An the same will happen to AI. We will remember these days as the golden age for AI, where you weren't required to prompt an AI three times before it answers with a non-ad response.
What it actually is: a salesperson
It took the mass public a long time (15 years?) to realize search engines had shifted from the former to the latter, and that allowed Google to leverage that misplaced trust into huge profits.
Expect commercial AI to be the same, unless it's explicitly set up otherwise (read: Kagi assistant).
It even supports bidding for the ad space!
Source: https://research.google/blog/mechanism-design-for-large-lang...
This guy couldn't recognise the conflict of interest, and neither will 80%+ of AI users.
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzbz0HDVKEs "Louis Theroux visits top gambler's Hilton hotel suite - Gambling in Las Vegas - BBC"
But whether it's search or AI-chat, what's annoying is efforts to have it replace that things that exist rather than serving as useful addition. I use ChatGPT X many times a day (or hour) but unless I ask for an AI's opinion, I don't want it.