Will the new Bing create more opportunities for advertisers? Maybe

Today, Barry Schwartz and I had the great honor of being there live at the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center, or Building 33, for those in the know, for the announcement of their new Bing and Edge AI-powered search results experience.

By leveraging the power of OpenAI, Microsoft will allow users to chat with, ask questions, or even use it to create content.

But how will this affect advertisers? Does Microsoft have plans to incorporate more ads directly into the results?

Ask and you shall receive. But not really. I asked those very questions during the Q&A portion of the presentation. I was told that ads were already incorporated and they were visible in one of the screenshots in the presentation.

In a brief statement, Microsoft said

“And as usage expands, we expect to see greater volume leading to more opportunities for advertisers to reach their desired customers.”

Rob Wilk, CORPORATE VICE PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT ADVERTISING 

What’s new. Nothing. Yet. As of right now, it looks like relevant ads will remain on the left side of the page, while the AI answers are on the right.

A missed opportunity. Maybe it’s the opportunist in me, but I was hoping to get word that ads would be incorporated into the actual AI results. As you can see at the bottom of the image above, additional resources are next to the Learn More prompt. Relevant ads placed on the right side could be a great opportunity to monetize the new feature.

Why we care. With all of the chatter (pun intended) around AI, there’s a lot up in the air right now. As usage expands, ChatGPT’s natural language processing capabilities will get better matching queries with advertisements in a more intuitive way, leading to increased ad visibility and improved targeting. This can result in a better return on investment for advertisers who utilize the Bing platform.

Alternatively, informational results could hurt advertisers if users aren’t incentivized to click an ad for the information they seek.