外刊《经济学人》Why your AI assistant is suddenly selling to you为啥你的 突然开始带货了?

Why your AI assistant is suddenly selling to you

Sponsored chats are changing the way digital advertising works

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.

Notes：

sponsored /ˈspɒnsəd/adj. 赞助的；商业植入的

digital advertising 数字广告

escort /ˈeskɔːt/n.陪护服务人员

punctuate /ˈpʌŋktʃueɪt/v.穿插；不时打断

promotion /prəˈməʊʃn/n.促销；商业推广

search query 搜索请求；提问

intimate /ˈɪntɪmət/adj.私密的；私人的

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.

Notes：

adbot /ˈædbɒt/n.广告聊天机器人

at stake 前途未卜；处于关键关口

monetise /ˈmʌnɪtaɪz/v.变现；商业化盈利

existential /ˌeɡzɪˈstenʃl/adj.根本性的；生存层面的

outline /ˈaʊtlaɪn/n.雏形；轮廓

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 oninsights from chats to its sister companies, Facebook and Instagram, to help them serve better-targeted plugs.

Notes：

pile in 纷纷入局；扎堆涌入

trial /ˈtraɪəl/v.测试；试运行

weave into 融入；植入

sponsor /ˈspɒnsə(r)/v.赞助；投放广告

insight /ˈɪnsaɪt/n.用户行为数据

better-targeted精准定向的

plug /plʌɡ/n. 宣传推广；软广

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 cash flow 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.

Notes：

burn cash 烧钱；巨额亏损

revenue /ˈrevənjuː/ n. 营收；收入；收益

acute /əˈkjuːt/adj.迫切的；严峻的

subscription /səbˈskrɪpʃn/n. 订阅；付费会员

free tier 免费版本；免费档位

engagement /ɪnˈɡeɪdʒmənt/n. 用户粘性；使用时长

cashflow /ˈkæʃfləʊ/n.现金流

lose one’s crown 失去霸主地位

overtake /ˌəʊvəˈteɪk/v.超越；赶超

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. 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.

Notes：

modest /ˈmɒdɪst/adj.规模不大的；有限的

bide one’s time 等待时机；伺机而动

turn /tɜːn/n.对话轮次

intent /ɪnˈtent/n.意图；需求

make one’s pitch 推销；进行宣传游说

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.

Notes：

sophisticated /səˈfɪstɪkeɪtɪd/adj. 精准成熟的；高级的

comically literal 刻板字面化的；离谱牵强的

cryptographic /ˌkrɪptəˈɡræfɪk/adj. 密码的；加密的

fledgling /ˈfledʒlɪŋ/adj. 初创的；刚起步的

demographic /ˌdeməˈɡræfɪk/adj. 人口统计的；人群细分的

目前 ChatGPT 广告效果好坏参半。广告推送有时精准贴合用户需求，有时又只会死板字面理解、匹配得很离谱。而且 OpenAI 刚起步的广告服务还不完善，缺少投放效果数据，也没法精准定向特定人群。

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.

Notes：

go after 瞄准；争取

discount code优惠码；折扣券

brand-building品牌建设的

burnish /ˈbɜːnɪʃ/v.美化；提升（形象）

trigger /ˈtrɪɡə(r)/v. 触发；引发

break off 中途停下；中断手头工作

谷歌和 OpenAI 瞄准的广告主类型不同：谷歌侧重推送用户正在查询商品的优惠码，做即时促销转化；OpenAI 主打品牌形象宣传，不靠诱导点击，八成以上广告都属于这类。它认为用户在编程、文稿编辑时，不会中途停下来去看优惠活动。

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.

Notes：

repel /rɪˈpel/v.反感；排斥

steer clear of 避开；不涉足

skewer /ˈskjuːə(r)/v. 讽刺；抨击

ad-toting 投放广告的；带广告的

skit /skɪt/n.短剧；讽刺小品

launch into 突然开始；切入

incorporate /ɪnˈkɔːpəreɪt/v.包含；植入

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.

Notes：

measurement /ˈmeʒəmənt/n. 效果评估；衡量

click through点击跳转

post-view attribution 曝光后归因

murky /ˈmɜːki/adj.模糊不清的；难以界定的

campaign /kæmˈpeɪn/n. 营销活动；广告投放

creative copy创意文案

gamble /ˈɡæmbl/n. 冒险；赌博

generic /dʒəˈnerɪk/adj.通用的；无个性化的

silicon salesman 人工智能销售员

hallucinate /həˈluːsɪneɪt/v. 产生幻觉；虚构不实信息

广告主面临 AI 广告两大难题：

效果难衡量：用户不点广告、只继续聊天，只能靠模糊的曝光归因来评估营销成效；

品牌有风险：AI 虽能自动生成更有效的个性化广告文案，但容易虚构夸大优惠、产出不实内容，企业不敢完全信任 AI 做广告创作。