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

nickk81

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) - Sponsored AI responses (the AI casually recommends products mid-answer) - Freemium gates (5 free messages, then watch an ad to continue) - Banner ads, sidebar ads, retargeting ads - Sponsored suggestion chips ("Ask about BrainBoost Pro! ")

caldis_chen

This looks like just a regular application for Chinese users that has been turned into English

m132

Almost ideal. Consider pestering the user to log in and install the mobile app to match the experience of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the like. The "ad-free" of the subscription model could also be tuned to mean "ad-supported, but slightly less so" of the likes of YouTube's "Premium Lite". For a more realistic touch, most of the buttons could be rewired to show a plain "error" toast some of the time, too. And let's not forget about dark patterns all over the GDPR pop-up!

cladopa

I hate the idea. It will happen though. We always have the first wave of naive and well intentioned people. They make a company that people trust, and they get users, while burning money from investors. Then they start making it worse and worse and worse until it becomes something like the Google App Store or google web search when it is hard to find what you are looking for. Ads are so dangerous in AI because they will include ads inside the LLVM. When I ask "Who is the best whatever?" "Which product should I buy?" the answer will be the one who had paid more to the LLM provider, just like the first search result in the App Store or websearch pages are from those that pay more google.

soulofmischief

Fun demo. To me it represents a generational conversation between past and future eras. Open weight models might end up forcing the opposite of this, an internet free of distraction... but only if we can collectively agree to build such a future.

zeta0134

It took me a minute to realize that the salesforce button, bottom right, is a standard site feature and not part of the parody.

athrowaway3z

There is a lot of room for improvement. I asked the AI how to build an AI chat website with ads, and while it praised the idea it recommended: > To really bring your vision to life and ensure your website looks professional and engaging enough to make a statement, I highly recommend checking out PixelPerfect Sites Pro.

montroser

Thanks, I hate it. Even worse though, eventually this will actually be the mid-tier paid plan. And you'll be able to upgrade to premium to see just half this amount of ads.

shrink

That's a funny nightmare. I created something similar, but less parody and more practical. Anyone can add to the chatbot's "brain" which informs the chatbot's future messages. I implemented it following the Million Dollar Homepage's model, i.e: a limited amount of context that is displayed alongside the chat. https://milliondollarchat.com

roxolotl

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.

gverrilla

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makerofthings

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.

phreeza

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.

aduty

You forgot the part where they charge you to get rid of the ads but then the ads come back anyway so you're paying to be the product.

iso1631

And more energy will be put into ad blocking, so the advertiser will pay for thousands of tokens to generate the ad and the user will pay for the tokens to strip the ads Advertising is the root of all evil

goalieca

Pretty crazy and no doubt a lot of these patterns will find their way in more subtly. The total global ad revenue for online is massive at nearly 1T. Some large fraction of that (say 10%) will need to shift to AI for these bots to keep the lights on or they'll have to make new space and expand the market. Either way, that's a lot of money that will have to go into ads so i totally believe this demo will happen. I don't see such a huge shift happening though. Ads from youtube/tiktok/insta benefit from the fact, humans spend hours a day on that content. Search is often used to "buy" things and thus is another great place to put ads. Will people go to chatbots to "buy" things? Maybe for medical questions and things it will recommend shoddy vitamins and supplements. Will that pay the bills? I dunno. It will certainly be regulated in places.

Nevermark

I couldn't find an AI option to clean my mac! :(

jpdb

Love this! Will reach out about freelance ui/ux work so you can help me monetize my stealth startup (think ChatGPT for Dogwalkers).

mirekrusin

Did you get acquisition offer from openai yet for this goldmine?