Why your AI assistant is suddenly selling to you 当你的 AI 助手开始给你卖安利
The salesman in the machine
Sponsored chats are changing the way digital advertising works
聊天机器人接广告了，数字广告业未来有何变化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.
punctuate:to interrupt sth at intervals 不时打断，Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。– punctuation: noun 标点符号，punctuate 也可表示“加标点”，– punctual: 按时的，准时的， a punctual start at 9 o’clock: 9 点钟准时开始
我们每天都在用聊天机器人，它们可以是老师、是顾问、是码农、也可以是陪聊。现在它们又有了新身份：销售。用户和大语言模型对话时，广告出现得越来越勤，聊天时不时会被推销信息打断。消费者在搜索、编辑甚至在分享私密情感话题时，被插播广告的几率越来越高。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.当聊天机器人变成广告机器人，AI 和广告行业的未来都充满了变数。当前人工智能的主要特征是烧钱但免费用户居多，广告为这一发明提供了商业化的途径；而摆在广告业面前的是一个很实际的问题：传统搜索引擎用户流失的情况下，广告如何运作？广告机器人的出现或许就能给出答案。不得不说，尽管还在萌芽阶段，一种新型的营销方式已经初具雏形。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.
plug: [多义] a piece of favorable publicity or a favorable mention usually incorporated in general matter 推销，宣传，He managed to get in a plug for his new book. 他设法为自己的新书插入了一条宣传信息。也作动词：They’re plugging this new chocolate bar everywhere at the moment.此时他们正在到处宣传这种新巧克力。
AI 巨头们纷纷下场。今年 2 月，OpenAI 宣布将对目前用户最多的聊天机器人 ChatGPT 进行广告业务测试。谷歌搜索引擎的 AI 模式在去年已经开始试运行广告业务。微软将广告编入了 Copilot。亚马逊准许赞助品牌在其购物助手 Rufus 的回复中插入广告。Meta 的聊天机器人还没开始接广告，但自去年 12 月起它的聊天结果就已被共享给姊妹公司 Facebook 和 Instagram，帮助后者更精准地投放广告。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.据报道，OpenAI 预计今年将狂烧 250 亿美元投资，到 2027 年投资额还将翻一倍，创收已是刻不容缓的任务。尽管 ChatGPT 推出了付费订阅套餐，其 9 亿周活用户中大部分仍在使用免费服务。有了广告就能从这些用户身上变现。此外，技术分析师 Benedict Evans 表示，这样 OpenAI 仍能让用户免费用上他们最优的模型，他们“造福人类”的承诺还能更加深入人心。财大气粗的谷歌暂时没有现金流焦虑，但如果对部分用户来说 AI 互动势必取代搜索引擎，将广告引入 AI 聊天也合情合理。更何况谷歌全球第一数字广告平台的荣冠即将不保：根据研究公司 eMarketer 分析，今年 Meta 的广告收益将超越谷歌突破 2430 亿美元。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.
due: arranged or expected 预计，预期，due to do… 预计/计划做某事The first price increases are due to come into force in July.第一批提价预计将在 7 月开始执行。– 区分 due to sth/sb 由于，因为， Most of the problems were due to human error. 多数问题都是人为错误造成的。
目前各家都还在试水阶段。据数据公司 Similarweb 估算，ChatGPT 仅在 1% 的对话中展示了广告，谷歌在 AI 模式查询结果中投放的比例则更低。但后期的增长会很迅猛。据说 OpenAI 曾向投资者表示今年 ChatGPT 的广告收益预计达到 25 亿美元，明年增至 110 亿美元，到 2030 年目标则为 1000 亿美元。 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.
bide your time: to wait for the right time to do sth 等待时机，
She was biding her time until she could get her revenge.
她在等待时机报仇雪恨。
初期的测试表明 OpenAI 和谷歌在聊天机器人营销方面采取了不同的策略。Similarweb 的数据显示，谷歌 AI 模式与传统搜索引擎类似，98.5% 的广告会在用户首次查询时出现。而 ChatGPT 会择机而动，在首次聊天回复中出现的广告占比不到一半，近三分之一的广告是在对话进行到第 10 轮之后出现——就像是店员等客户表露意向后再开始推销产品。 Similarweb 的 Harel Amir 指出，“这不是搜索，而是一种全新的广告形式。”
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.
