Back in ’99, Google swore it would never run ads. “No ads,” they said, with the wide-eyed innocence of people who still believed the web could remain a pristine commons—an unspoiled digital wilderness, untouched by extraction logic. Today, 76% of Alphabet’s revenue comes from advertising, a gentle reminder that this wasn’t a vow of purity but a movie trailer. A teaser for an economy that would turn human attention into a mineable resource.
Now the story is repeating itself, only on a cosmic scale. Altman—the CEO with the altar-boy-on-a-field-trip-to-DEF-CON look—swears that ChatGPT will never sell visibility to the highest bidder. “We’ll never take money to promote one hotel over another,” he says. Translation: “Trust me.” About as convincing as the friend who, at 10:30 p.m., promises: “Just one Guinness, then I’m heading home.” Cut to 5 a.m., belting out Mr. Brightside while hugging the beer tap.
Spoiler alert: that’s not how this works. Monetization isn’t a choice—it’s a law of physics. When you have 800 million weekly users, “purity” is just a vintage filter slapped onto a system that burns more energy than a Baltic nation. And spoiler number two: ads won’t sit politely next to the answers. They’ll become part of the answers. The AI writes, recommends, monetizes—all at once. Epistemology turns into advertising. Mentions become currency.
For hospitality, this is seismic. SERPs fade away, and the fight is no longer about ranking but about linguistic existence. An AI you pay just to be mentioned is more powerful than any OTA or metasearch engine. And as Foucault taught us: whoever controls discourse controls power.
See you next week,
Simone
SIMONE PUORTO
