Comment by adventured
Comment by adventured a day ago
There is an exceptionally obvious solution for OpenAI & ChatGPT: ads.
In fact it's an unavoidable solution. There is no future for OpenAI that doesn't involve a gigantic, highly lucrative ad network attached to ChatGPT.
One of the dumbest things in tech at present is OpenAI not having already deployed this. It's an attitude they can't actually afford to maintain much longer.
Ads are a hyper margin product that are very well understood at this juncture, with numerous very large ad platforms. Meta has a soon to be $200 billion per year ad system. There's no reason ChatGPT can't be a $20+ billion per year ad system (and likely far beyond that).
Their path to profitability is very straight-forward. It's practically turn-key. They would have to be the biggest fools in tech history to not flip that switch, thinking they can just fund-raise their way magically indefinitely. The AI spending bubble will explode in 2026-2027, sharply curtailing the party; it'd be better for OpenAI if they quickly get ahead of that (their valuation will not hold up in a negative environment).
> They would have to be the biggest fools in tech history to not flip that switch
As much as I don't want ads infiltrating this, it's inevitable and I agree. OpenAI could seriously put a dent into Google's ad monopoly here, Altman would be an absolute idiot to not take advantage of their position and do it.
If they don't, Google certainly will, as will Meta, and Microsoft.
I wonder if their plan for the weird Sora 2 social network thing is ads.
Investors are going to want to see some returns..eventually. They can't rely on daddy Microsoft forever either, now with MS exploring Claude for Copilot they seem to have soured a bit on OpenAI.