sophisticated: (of a machine, system, etc. ) clever and complicated in the way that it works or is presented 机器、体系等复杂巧妙的，先进的，精密的，
a large and sophisticated telescope 一架大型的精密望远镜，
a sophisticated technique 尖端技术
a sophisticated argument 缜密的论点
demographic: a particular sector of a population 按特定标准划分的群体，如按年龄、性别、教育水平等，
Most of our listeners are in the 25-39 demographic.我们的听众大多在 25 至 39 岁这个年龄段。The products are designed to appeal to a young demographic.这些产品是为吸引年轻一代客户而设计的。
广告投放的效果参差不齐。ChatGPT 的定向投放有时似乎很精准：例如向正在起草邮件的职场用户推送面试辅导广告。但有时又直白得让人好笑：一位用户询问加密密钥相关的问题，然后收到了家居品牌 Bed Bath & Beyond 的金属保险箱广告。Gauge 公司 (该公司的业务是跟踪聊天机器人中与各品牌相关的对话) 的 Caelean Barnes 指出，OpenAI 的广告业务尚在起步阶段，目前还无法为广告主提供投放效果的相关数据，也无法针对特定群体进行投放。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.
burnish: take action to improve sth and make it more attractive 给…增色，改善 (形象)，This is a man who took advantage of any opportunity to burnish his image. 这是一个利用一切机会美化自己形象的人。– 原指金属抛光，擦亮The case is burnished aluminium. 箱子是抛光铝制作的。
OpenAI 和谷歌所瞄准的广告主似乎也有所不同。谷歌推出了 Direct Offers (直接优惠) 功能，当用户在 AI 模式中查询某产品时，企业可直接推送产品的优惠码。而 OpenAI 则主打品牌建设类广告，此类广告的主要目的是打造品牌形象，而不是诱导点击。根据 Similarweb 的分析，迄今为止 OpenAI 有 81% 的广告属于这一类别。或许 OpenAI 认为埋头于编程或编辑工作中的用户不太可能停下手头的工作去点开优惠链接。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.
steer clear of: take care to avoid or keep away from 躲避，回避，
The report steers clear of provocation because it is careful to avoid judgments.
这份报告刻意避免做出评判，因此也避免了引发争议。
skewer: to criticize or ridicule sharply and effectively 讽刺，尖锐的批评，
The game was absolutely skewered by the critics, although curiously it’s hard to find exactly what was thought to be objectionable.
这款游戏遭到了评论家们的猛烈抨击，但奇怪的是，很难理解他们究竟觉得哪里无法接受。
– 这个词原指用扦子串住：
She skewered some chicken and put it on the barbecue. 她把鸡肉串起来放在烧烤架上。
skit: a short, funny play that makes a joke of something 幽默短剧，讽刺小品 (常用模仿手法)I thought the skit on politicians was really funny.我觉得这出讽刺政客的短剧确实很好笑。 Anthropic 这个操作是指在今年超级碗的广告中讽刺 ChatGPT 植入广告，有兴趣可以找来看看，主旨就是：别人家可能被广告攻陷，但我家 Claude 不会。但是在一个广告里看到反广告，俺不中了~
好在广告貌似并没有引发用户对 AI 开发公司的不满。有些 AI 公司因担心广告会有损用户信任度而选择避免在回复中插入广告：今年 2 月，Perplexity 的聊天中不再显示广告，Anthropic 更是设计了一个系列广告来嘲讽嵌入广告的对手公司，广告中的 AI 心理医生和教授聊着聊着就突然开始推销产品。然而，根据 Similarweb 的数据，ChatGPT 上 72% 的广告并没有出现在最后一轮对话中，也就是说广告没有导致用户终止对话。包含广告的对话平均持续了约 20 轮，与不含广告的对话并无区别。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.
post-view attribution: 也称为 view through attribution (VTA)，浏览归因，或展示归因，
silicon salesman:silicon 硅，silicon salesman 硅基销售员，也就是 AI 销售感觉这里多少也带点对 silicon valley 的暗示，毕竟现在硅谷的叙事可信度快赶上幻觉了
对于广告主而言，AI 广告带来了两大挑战。首先是衡量标准。如果用户只聊天却并不点击广告，那么“浏览归因”这一不甚严谨的概念——即确定用户是否最终在其他地方购买了该产品——将成为评估广告效果的主要方式。另一项挑战便是品牌安全。马克·扎克伯格画的饼是这样的：未来广告主只需向 Meta 说明目标，剩下的全都交给 AI 处理。但是让聊天机器人自行创作文案无异于赌博。个性化广告确实比通用广告好用，但是企业还是会对 AI 销售心存戒备，毕竟它可能会虚构出好到离谱的梦幻交易。
夜雨聆风
Anthropic 这个操作是指在今年超级碗的广告中讽刺 ChatGPT 植入广告，有兴趣可以找来看看，主旨就是：别人家可能被广告攻陷，但我家 Claude 不会。但是在一个广告里看到反广告，俺不中了~