It's too bad, because AI could be a new way of buying things.

It will probably still be a new way of buying things- I hope an AI assisted shopping experience continues to exist on some platform, because I want to use it.

I already use AI to make all kinds of buying decisions. If OpenAI were smart they would just monetize this instead of trying to corrupt the chat interface with ads.

I actually am fairly bullish on this, because in the competitive landscape of AI it seems like there will be a company out there willing to make an ad-free model that's good enough for reasons other than serving me an ad.

Just like Apple makes hardware that's ad-free and pro-privacy enough, just because it's a product differentiator. (I'm not under any illusion that Apple wouldn't sell my data if it was in their own interests).