Every company building your AI assistant is now an ad company (juno-labs.com)

OpenAI recently announced that ChatGPT would begin showing advertisements, signaling a shift in the AI landscape where even major companies must monetize their AI assistants. This significant move raises concerns about the evolving nature of AI systems. As AI assistants transition to "always-on" modes—equipped with audio and visual capabilities to create contextually aware interactions—the implications for user privacy become paramount. These systems will have the potential to accumulate vast amounts of personal data, which presents a structural problem: who controls and monetizes that data? The article argues for a paradigm shift towards local processing of data to safeguard user privacy. Unlike traditional models that require a wake word to activate, future AI assistants must remain constantly aware of their environment to offer proactive support. This necessitates models that operate entirely on-device, thus eliminating the need for data to be sent to external servers. Current advancements in hardware and AI model efficiency make this feasible. By prioritizing local computing, the industry can protect sensitive personal interactions from exploitation, moving away from a model where AI companies operate primarily as advertising businesses to one where user privacy is the central focus.