Chatbots might hallucinate and sprinkle too much flattery on their users ¡ª ¡°That¡¯s a fascinating question!¡± one recently told me ¡ª but at least the subscription model that underpins them is healthy for our wellbeing. Many Americans pay about $20 a month to use the premium versions of OpenAI¡¯s ChatGPT, Google¡¯s Gemini Pro or Anthropic¡¯s Claude, and the result is that the products are designed to provide maximum utility.

Don¡¯t expect this status quo to last. Subscription revenue has a limit and Anthropic¡¯s $200-a-month ¡°Max¡± tier suggests even the most popular models are under pressure to find new revenue streams.

Unfortunately, the most obvious one is advertising ¡ª the web¡¯s most successful business model. AI builders are already exploring ways to plug more ads into their products, and while that¡¯s good for their bottom lines, it also means we¡¯re about to see a new chapter in the attention economy that fueled the internet.

If social media¡¯s descent into engagement-bait is any guide, the consequences will be profound.

One cost is addiction. Young office workers are becoming dependent on AI tools to help them write emails and digest long documents, according to a recent study, and OpenAI says a cohort of ¡°problematic¡± ChatGPT users are hooked on the tool. Putting ads into ChatGPT, which now has more than 500 million active users, won¡¯t spur the company to help those people reduce their use of the product. Quite the opposite.

Advertising was the reason companies like Mark Zuckerberg¡¯s Meta Platforms designed algorithms to promote engagement, keeping users scrolling so they saw more ads and drove more revenue. It¡¯s the reason behind the so-called enshittification of the web, a place now filled with clickbait and social media posts that spark outrage. Baking such incentives into AI will almost certainly lead its designers to find ways to trigger more dopamine spikes, perhaps by complimenting users even more, asking personal questions to get them talking for longer or even cultivating emotional attachments.

Millions of people in the Western world already view chatbots in apps like Character.ai, Chai, Talkie, Replika and Botify as friends or romantic partners. Imagine how persuasive such software could be when its users are beguiled. Imagine a person telling their AI they¡¯re feeling depressed and the system recommending some affordable holiday destinations or medication to address the problem.

Is that how ads would work in chatbots? The answer is subject to much experimentation ¡ª and companies are indeed experimenting. Google¡¯s ad network, for instance, not too long ago started putting advertisements in third-party chatbots. Chai, a romance and friendship chatbot, on which users spent 72 minutes a day, on average, in September 2024, serves pop-up ads. And AI answer...