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I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

99helpers.com

21–30 of 317 posts

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#21
post #2

We all know the pattern: something useful launches → it becomes popular → it needs to make money → ads everywhere. AI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat It includes every monetization pattern you can think of: - Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat)…

Wow, #1 post on HN right now... First time ever for me.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#22

I don’t think this is what it’ll look like. Ads are going to be way insidious. One major power of these chatbots is persuasion. The end goal isn’t bombardment it’s going to be more subtle.

Why not both?

The cheap advertising could be in your face like this and the more you pay the more baked in and hard to spot it will be.

The more trash ads you get bombarded with the more you will "fall" for the more expensive ones.

Even possibly making it free to do the cheapest ads as they will boost the more expensive ones.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#23
It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy messages and trying hard to sell me something.

I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with the less technically adept.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#25

It's quite hard to tell what is satirical AI Ads and what is this 99helpers.com site, which is also really covered in pushy messages and trying hard to sell me something. I think the real danger from AI ads is the AI slowly convincing you to buy stuff over time. It's going to be super effective with the less technically adept.

A lot of the text on 99helpers is very new, and needs more polish. So I get your point.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#26
post #24

Observationally, ad spamminess is inversely correlated with user intent and platform prestige. So I suspect it will take quite a while until it gets quite this bad for the premium platforms.

It will happen slowly over time:

1) start with a notification that ads are coming (already there) 2) adding 1 ad to start with 3) slowly increase ads 4) make it a huge part of the experience (like Google now)

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#27

I don’t think this is what it’ll look like. Ads are going to be way insidious. One major power of these chatbots is persuasion. The end goal isn’t bombardment it’s going to be more subtle.

I asked "what airline should I fly from NY to the Azores?". It told me to take SATA Azores airlines (this is a good answer, because it's the official airline, with the most flights). This is the answer I asked for. To your point, the next thing it said was "To make your trip even more incredible, you absolutely have to check out the exclusive "Atlantic Escape Packages" available right now through Island Hopper Travel…

It's called upselling and is a technique as old as sales have existed. Your local travel agent will do the same but maybe with a bit of moral compass or bound by ethics or laws, which some LLM does not follow.

Re: I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported

#30
post #21
post #2

We all know the pattern: something useful launches → it becomes popular → it needs to make money → ads everywhere. AI chat is heading the same way. So I built a fully interactive demo that shows what an ad-supported AI chatbot could actually look like: https://99helpers.com/tools/ad-supported-chat It includes every monetization pattern you can think of: - Pre-chat interstitials (like YouTube pre-rolls, but for chat)…

Wow, #1 post on HN right now... First time ever for me.

Time to sell some ads
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