Snap has begun testing sponsored links with its My AI chatbot. The company announced at the NewFronts event on Tuesday that it will begin surfacing relevant paid links during conversations.
Snap says that if you use My AI to decide what to order for dinner, a bot may suggest a link to a restaurant in your area or a delivery app, after receiving an initial answer. If you are chatting to My AI about a trip, it may even surface links that lead to an airline or hotel.
Snapchat revealed in February its ChatGPT powered My AI chatbot, which is capable of doing things such as holding conversations, suggesting AR filters, or generating photos. In April, after initially making My AI available only to Snapchat Plus users, the company opened it up to its entire 750 million monthly users . Snap’s Snapchat Plus subscribers have had 2 million My AI chats per day.
Snap has limited the topics My AI can discuss compared to ChatGPT. The bot is trained to avoid swearing, sexually-explicit content, violence and politics. My AI will be screened for inappropriate content and abuse before it displays sponsored links. The company also says that the bot will take into account a user’s age.
Snap announced today that in addition to adding ads to My AI and Spotlight (the company’s TikTok like feed ), it will also be adding ads to Spotlight. This feed shows the most popular shortform videos uploaded to the platform. Ads will appear as you scroll down the feed. They’ll look similar to those on TikTok or Instagram Reels. Snapchat also allows advertisers to reserve the video ad you see as soon as you open a friend’s Story.
Snap is attempting to recover from , a falling stock price and layoffs. a memo that was obtained by Alex Heath revealed last year that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wants to boost Snapchat’s subscribers to 450,000,000 by the end this year. He also wants to boost revenue to $6 billion by 2023. Snap could achieve this goal by releasing My AI, and expanding the availability of advertising placements.
