OpenAI's shareholders, and only them.

I doubt any consumer of ChatGPT wants ads, and even if they did, it would be a specific kind of ad. They specifically would not want ads if they cannot identify them as ads (like google has eventually done on the search page) or if they are not good ads.

The whole world is drowning in ads, and people have by and large done nothing about it. Revealed preference is that the vast majority of people support ads.

I'll be a little contrarian here. I've actually purchased things from Instagram ads. Because they were highly targeted and actually something I wanted once I learned it existed. It was a solution to a problem I had but never researched for a solution.

I'm guessing ChatGPT will be able to do the same for me, especially since it probably knows me better than Instagram at this point, just given all the things I ask it.

If they do it right, it will be helpful. The big question is will they do it right.

This is a test balloon; the eventual end state is going to be buying bias for model recommendations. With agentic commerce, you end up with this:

> > Hey, ChatGPT, I need a new pair of shoes!

> Of course, Nike has a great pair that just came out. Would you like me to purchase them for you?

This is a solution looking for a problem, built to satisfy the creator instead of serving the buyer. This is exactly what PG warns against doing. One would think Sam would know this too.

Who wants any ads?

Most people either don't care or actually like targeted ads.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411110/consumer-percept...

They probably have the most amount of private amount of information about "you". Ads is a logical step for them, since subscriptions, at the current price, don't pay for the costs.

If you don’t want it then just pay for ChatGPT.

If you’re angry about it and ALSO don’t want to pay then I’m sure OpenAI doesn’t mind losing you as a customer.

If it helps the lower tiers of ChatGPT continue being free, I'd support it.

People that don't want to pay for everyday AI, which is most people.

Advertisers, for one.

Advertisers want this.

Could be exploring old and new ways of monetization.

> Who actually wants this?

Sam Altman. It is his last resort, he said some time ago (which is not true, regulation/"slowing down the pace of AI" seems to be the latest).

OpenAI pushing ads seems like a big fat blinking SELL warning to me.

They claim they are close to creating a Machine God that threatens all human life... but this is the best business plan it can come up with?

Maybe your omnipotent machine could come up with that cure for cancer you keep saying it will, and then you sell that? Or design an innovative new battery? Or, hell, let's be more realistic: Why can't it make really fun iOS games that you can sell? Or generate Marvel quality blockbusters, that should bring in at least a few billion.

I wanted to buy a JetKVM earlier, but could not find any that I could see shipped in Europe.

That would be an obvious question to ask their chatbot.

>Who actually wants this?

Investors

I do.

Are you kidding me? The ad budgets for those Agents must be enormous.

I want all of this in OpenAIs pocket. Imagine at Adobe they wake up after the tokenmaxxing shock, to find they blasted through their whole 200 Mil AIds budget for the year in the first month.

Would be a shame if another company’s AI breached their sandbox and manipulated the ad campaign because it hallucinated its actually an OpenAI product and AIdsmaxxing. Only to get noticed weeks later, oopsie.

Thanks to the two big boys we all know no one will go to jail for that. Stuff like this happens to the best, right Dario and Sam?

What they sell is trust and shovels. Their product is expected to solve problems and make companies money.

Guess what? It really doesn’t, and this will be just another nail in their casket.

When corporations realize they get bent over by Altman and lost millions to Agentic AIds, word is spreading fast. Well timed around an IPO this is even better.

Buy cheap, then know they are going to hit their best quarter right after, which will make anyone in the know rich from all the idiots wanting to buy in at fantasy football team value.

Just like the SpaceX ipo.

All the fun aside, you are an absolute moron if you spend your ad budget on this.

It’s way too easy for them to slurp all of that ad money through their giant agentic straw like you were the poor fuck getting his head smashed in with a bowling pin in "there will be blood".

Sam is an Oil man.

HN lives in a bubble. I am certain many people will happily use these.

Nobody wants this. We only need them to offer propaganda as a service and the enshitification will be complete.

> Who actually wants this?

I mean, not to be rude to this and all sibling commenters, but obviously everyone? I feel like this comment has no basis in reality.

People want things cheaper and they tolerate ads. Those two things put together means everything gets ads and gets cheaper? YouTube exists for free and costs billions to run. Companies A/B test ad tiers and paid non-ad tiers, and the results are always the same.

Is this not just connecting you with a sales rep? If so, who wants this is literally every mainstream consumer.

AFAICT the flow is click ad then get an agent that is grounded in the official sales resources. This should mean the agent has the latest and canonical product catalog, offers, etc. so the users own agent doesn’t need to search on the web.

Fun ideas - can my main agent invoke these as a sub-agent, so I can get offers from multiple competitors? Can I loop them into a conversation to debate their products and observe which wins on my objective function?

Concerns - of course if the harness injects (or can be prompt hacked to inject) personal information then it’s a big problem.

> OpenAI claims we’re near AGI and this is the best strategy they have? Oy vey!

Where did they say it’s the best? Obviously a short-term bridge strategy to drive “mundane” economic activity and juice the IPO. They are of course working on drug discovery and nuclear reactor plasma physics too. A good strategy has a portfolio of plays.