- Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has said there are no current plans to introduce ads into Gemini
- His comments contrast with OpenAI’s move to begin showing ads in ChatGPT
- Hassabis said ad-free assistants build trust
Google doubled down on keeping ads out of its Gemini AI assistant this week. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in an interview with Alex Heath that the company has “no plans” to incorporate ads in Gemini.
“We don’t have any plans to do [ads] at the moment,” he said. “I think we’re focusing on the core experience and the core technology of being a better assistant, first and foremost, in a much wider range of things and in more form factors.”
The commitment is notable considering OpenAI has just begun testing ads inside ChatGPT’s free tier and its low‑cost ChatGPT Go subscription. Hassabis didn’t criticize OpenAI directly, but he did note that it’s “interesting they’ve gone for that so early,” and that “maybe they feel they need to make more revenue.”
This tech gossip hints at a much bigger deal. It means there could be a real split in how AI assistants will be funded and what we encounter when engaging with them. Google wants to be seen on the more positive side of that debate. Hassabis said that if you want a “true universal assistant,” you need the reassurance that its recommendations are “genuinely good for you and unbiased and untainted.”
Speaking later to Axios, Hassabis didn’t rule ads out. He stressed that his team is thinking “very carefully” about ads and said “we don’t feel any immediate pressure to have to make knee-jerk decisions like that.”
The Google ecosystem
Part of Google’s confidence comes from its ecosystem. Gemini is not Google’s main moneymaker. Advertising in Search, YouTube, Maps, and virtually every other nook of the company’s empire already brings in tens of billions of dollars. Gemini, by comparison, is still a long‑term strategic investment. Google can afford patience. OpenAI, which lacks a sprawling ad empire or a hardware division, has to pay its massive cloud bills some other way.
Even so, Google’s stance leaves wiggle room. Hassabis didn’t declare a philosophical ban on ads forever. Instead, he framed the decision as a matter of timing and trust. Social platforms have already blurred the line between authentic recommendations and sponsored influence. TikTok and Instagram are full of ads disguised as content. Amazon mixes ads into search results almost indistinguishably. And consumers are leery of it already.
Google knows this. That is why Hassabis said mixing ads into an assistant “could work,” but only if done with extreme caution. In other words, yes, Gemini could turn into a revenue channel later, but Google wants people to trust Gemini.
But at least for now, Google is betting that not showing ads is actually the smarter business move. It positions Gemini as the assistant that works for you, not the assistant that works for an advertiser. And while Google’s track record on ads isn’t exactly saintly, its decision to keep Gemini ad-free represents a rare moment when consumer experience outranks monetization.
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ESchwartzwrites@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
