Artificial Intelligence: The New Display Advertising

If you've been experimenting or actively using AI like CoPilot or Gemini you may have noticed how it associates current conversations with past conversations or questions. I have found them to be useful in researching various topics and can see a lot of value in having them as a part of our everyday lives; however, the way these AI tools continue to associate past conversations with present queries makes me think they end goal isn't to provide you and me better products, it's really just another marketing platform for companies to leverage to get me to buy their products.

Let me give you an example of targeted digital advertising. When my niece was around ten or twelve years old she was into JoJo Siwa like all the other girls in her age group. For Christmas she had on her list some JoJo Siwa t-shirts and hair bows so I went to Amazon to find them, purchased them, and for the next six months Amazon hit me with targeted emails and onsite ads for JoJo Siwa. A one time search/purchase led Amazon to believe I was a JoJo Siwa fanatic and couldn't wait to get the latest gear. That's targeted advertising. A computer algorithm looks at my behavior on a website and tells email marketing and ad targeting platforms to show me ads for something to try to get me to come back and buy it.

Now let's look at AI. About two months back I was on a kick to explore Taoism and Stoicism. I opened up CoPilot and started asking questions. It provided answers, which led to more questions and the back and forth conversation took me deep into the history and current application of both philosophies. I closed the conversation because I had what I needed. I learned something. Since that conversation every single new conversation I have gets tied back to Taoism and Stoicism. It's annoying. Out of curiosity I had a similar conversation with Gemini. After two weeks my Gemini searches all ask if I'd like information how they related to Taoism or Stoic philosophies.

What I've learned is that the AI tools manufactured by companies who have large revenue streams coming from digital advertising obviously used those data sources for building their algorithms. Therefore the AI agents are merely new modes for interacting with digital advertising learning systems. So when I use them it is going to look for ways to target me in the future to make a purchase. Logical and I expect when ad space is for sale in AI agent platforms we'll all feel like a fresh coat of paint has been put on an age old advertising product.

It's lipstick on a pig and if we want to use the AI tools to enhance our lives we're going to have to suffer the same drudgery of advertising we've been abused with since Google search launched in the 90's. Evolution isn't always something new I guess.