OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman sat for an interview where he explained that his vision for the future of ChatGPT is as a trusted assistant that’s user-aligned, saying that booking hotels is not going to be the way to monetize “the world’s smartest model.” He pointed to Google as an example of what he doesn’t want ChatGPT to become: a service that accepts advertising dollars to place the worst choice above the best choice. He then followed up to express openness to advertising.
User-Aligned Monetization Model
Altman contrasted OpenAI’s revenue approach with the ad-driven incentives of Google. He explained that Google’s Search and advertising ecosystem depends on Google’s search results “doing badly for the user,” because ranking decisions are partly tied to maximizing advertising income.
The interviewer related that he and his wife took a trip to Europe and booked multiple hotels with help from ChatGPT and ate at restaurants that ChatGPT helped him find and at no point did any kind of kickback or advertising fee go back to OpenAI, leading him to tell his wife that ChatGPT “didn’t get a dime from this… this just seems wrong….” because he was getting so much value from ChatGPT and ChatGPT wasn’t getting anything back.
Altman answered that users trust ChatGPT and that’s why so many people pay for it.
He explained:
“I think if ChatGPT finds you the… To zoom out even before the answer, one of the unusual things we noticed a while ago, and this was when it was a worst problem, ChatGPT would consistently be reported as a user’s most trusted technology product from a big tech company. We don’t really think of ourselves as a big tech company, but I guess we are now. That’s very odd on the surface, because AI is the thing that hallucinates, AI is the thing with all the errors, and that was much more of a problem. And there’s a question of why.
Ads on a Google search are dependent on Google doing badly. If it was giving you the best answer, there’d be no reason ever to buy an ad above it. So you’re like, that thing’s not quite aligned with me.
ChatGPT, maybe it gives you the best answer, maybe it doesn’t, but you’re paying it, or hopefully are paying it, and it’s at least trying to give you the best answer. And that has led to people having a deep and pretty trusting relationship with ChatGPT. You ask ChatGPT for the best hotel, not Google or something else.”
Altman’s response used the interviewer’s experience as an example of a paradigm change in user trust in technology. He contrasted ChatGPT’s model, where users directly pay for answers, with Google’s ad-based model that profits from imperfect results. His point is that ChatGPT’s business model aligns more closely with users’ interests, earning a sense of trust and reliability rather than making their users feel exploited by an advertising system. This is why users perceive ChatGPT as more trustworthy, even though ChatGPT is known to hallucinate.
Altman Is Open To Transaction Fees
Altman was strongly against accepting advertising money in exchange for showing a hotel above what ChatGPT would naturally show. He said that he would be open to accepting a transaction fee should a user book that hotel through ChatGPT because that has no influence on what ChatGPT recommends, thus preserving a user’s trust.
He shared how this would work:
“If ChatGPT were accepting payment to put a worse hotel above a better hotel, that’s probably catastrophic for your relationship with ChatGPT. On the other hand, if ChatGPT shows you it’s best hotel, whatever that is, and then if you book it with one click, takes the same cut that it would take from any other hotel, and there’s nothing that influenced it, but there’s some sort of transaction fee, I think that’s probably okay. And with our recent commerce thing, that’s the spirit of what we’re trying to do. We’ll do that for travel at some point.”
I think a takeaway here is that Altman believes the advertising model that the Internet has been built on over the past thirty-plus years can subvert user trust and lead to a poor user experience. He feels that a transaction fee model is less likely to impact the quality of the service that users are paying for and that it will maintain the feeling of trust that people have in ChatGPT.
But later on in the interview, as you’ll see, Altman surprises the interviewer with his comment about the possibility of advertisements on ChatGPT.
How OpenAI Will Monetize Itself
When pressed about how OpenAI will monetize itself, Altman responded that he expects the future of commerce will have lower margins and that he doesn’t expect to fully fund OpenAI by booking hotels but by doing exceptional things like curing diseases.
Altman explained his vision:
“So one thing I believe in general related to this is that margins are going to go dramatically down on most goods and services, including things like hotel bookings. I’m happy about that. I think there’s like a lot of taxes that just suck for the economy and getting those down should be great all around. But I think that most companies like OpenAI will make more money at a lower margin.
…I think the way to monetize the world’s smartest model is certainly not hotel booking. …I want to discover new science and figure out a way to monetize that. You can only do with the smartest model.
There is a question of, should, many people have asked, should OpenAI do ChatGPT at all? Why don’t you just go build AGI? Why don’t you go discover a cure for every disease, nuclear fusion, cheap rockets, the whole thing, and just license that technology? And it is not an unfair question because I believe that is the stuff that we will do that will be most important and make the most money eventually.
…Maybe some people will only ever book hotels and not do anything else, but a lot of people will figure out they can do more and more stuff and create new companies and ideas and art and whatever.
So maybe ChatGPT and hotel booking and whatever else is not the best way we can make money. In fact, I’m certain it’s not. I do think it’s a very important thing to do for the world, and I’m happy for OpenAI to do some things that are not the economic maxing thing.”
Advertisements May Be Coming To ChatGPT
At around the 18 minute mark the interviewer asked Altman about advertising on OpenAI and Altman acknowledged that there may be a form of advertising but was vague about what that would look like.
He explained:
“Again, there’s a kind of ad that I think would be really bad, like the one we talked about.
There are kinds of ads that I think would be very good or pretty good to do. I expect it’s something we’ll try at some point. I do not think it is our biggest revenue opportunity.”
The interviewer asked:
“What will the ad look like on the page?”
Altman responded:
“I have no idea. You asked like a question about productivity earlier. I’m really good about not doing the things I don’t want to do.”
Takeaway
Sam Altman suggests an interesting way forward on how to monetize Internet users. His way is based on trust and finding a way to monetize that doesn’t betray that trust.
Watch the interview starting at about the 16 minute mark:
Featured image/Screenshot from interview
