Did you mean: Please serve me an ad?

TL;DR: Ads are turning up in AI products—starting with Google’s AI Mode chatbot for search. The rollout is happening slowly, but the tension is already clear: AI is often marketed as a tool you can trust to cut through the noise—not another feed filled with ads. Now it’s quietly becoming just like the rest of the internet.

What happened: During a Sunday briefing, Google told advertisers they could now buy placements for personalized offers and coupons directly in the Gemini-powered AI Mode search results. Google brands these ads as “contextual”—meaning they surface when users ask for product recs—and insists they don’t influence the core answer.

Here’s how this looks in practice: AI Mode offers a few product suggestions based on your search, and when you click on one, Google lets you know that there’s a sponsored deal available—say, 20% off the washable rug that you were clearly already interested in.

Perplexity has also experimented with sponsored follow-up questions next to AI-generated answers. But Google’s making the largest splash because it’s the biggest ad seller in the world—so dominant that the Department of Justice is actively suing it for allegedly monopolizing the digital ad market.

Who asked for this: We’ll give you one guess. If C-suite execs had their way, every AI answer would probably be so stuffed with ads that it would make Times Square look austere. AI companies need to make money, desperately, and integrated ads are a great way to do that. Unfortunately for them, it’s also a great way to turn users off. OpenAI hit a nerve last month when ChatGPT randomly suggested a user buy a Peloton. (The company scrambled to clarify that it wasn’t an ad—just a nudge to showcase new third-party app integrations).

Research shows that people’s reactions to ads depend heavily on placement: TV ads when you hit pause are generally fine. But we get more frustrated with obvious, disruptive banner ads. And with AI, the stakes shift again. Companies want their chatbots positioned as trusted, unbiased helpers (despite painfully visible inaccuracies and hallucinations). Users also often ask them sensitive questions, including about health worries and personal dilemmas. But a recent study found that when hypothetical sponsored suggestions appeared in ChatGPT convos, users felt misled and trust dropped sharply—even for recommendations that weren’t ads.

What comes next: This is just the first step—more AI companies are likely to follow Google’s move (like OpenAI has floated a few times), and we’ll probably see ads not only in chatbots but also “agentic” AI shopping tools that nudge you toward sponsored products and walk you through checkout in one frictionless swoop. And while the FTC requires “clear and conspicuous” disclosure of anything sponsored—AI companies can’t shrug and say “the algorithm picked Amazon-brand boxers” if compensation or preferential placement is involved—enforcement is messy in practice. —WK