Incorporating Ads into Large Language Models: The Hidden Economy of AI Responses

The moment you ask ChatGPT about a travel destination and it casually mentions a specific hotel booking platform, or when Claude suggests a particular coding tool while helping with your programming question, you’re witnessing something fascinating: the intersection of artificial intelligence and advertising. What seems like helpful, neutral advice might actually be the result of careful economic engineering beneath the hood of these language models. This isn’t about banner ads cluttering up your chat interface - that would be crude and obvious. Instead, we’re talking about something far more sophisticated: weaving promotional content seamlessly into the fabric of AI-generated text itself. It’s a practice that’s quietly reshaping how we think about AI neutrality, user trust, and the economics of running these incredibly expensive models. ...

June 9, 2025 · 24 min · Jainish Patel