Microsoft’s Bing plans AI ads in early pitch to advertisers

In a meeting with a major advertising agency this week, Microsoft showed a demo of the new Bing and said it plans to allow paid links in response to search results, said an advertising executive who asked not to be named. Told about private meeting on condition. ,

Generative AI, which can generate original answers in human voice in response to open-ended questions or requests, has fascinated the world lately. Last week, Microsoft And Alphabet’s Google announced new generative AI chatbots the other day, in addition. Those bots, which have not yet been widely rolled out to users, will be able to synthesize content across the web for complex search queries.

Early search results and interactions with Microsoft’s Bing and Google’s chatbot called Bard have shown they can be unpredictable. Alphabet lost $100 billion in market value the day it released a promotional video for Bard that featured a chatbot sharing false information.

Microsoft hopes that more human responses from the Bing AI chatbot will generate more users for its search function and therefore more advertisers. advertising within bing chatbot Can also achieve higher on-page prominence than traditional search ads.

Microsoft is already testing ads in its early version of the Bing chatbot, which is available to a limited number of users, according to an advertising executive and ads seen by Reuters this week.

The company said it is taking traditional search ads, in which brands display their websites or products on search results for keywords related to their business, and inserting them into responses generated by Bing chatbots, the advertising executive said.

Microsoft declined to comment on the specifics of its plans.

Microsoft is also planning another ad format within the chatbot that will be tailored to advertisers in specific industries. For example, when a user asks the new AI-powered Bing “What are the best hotels in Mexico?”, hotel ads may pop up, according to the advertising executive.

Integrating ads into the Bing chatbot, which can expand to fill the top of the search page, can help ensure that ads aren’t pushed further down the page below the chatbot.

Omnicom, a major advertising group that works with brands such as AT&T and Unilever, has told clients that search ads could generate less revenue in the short term if chatbots move to the top of search pages without including any ads. Are. last week, which was reviewed by Reuters.

The new Bing, which has a waiting list of millions for access, is a potentially lucrative opportunity for Microsoft. The company said during an investor and press presentation last week that each percentage point of market share in the search advertising market could bring in $2 billion in advertising revenue.

Microsoft’s Edge web browser, which uses the Bing search engine, has less than 5% market share worldwide, according to an estimate by web analytics firm Statcounter.

Michael Cohen, executive vice president of display media at media agency Horizon Media, who received a demo of Bing during a separate meeting with Microsoft representatives, said that the company indicated that links at the bottom of Bing’s AI-generated search responses may serve as advertisements. There may be places for ,

“It looks like they want to get started with integrated paid ads right away,” Cohen said.

This week, when a Reuters reporter asked a new version of AI-equipped Bing to price car air filters, Bing included ads for filters sold by auto parts website Parts Geek.

PartsGeek did not immediately respond to questions about whether it was aware of its ads appearing in the new Bing chatbot.

Microsoft, when asked about the Parts Geek ads, said it is still exploring the potential of new AI technology in advertising and aims to work with its partners and the advertising industry.

Cohen and the ad executive said that despite early tests, Microsoft has not provided a timeline for when brands will be able to buy ads directly within the chatbot, Cohen and the ad executive said.

In its letter to customers, Omnicom said that in the long term, conversational AI is likely to become the dominant way consumers search the Internet.

“It would not be an exaggeration to say that the announcements (by Microsoft and Google) signal the biggest change to search in 20 years,” Omnicom said.

The text of this story is published from a wire agency feed without any modification. Only the headline has been changed.