• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 6 hours ago

Publishers have yet another source of competition to deal with.

OpenAI plans to prioritize sponsored content so that ads show up in ChatGPT’s answers to queries, the Information reports. 

This means that certain types of  branded information will be used to deliver hyper-personalized ads. 

Now you might ask: What’s the harm if the church-state line isn’t breached?

Well, for one thing, ad dollars will be siphoned off to non-journalistic channels—specifically, to the growing answer business. 

Google’s AI Answers has already devastated search traffic for many publishers. What will this do?

Another question is just what they mean by “sponsored” content. Would this be material created by brands, or the ads themselves?

Mockups show sponsored information in a sidebar next to the main response window, The Information reports.

Finally, as it grows, will ChatGPT use scraped content to shoot answers—and ads—to readers?

ChatGPT reportedly halted an ad plan earlier this year. 

But it is back with this. 

"As ChatGPT becomes more capable and widely used, we're looking at ways to continue offering more intelligence to everyone,” a spokesperson told The Information. 

But skeptics challenge the scheme. 

“In Google Search, the ad model is quite straightforward,” writes Mike Wheatley of SiliconAngle. “If someone types ‘best running shoes,’ the results will show multiple sponsored links from advertisers, as well as a few organic results that aren’t ads. In OpenAI’s vision, ads will appear much more naturally in the context of user’s conversations with ChatGPT.”

In the end, this is really about what OpenAI may be doing to publishers.