Injecting ads into answers will be the next step for the search market. Reddit is doing it already. And unlike reddit post or comment ads, it may be very difficult to block.
Oh god, this has just made me reflect that we're in the golden age of generative AI - not in technology terms, in user experience terms. We're in the period where the major products are competing against each other before they switch into enshitfication mode. You're certainly right, there's going to be ads in the answers and probably worse. I'm imagining companies paying to introduce ideas as subtle subtexts to millions of unrelated answers or platforms deliberately engineering the ux to maximise understanding of our drives and preferences purely so it can be sold.
You better believe I’m going full self-hosted AI the moment I get a whiff of sponsored content in an AI response I paid for.