌似乎也在追求不同类型的广告商。谷歌的“直接优惠”（Direct Offers）允许公司为用户在 AI 模式中研究的产品提供折扣码。与此同时，OpenAI 则专注于品牌建设广告，旨在提升公司形象而非触发点击。Similarweb 的分析显示，目前其 81% 的广告属于这一类别。OpenAI 可能认为，正处于深度编程或编辑状态的用户不太可能中断工作去关注某个优惠。

▶ 英文段落：
The good news for chatbot-makers is that users do not seem to be repelled by ads. Some competitors have steered clear of sponsored replies, fearing these will hurt trust: in February Perplexity stopped showing ads and Anthropic skewered its ad-toting rivals with a series of skits showing therapists and professors suddenly launching into sales pitches. Yet Similarweb finds that 72% of ads shown on ChatGPT are not on the final turn of the conversation—in other words, users keep chatting. Conversations incorporating ads last an average of about 20 turns, the same as those without.

▶ 中文翻译：
对聊天机器人开发者来说，一个好消息是用户似乎并不反感广告。一些竞争对手此前一直避开赞助回复，担心这会损害信任：今年 2 月，Perplexity 停止了显示广告，而 Anthropic 则通过一系列短剧讽刺其携带广告的对手，剧中显示治疗师和教授突然开始推销产品。然而，Similarweb 发现，ChatGPT 上 72% 的广告并未出现在对话的最后一轮——换句话说，用户在看到广告后仍继续聊天。包含广告的对话平均持续约 20 轮，与不含广告的对话时长一致。

▶ 英文段落：
For advertisers, AI ads present two challenges. The first is measurement. If users keep chatting rather than clicking through, “post-view attribution”—the murky science of determining whether a user eventually buys the product elsewhere—will become the main way to assess a campaign’s effectiveness. The second challenge is brand safety. Mark Zuckerberg has painted a picture of a future where advertisers simply tell Meta their objective and let the AI handle the rest. But letting a chatbot write its own creative copy is a gamble. Personalised ads have proved to be more effective than generic ones. Companies may nevertheless be wary of a silicon salesman who could hallucinate a deal too good to be true.

▶ 中文翻译：
对于广告商而言，AI 广告带来了两大挑战。首先是衡量标准。如果用户选择继续聊天而非点击跳转，那么“观看后归因”（post-view attribution）——这一用于判定用户最终是否在其他地方购买产品的不成熟科学——将成为评估广告活动效果的主要方式。第二个挑战是品牌安全。马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）描绘了这样一个未来：广告商只需告诉 Meta 他们的目标，其余全部交给 AI 处理。但让聊天机器人自行编写创意文案是一场赌博。虽然个性化广告被证明比通用广告更有效，但公司可能会对一个可能会“幻觉”出好得令人难以置信之优惠的硅基推销员保持警惕。