As Microsoft and Google race to integrate the next wave of language artificial intelligence into their respective search engines, the push has left agencies with questions about what these new conversational platforms will mean for how ads are served.

So-called large language model AI systems like ChatGPT could offer users a more interactive way to access information on the web. But how Microsoft and Google will seek to monetize their huge investments in this technology with paid placements is so far unclear to ad buyers.

Microsoft seems to be considering advertisements in the form of links listed at the end of the answer to a given query, according to what advertisers have seen within the current Bing AI platform. Meanwhile, buyers say Google has not disclosed any details about how ads will work within its own Bard AI, a chatbot designed to compete with Microsoft’s new GPT-powered Bing. 

But concerns remain about how monetization will fit into the flow of chatbot conversation, if it will prove effective and whether the technology might fall short with people in the same ways that previous attempts to reinvent the search experience have.

“I’m most skeptical about the potential of ChatGPT to disrupt ads in a meaningful way,” said Sam Tomlinson, executive vice president at ad agency Warschawski.

Positions of ad formats and new data 

The ad format that Microsoft has already suggested placing an ad at the end of a chatbot query, leaves marketers unconvinced.

It’s not clear at what point in the conversation an ad might be served, said Aaron Levy, vp of paid search at performance agency Tinuiti. The pricing is also unclear, given that there would likely be fewer impressions for any given chat compared to a search query since conversational formats are more complex.

Marketers can also imagine other ways AI chat-driven search could lead to advertising. Bing’s chatbot could include links that go to relevant Bing searches, where users would then be served with ads, said Michael Cohen, evp of performance media at Horizon Media. The technique, known as search arbitrage, has also been employed by Ask.com and Yellow Pages. 

But adopting ad formats similar to what’s currently available is a missed opportunity.

“If you are trying to disrupt search, you have to do it in a meaningful way versus a slapdash way like putting links at the bottom,” Tomlinson said. “[If you do that], you’ve just swapped out content at the top.”

Advertisers also ponder what data Microsoft and Google will be able to access to power their tech.

With chatbots, people will spend more time interacting with content on the search engine’s site versus mostly interacting with content once they click on a link, potentially providing the tech firms, and in turn, advertisers, new reams of data.

“Can you show me the query?” Tomlinson said. “We could deploy that against other aspects of our strategy, like content strategy and search engine optimization and product strategy.”

Comparisons to voice-based search 

For all the potential AI has to upend search, the format has proved very sticky over the years.

Agency veterans tend to compare AI-based search to voice-based search. Tech giants similarly heralded the advent of digital assistants as a means to put a more conversational interface on a search into which ads could be interspersed.

But the format never reached the type of consumer adoption it would have needed to become a major advertising channel in its own right.

Generative AI-based search might not be entirely analogous, but it does share some of the challenges around placing ads in a more inherently conversational setting.

“It’s being marketed as a paradigm shift, and it kind of is, if it takes,” Levy said. “Voice search never quite got there. This isn’t quite the same. It’s a stepping stone instead of a big leap, like going screenless would have been with voice search.”

One of the problems with voice search was that it lacked the same feedback loop by which Google text search learns from each user’s behavior and becomes more efficient as a result, according to Tomlinson.

“By the time you got the answer, it was stupid,” Tomlinson said. “And you went to a regular Google search to get the answer.”

Google’s dilemma

Google—which is a lot more reliant on text-based search for ad revenue—has also rolled out a variety of features in the past decade that have transformed the search experience to serve information more directly to people within its walled garden. Results formats like Featured Snippets, the Knowledge Graph sidebar and the People Also Ask box pull and highlight information directly from websites on the results page itself.

Notably, none of these features offer paid advertising because they tend to be more strictly informational in nature, said Levy.

Still, Google has been pushing further into ads that live exclusively on the results page in recent years, said Levy, including formats like Local Service ads, in which the entire transaction with a nearby small business takes place within Google’s site. Such offerings could provide a model for a more native form of conversational AI ad.

LinkedIn allows users to schedule posts to go live at a desired date and time.

Our guide will show you how to schedule a post in the LinkedIn mobile application.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn app on iOS.

Step 1: On LinkedIn’s post creation screen, tap the clock icon near the top-right corner of the screen.

Step 2: Tap the date and time fields near the bottom of the screen to set when the post will go live.

Step 3: When you’re done setting the date and time for the post, tap the “Next” button at the bottom of the screen.

From there, you can continue editing your post as you normally would before scheduling it.

As consumers become increasingly supportive of brand underdogs and TikTok small businesses boom, the platform is playing into this evolving allegiance and refreshing its historic facilitation of unexpected virality and account discovery. 

As an audio-first platform that rewards users who creatively adopt viral sounds, TikTok is nurturing small businesses by expediting their creative processes and boosting their shot at virality. In its partnership with Elias Audio Branding, a subsidiary of Universal Production Music, the platform has crafted 10 custom sounds that include a combination of music, voice overs and directional cues that can be used in organic and paid content. The audio cache is part of TikTok’s vast Commercial Music Library, which brands can consult for pre-cleared sounds to avoid the licensing process. Since its launch, Sounds For Business have ranked in the top 1% of sounds with the top creates, views, likes and shares in the library of 1.5 million songs.

