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Welcome, AI enthusiasts
ChatGPT is about to get its first taste of ads, starting with search, as OpenAI experiments with new ways to support its growing user base. Early hints from the Android beta show carousel-style promotions, product listings, and even a new “bazaar” format. Let’s dive in!
In today’s insights:
ChatGPT Gets Ready for Ads
Silicon Valley leans on free Chinese AI
Chatbots now rival social networks
Read time: 4 minutes
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🌐 ChatGPT Gets Ready for Ads
Evolving AI: OpenAI prepares ads inside ChatGPT as usage surges.
Key Points:
New Android beta builds show references to ads in ChatGPT's search flow.
Personalised ads could emerge, shaped by user intent within prompts.
Early rollout seems limited to search, but the scope may widen.
Details:
OpenAI will test ads inside ChatGPT, starting with search. Code references in the latest Android beta reveal formats like carousels, product-style listings and new "bazaar" content types. The rollout comes as ChatGPT usage reaches staggering levels, nearing 800 million weekly users and billions of monthly visits. With prompts offering far richer intent signals than keyword searches, this shift hints at a future where conversational ads compete directly with search ads.
Why It Matters:
Ads in ChatGPT would shift the fight for attention from search boxes to chat windows, where people already share intent, context, and even budget in plain language. That means marketing teams may get a new, ultra-qualified performance channel where “keywords” are replaced by conversations, and SEO-style tactics start to blend with prompt strategy. If ChatGPT starts guiding purchases, brands may rethink where they compete for attention. The big question is whether sponsored answers stay clearly labeled and unobtrusive or start bending what feels like neutral advice.
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Source: Justine Goode / NBC News / Getty Images
Evolving AI: US startups quietly shift to Chinese open models.
Key Points:
Chinese open models like Qwen and DeepSeek now sit close to US frontrunners.
Startups are swapping pricey closed models for free options they can tune themselves.
The US is waking up to the gap, pushing fresh open-source efforts.
Details:
Chinese open models have surged, giving US startups fast, cheap tools that rival closed systems. Developers pick these models for flexibility, strong community support and lower costs. This shift exposes how few high-end open models the US has, sparking new government and industry moves to catch up.
Why It Matters:
Chinese open models are quietly turning into the “default setting” for a lot of builders: they’re cheap, good enough for most tasks, easy to tweak and ship, and they come with huge download numbers and community backing on hubs like Hugging Face. For founders, that means lower burn, more on-device options, and less dependence on a handful of US vendors. For US policymakers and big labs, it’s a warning shot: if the most used models in American products are trained, tuned and politically shaped elsewhere, then control over AI norms, safety and even subtle biases starts to drift too.
AI IN RESEARCH
🤖 Chatbots now rival social networks
Evolving AI: AI chat use has surged into a core layer of the internet.
Key Points:
Traffic to AI services hit roughly seven billion monthly visits, matching social platforms.
ChatGPT leads the growth with nearly six billion monthly visits and strong daily app use.
Older users are joining quickly, reshaping the audience.
Details:
AI tools have shifted into daily use at massive scale. Similarweb reports steep jumps in web visits, app sessions, and downloads. ChatGPT sits near the top of global traffic charts, with people pairing chat and search for different tasks. Adoption is widening across age groups, and new features like Google’s AI Mode show interest even if most try it briefly.
Why It Matters:
People are picking up chat tools for quick answers, planning, or sorting out tasks they used to spread across tabs, which is changing how work gets done day to day. Older groups joining in pushes companies to rethink who they build for and how simple the experience needs to be. The scale of daily use hints at a future where talking to an AI becomes the first step before visiting a site at all, raising a real question for anyone online: what happens when the chat window becomes the front door?
🎬 Watch tip
If you want a documentary that makes you feel the race to AGI, check out The Thinking Game on YouTube that got released this week. It follows DeepMind and its founder Demis Hassabis as they chase their major breakthrough, AlphaFold, a project that earned them the Nobel Prize in Science in 2024. It mixes science with a personal story about a chess-loving kid who grew up to build one of the world’s leading AI labs, all in pursuit of solving intelligence.
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