If you read my last blog on Generative AI I discussed the tens of billions of dollars the biggest tech firms like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are pouring into this revolutionary technology. You also learned that companies like ChatGPT are just starting to think about monetizing the technology as more and more people discover its value.

 

Just starting out, the technology remains somewhat of a curiosity to the general public as people ask it to write letters or essays, and create art or even music to see what it actually comes up with. That’s all fine and good but more is coming.

 

Let’s start with some of the fun ones. Generative AI companies could create content and license it to businesses or individuals for a fee. For example, an ad agency could hire a Generative AI company to create art needed for a new ad campaign or even music that they would pay the licensing rights to use. Similarly, AI-generated content could be used to create never-before-seen works of art, books, movies or video games that could be sold directly to consumers or publishers. Think Generative-AI movie studios or publishing divisions.

 

Here’s an interesting way for Generative AI to make money – through product placement. Dr. Lance Eliot, a Stanford Fellow and columnist at Forbes, gives this type of example, although not exactly like this. Let’s say you are writing a story, it could be about anything. You ask ChatGPT to write it for you and you make it about teenagers. On the back-end, let’s say that the AI company has a deal with a brand of chocolate to advance their brand through product placement in the AI’s output. As the story is written, the brand’s name is inserted by the AI company as a product placement but woven in to be a seamless part of the story. Everyone’s happy – the chocolate company gets their brand out, the AI company is paid by the chocolate company to advance their brand, and you get your story written for you.

 

The not so fun ways that Generative AI companies will monetize their service are through things like subscription models. Some companies are already charging for usage, and more will come. There may even be different versions that offer more or fewer capabilities depending on which subscription stream you pay for.

 

ChatGPT also offers premium subscription plans to individuals and businesses that require more advanced features and capabilities. Some of the features that come with premium subscription plans include:

 

• Access to larger language models with more advanced language processing capabilities
• Increased customization and control over the language model’s output
• The ability to train the language model on specific datasets and use cases

 

 

A partnership between OpenAI and consulting giant Bain is one sign of the monetization model taking shape. The companies are planning early deployment experiments in "next generation contact centers" for customer service, creative development for marketing campaigns, and "helping financial advisors improve their productivity and responsiveness to clients." So far, Bain said Coca-Cola is the first company to "engage with" the Bain/OpenAI partnership.

 

Open AI and Microsoft’s partnership is an interesting one as well. Open AI can leverage Microsoft’s business clients and pitch upgrades to the existing suite of products. For example they could bundle a Generative AI suite with Office 365 that could do anything from product requirement documents, to PowerPoint presentations or videos

 

Of course there is the ever-important customer data. Companies like ChatGPT or Open AI have signed up millions of users in a short amount of time. If most people joined as a curiosity, the data is still there and even a small percentage turnover to paid users is a financial win for these companies.

 

It’s hard to predict all the ways in which Generative AI will monetize in the coming years but the possibilities seem endless for a technology that is still in its infancy.

 

 

 

 

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