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We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#241

Post by HEX4AGON »

gbro3n wrote: post #12
karlkloss wrote: post #8

Does nobody talk abot the elephant in the room? Will the answers the AI gives also be influenced by Googles customers?

I won't be able to use their AI results if they are, personally. If I ask the question "what is the best tool for doing x" and I can't trust that the answer is going to be the truth according to all available information, then the AI is useless or worse, misleading. If google is unbiased, and only highlights paid advertiser mentions, no one will pay. I'd only accept this if it was a clear separation of LLM response a…

This has always been the case but with AI its going to get even worse. I mean a lot of people associate AI with higher "intelligence" sorta say, now you sprinkle in some political propaganda there from the highest bidder and you are going to have a big problem in the future especially if the populace ended up trusting these corpo AI blindly.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#242

Post by pautasso »

rdtsc wrote: post #69
reactordev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why local AI is so important

Not if the models come from Google. The ads will be implicit in the model. X is better that Y an Z would be easy to add to a the training set.

Does this mean the model must be retrained every time a new ad is posted? How much are AI ads going to cost?

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#243

Post by small_model »

nelblu wrote: post #15

> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?

When I want to buy something I search for it or ask AI for recommendations etc. Why not have a toggle, this is a search for product so shower me with ads related. Not all the time when I am just causally browsing.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#244

Post by delecti »

superloika wrote: post #86
lars_von_pidor wrote: post #79

The only reason Google is pushing this AI crap is so that they can shove ads right into people's throats without them being able to use ad blockers (it's easy to block a web script but virtually impossible to block the text itself), effectively doubling their profits overnight.

Block the AI overviews with extensions like https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hide-google-ai-over... or use a userscript to do the same.

Alternatively, just change your browser's default search shortcut, and add &udm=14 to the end of the normal google search. It changes the default search results to "web" rather than "All", which removes all the extraneous crap they've added over the years.

Compare https://www.google.com/search?q=test to https://www.google.com/search?q=test&udm=14

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#245

Post by pllbnk »

I see where they are going but have doubts regarding the long-term success. Currently I use LLMs (definitely not Google) and search (mostly Google) to verify what LLMs say if I care by finding trusted sources.

Maybe it will work in the beginning until non-technical users realize that LLMs hallucinate very often (unless Google solved it somehow, but probably they didn't because they would have said so), they will lose trust in the results and go back to good old indexed search engines.

Maybe I am coping but thinking from my own experience.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#246

Post by drfloyd51 »

jordigh wrote: post #226
lelanthran wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Depends. Ads a low-effort large-reach pathways for lead generation, mostly useful for B2C penetration. I also did sales when I ran my own company, and I can absolutely guarantee that ads can be helpful. When talking to leads you're talking to someone who a) never saw what you offered but is listening to you anyway, or b) saw what you offered and decided to contac…

An ad is never helpful because ads are designed to mislead me into buying something I didn't need or knew about before I saw the ad. If nothing else, an ad cannot impartially compare a product with the competition (and sometimes the "competition" is buying nothing at all), therefore every ad lies. If I already needed or knew about it, I didn't need the ad. If I was happy with my life without the product advertised, I…

I saw an add for a medicine that was new on the market and my friend who could use the meds, was unaware of its existence.

Now, after a doctor’s involvement, my friend is on the new med and it treats their condition better and the quality of their life is improved.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#247

Post by eithed »

nelblu wrote: post #15

> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?

Maybe one or two in an ocean of crap. And even the ones I do see which are interesting I start despising, because I will see them hundreds of times. Base44 - I will never use your services because of the ad bombardment. Same with that fucking toothbrush that doesn't have bluetooth. It never amazes me that ad agencies just serve me 1 or 2 same ads all the time, but :shrug:

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#248

Post by water-data-dude »

j_maffe wrote: post #111
stingraycharles wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an elephant in the room, this is so obvious and discussed all the time. What else is Google going to do, give up their one and only goose that lays the golden eggs? Regular search being replaced with AI search means regular search (with ads) being replaced with AI search (with ads). The benefit of AI search will be that it’s much better “integrated” in the answer, aka even harder to detect.

But wouldn't that break FCC rules?

Is this administration really interested in enforcing regulations? The FCC might make noises, but only until Trump gets another kickback.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#249

Post by fsflover »

latexr wrote: post #219
fsflover wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this measure, any information you can get whatsoever is biased and there is no reason to trust anything at all.

The major difference is that right now when you land on a page you can do your due diligence and decide if you trust the source. You can still be tricked, but it’s harder and you can get better at the detection. With LLMs, everything is given the same importance so you have no idea if the data came from a reputable source or an obvious SEO junk website.

AI can also provide the sources. And if you need to be certain, you should ask for that.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#250

Post by mrweasel »

sedawkgrep wrote: post #62
nelblu wrote: post #15

> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?

Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Their purpose isn’t to be helpful. They're there to sell you something, and nothing more. Any semblance of helpfulness is misinterpretation and merely coincidental.

> Since when have we considered ads something helpful?

At some point Google ads where genuinely good and helpful to me. If you needed to buy something, and you didn't know who sold it or what it was called, the Google ad engine would yield better results than their search.

Now Google also broke that part. All ads I get are for Temu, Fruugo and other weird sites that I guess does drop shipping, maybe some marketplace stuff. It's the same sketchy sites that's return for almost all searches. It's rarely the "brand sites" that you trust who shows up first in the "Sponsored products" section.

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