• Microsoft is testing out a method to integrate advertisements into the responses given by its AI-powered Bing chatbot.
• This could see the chatbot give answers that are skewed in the direction of advertisers, for example, if you ask for the best restaurant in your area.
• Advertisers are concerned that Chatbot-delivered ads could start making traditional search ads less valuable.

AI is the new hot thing in big tech, and Microsoft wants to cash in. Earlier this month the Redmond-based company relaunched its Bing search engine with added ChatGPT-like responses.

While the launch has brought significantly more media and consumer attention, and relevancy to Bing, it has also brought bizarre and addled responses from the generative AI-fuelled search engine.

The fact that the information it gives users might not always be accurate or truthful has called into question the ethics of a company touting such products as a new way for people to plan their lives.

And this search for the “truth” is only getting muddled further, with a new report from Reuters indicating that Microsoft is planning to integrate ads into responses Bing gives users.

According to an anonymous ad executive who spoke to the publication, Microsoft showed off a demo of the new Bing in a private meeting last week. During the meeting, the company added it was planning to allow paid links within responses to search results.

Microsoft expects its OpenAI-powered Bing and its human-like responses to continue attracting more users, obviously bringing in more advertisers. Those looking to advertise with the new Bing chatbot may have their pages featured more prominently compared to “traditional” search ads.

The specifics of what this would look like have yet to be shared by Microsoft, and they declined a request for comment. However, it seems that ads will be inserted within Bing’s responses.

For example, if you ask Bing for the best restaurants in the area, the chatbot might indicate those restaurants that are paying for advertising first, before those that aren’t.

Seeing as the chatbot uses human-like responses, Microsoft would have to highlight which responses are ads and which aren’t for clarity’s sake.

Either that, or it will be more akin to traditional search ads, with sponsored pages listed first but separately. Whatever the case, it seems that Microsoft is already testing ads in its current version of the Bing chatbot.

One issue that has emerged from this news, is company fears that traditional search ads will begin to lose value if chatbot ads become more mainstream. This is because the Bing chatbot is positioned first and higher than the normal search responses.

Microsoft’s bet on Bing is hedged on its perceived popularity. Apparently, a million people are on the waitlist to use the new Bing and Microsoft told investors that every percent of market share it gains translates to an added $2 billion of ad revenue.

Microsoft Edge, the browser that comes with Bing, has a market share of just 6.73 percent in the US, according to Statista

[Image – Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash]