Google’s testing ads in AI Overview results. Perplexity’s considering sponsored answers. ChatGPT’s exploring “promoted content.”
We’re about to ruin AI the same way we ruined everything else.
We’ve Seen This Film Before
There’s a brilliant video from The Naked Brand where B. Bonin Bough – PepsiCo’s head of digital – talks about the early internet: just here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtcOmFK-rk (go to about 35 minutes). Everyone was excited. Clean information. No clutter. Pure utility.
Then marketers got hold of it.
Banner ads. Pop-ups. Autoplay videos. Sponsored content that looks like real content. SEO spam. Affiliate link farms. Every square inch of the internet monetised until you can’t tell what’s genuine and what’s paid placement.
We couldn’t help ourselves. We took something useful and covered it in advertising until it barely worked anymore.
Now we’re about to do exactly the same thing to AI.
AI Works Because It’s Neutral, sort of.
Right now, when you ask ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity a question, you get an answer based on training data and search results.
It’s not perfect. AI hallucinates. It gets things wrong. It’s biased by what it was trained on.
But it’s not trying to sell you something.
When you ask “what’s the best CRM for a small business,” it gives you options based on features, pricing, reviews. Not based on who paid the most for ad placement.
That’s valuable. That’s useful. That’s the entire point of AI assistants – they’re not salespeople.
Paid Ads Will Kill That Neutrality
The moment AI tools accept advertising, every answer becomes suspect.
Ask for restaurant recommendations? Can’t trust it – one of them paid to be included.
Ask for software comparisons? Can’t trust it – the “winner” bought that position.
Ask for business advice? Can’t trust it – the answer’s been shaped by whoever’s advertising budget is biggest.
We’ll be back to the same problem we have with Google now: you can’t tell what’s genuinely the best answer and what’s just the highest bidder.
Except worse, because AI answers feel authoritative. They’re written in natural language. They explain reasoning. They sound confident even when they’re wrong.
Paid placement in AI answers won’t feel like ads. It’ll feel like truth. And that’s dangerous.
“But Subscriptions Cover The Costs!”
ChatGPT Plus costs £20/month. Claude Pro costs £18/month. Perplexity Pro costs £16/month.
These aren’t broke companies desperate for revenue. They’re billion-dollar backed AI labs with investors queuing up to throw money at them.
Subscriptions are enough. They work. They keep AI tools neutral and users happy.
But that’s not how this works, is it? There’s always more money to be made. Always more “growth” to chase. Always pressure from investors to monetise harder.
So ads are inevitable. Not because they’re needed. Because someone can sell them.
It’ll Get Worse Fast
Once AI tools accept advertising, here’s what happens:
Brands will game the system immediately. SEO evolved to manipulate Google. AI manipulation will evolve faster. Companies will figure out how to get their products mentioned in AI answers through paid placement, affiliate deals, and content partnerships.
Smaller businesses get priced out. Can’t afford to advertise in AI results? Your product won’t get recommended. Doesn’t matter if it’s better. Doesn’t matter if it’s cheaper. You didn’t pay, so you’re invisible.
Users lose trust. Right now people trust AI answers more than Google results because they feel less commercial. That trust evaporates the moment ads appear. Then AI becomes just another advertising channel, not a useful tool.
Quality stops mattering. The best answer won’t rise to the top. The most-advertised answer will. Just like Google, where the top results are often mediocre products with big marketing budgets, not genuinely good solutions.
We Can’t Help Ourselves
This is what humans do. We take something useful and monetise it until it stops being useful.
The internet was brilliant until we filled it with ads. Google was brilliant until paid placement dominated results. Social media was brilliant until algorithms prioritised advertisers over friends. YouTube was brilliant until ads interrupted every video.
Now AI’s the useful thing. And we’re about to ruin it the exact same way.
Not because we have to. Because we can’t help ourselves.
Keep It Neutral. Keep It Real.
Subscriptions work. They generate revenue. They keep AI tools financially viable. They don’t compromise the quality of answers.
That should be enough.
But it won’t be. Because there’s always someone willing to pay for placement. And there’s always a company willing to sell it.
So we’ll get ads in AI results. We’ll get sponsored answers. We’ll get “promoted content” that looks like genuine recommendations.
And in five years we’ll be complaining that AI isn’t useful anymore, the same way we complain about Google being useless and social media being nothing but ads.
We’ll wonder what happened. We’ll blame the algorithms. We’ll say technology let us down.
But it wasn’t the technology. It was us. Again.
Just keep it subscription-based. Keep answers neutral. Keep AI useful.
Is that really too much to ask?
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