Borrowing language from long-established TIkTok trends, titles including “Pack an Order,” “Meet The Team” and “Reasons To Shop Small” offer social media managers starting points for introducing content formats that users have already approved. 

Elevating time optimization

Clint Wetherill and Scott Adams, who own a full-service real estate brokerage firm, have amassed 112,000 followers by using TikTok to promote their podcast. Wetheril, who predicted that 25% of the business’ sales will come directly from TikTok in the next year, acknowledged the audio library as a useful template for accelerating content creation. 

“Spreading basic financial literacy isn’t necessarily our field of business, but it’s what TikTok is asking for,” said Wetheril. “We saw that it’s what the community wants and needs, but it’s hard to always come up with these ideas and script and shoot when you’re running a full-time business” 

Among small businesses that run ads on the platform, 78% say they’ve realized a positive ROI, according to software marketplace Capterra’s 2022 TikTok marketing survey. TikTok has worked to celebrate this success—the platform recently elevated local businesses through its Gridiron Grub Contest, selecting three winners based on content with “creativity, storytelling and food appeal.” One recipient was Empamamas owner Stephanie Swanz, who uses TikTok to both entertain consumers and educate them about her product.

TikTok’s Promote feature, which was introduced earlier this month, provides users with more ways of boosting their content organically and offers specific benefits to small businesses—they can use new location services to directly target their local communities and accounts that rely on individual customer interactions to make sales that drive traffic directly to their inboxes. Instead of sticking to big brands or their typical purchasing patterns, 58% of users say they discover new brands and products on the platform, posing an opportunity for TikTok to please both consumers and businesses by catalyzing business growth. 

By default, videos will automatically play as users come across them in the LinkedIn mobile application. However, users have the option to prevent videos from automatically playing.

Our guide will show you how to stop videos from automatically playing in the LinkedIn mobile app.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn app on iOS.

Step 1: Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen.

Step 2: Tap “Settings” at the bottom of LinkedIn’s side menu.

Step 3: Tap “Account preferences.”

Step 4: Under the “General preferences” section, tap “Autoplay videos.”

Step 5: Tap “Never Autoplay Videos” to stop videos from automatically playing on LinkedIn. You can also tap “Wi-Fi Connections Only” to prevent videos from automatically playing unless your device is connected to Wi-Fi.

This guide was first published in March 2018 and was updated in February 2023.

LinkedIn’s “Creator Mode” offers professionals an exclusive set of features that were designed for users who want to build a following on the social networking platform. Once someone turns on Creator Mode on their LinkedIn profile, they can later turn Creator Mode off if they’d rather revert to the traditional LinkedIn experience.

Our guide will show you how to turn off Creator Mode while using the LinkedIn mobile application.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn app on iOS.

Step 1: Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen.

Step 2: Tap your profile picture on LinkedIn’s side menu to go to your profile. Note: You can also tap “View profile” under your name on this menu to go to your profile.

Step 3: Scroll down to the “Resources” section and tap “Creator mode.”

Step 4: Tap the “Turn off creator mode” button.

Step 5: Tap the “Turn off” button on the confirmation window that appears to turn off Creator Mode on your profile.

LinkedIn features a “Creator Mode” designed for professionals who want to grow a following by sharing content on the professional social network. When a user turns on “Creator Mode” on their LinkedIn profile, they’ll receive access to exclusive features, such as the ability to add hashtags below their headline that will tell other users more about them.

Our guide will show you how to turn on Creator Mode while using the LinkedIn mobile application.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the LinkedIn app on iOS.

Step 1: Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen.

Step 2: Tap your profile picture on LinkedIn’s side menu to go to your profile. Note: You can also tap “View profile” under your name on this menu to go to your profile.

Step 3: Scroll down to the “Resources” section and tap “Creator mode.”

Step 4: LinkedIn will give you information about Creator Mode. Tap “Continue” in the bottom-right corner of the screen to continue.

Step 5: Tap the “Add topics” button if you want to add hashtags to your profile related to the topics you focus on. You can also skip this step for now and add topics to your profile later, if you’d prefer.

Step 6: When you’re done selecting topics (or if you want to skip that step for now), tap the “Done” button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Step 7: Once you turn on Creator Mode, you’ll be encouraged to follow the “LinkedIn for Creators” page. Tap the “Learn more” button at the bottom of the screen if you’d like to instantly jump to this page, or tap “Go to my profile” to finish this process.

By default, when users access TikTok through a web browser, the website with be in “Light” mode with a white background and black text. However, users have the option to turn on “Dark mode,” which will turn the website’s background black and the text white.

Our guide will show you how to switch to Dark mode while using TikTok on the web.

Step 1: If you’re logged into the TikTok website, click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the site.

If you’re not logged in to the TikTok website, click the three dots in the top-right corner of the website.

Step 2: Click the gray toggle to the right of “Dark mode” to turn on Dark mode on the TikTok website. Note: You can repeat these steps in the future if you ever want to turn off Dark mode. Also note, if you’re not logged into the TikTok website, this drop-down menu will have fewer options above “Dark mode.”