AI Chat Ads Are Coming: How Will You Tell if It’s a Real Answer or Just an AI Ad?

Artificial Intelligence chat ads, also referred to as AI-powered ads or chatbot advertising, will change how we get information from AI models like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. These AI chat ads will not even feel like an ad; it’ll just slip in conversations that may feel personal and helpful but could secretly be designed to sell products, services, or ideas! It might sound thrilling to marketers and companies but what about people and students? It’s scary, and it’s happening faster than we could notice. The question now faces us: with AI chat ads forming part of our digital lives, how will people know if they're hearing/reading a true fact or just an AI ad masquerading as a friendly chat?

This dilemma isn't just theoretical, there’s more to it. Top companies like meta, X, have already started doing it, and Google is also testing and implementing ads within your AI conversations on third-party AI chatbots with  the help of its AdSense for Search program. It might look and sound trivial but it's not. These ads are unlike traditional banner ads or obvious promotional instagram content, these chatbot ads are contextually relevant to the user's conversation which makes it look like no-ad talk, similar to no-makeup look. 

The Netflix series Black Mirror has already shown the world how everything will be in the next 10-30 years. One of the episodes of this series explores a dark future where a woman's brain was fixed with AI implants. It was all good initially until  the ads started. Eventually she became a "walking ad" constantly bombarded with commercial messages. People who have watched this can exactly understand how scary it can be. In the end of the episode, when the protagonists didn’t have money for ad-free subscriptions, the husband kills his wife (the woman). While futuristic, this episode warns us about the blurring lines between our thoughts and AI ads.

Just think of it yourself, you are chatting with an AI chatbot deciding what to wear and randomly it says, “oh well what is your weight?” and you say, “It's 55kg now,” cleverly, the model can say, “you lost weight, you should definitely try XYZ drink to maintain it.” And guess what happens next? You’ll be flattered, manipulated unknowingly. The result? Sales of that product will increase while you won’t realise it was just an Ad that suggested something you didn’t actually need. 

AI-powered chat ads can analyze enormous amounts of information to personalise every message you receive in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a promotion. Just think about it, being able to converse with AI-powered advertisements that recommend specific products or ideas for you, expertly using marketing into what feels like good advice. You must have got an idea from the above example. 

An AI expert, Harshit Dave, who is currently researching to build a credible AI evaluation framework, shared his concerns about the same saying, “it’s scarier than people can imagine. This makes for serious concerns about transparency: Will AI ads disclose that it's an ad? How will we be able to distinguish fact from marketing? How do we protect ourselves from manipulation by AI chat ads disguised as unbiased helpers!?” 

Apart from the aforementioned concerns, these ads will disrupt research. Students and scholars might have to shift to physical libraries and archives for their research because as everything is now AI powered, doing actual research will become a Challenging Task. Students, professors, and policymakers must realise this before it’s too late. They must not rely on AI especially for research and education because who knows when a medical student asks a chatbot, “which drug is used to make cough syrup?” the answer given is a modern drug made by a unicorn company that has paid the bot to market its drug!? 

The potential proliferation of AI chatbot ads demands urgent digital literacy. India and the world needs it, especially students because they are the ones who use chatGPT and other models on a daily basis for every trivial matter. There is a need for people to learn to spot AI chat ads by asking critical questions: Is this an AI ad or real information? Am I getting paid marketing or independent advice? At the same time, this calls for regulators and creators to put into practice clear labeling and ethical rules that will make AI ads transparent.

AI ads, chatbot ads, or conversational advertising, all of it calls for responsible AI evaluation to test the model for trust in information. The future of AI chat advertisements will demand some sincerity about the way these intelligent ads actually converse and uphold the authority of their users. The Black Mirror warning that if we do not question AI ads today, tomorrow we might end up living in a world where everything we hear is a carefully crafted AI ad, and nothing is truly neutral or ours alone, reminds us of that fact. Our defence in this future world of AI chat advertisements will be to remain educated, be on guard, and insist on transparency.Because when AI ads talk to us daily, understanding when it's a real answer or an AI ad becomes critical, not just for smart shopping but for the freedom to think clearly.

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