Snapchat will add ads in My AI and its copy of TikTok (Spotlight)

New advertisements will appear on Snapchat, with the social network placing them in My AI, its AI-powered chatbot, and in Spotlight, which is nothing more than a copy of Tik Tok.

Ads on Snapchat

Snapchat started testing ads in Spotlight last year. The platform will now display them worldwide. The addition could give a boost to Snap’s advertising business, which has been battered over the past few months. Spotlight, which rewards creators of popular short videos, has more than 350 million monthly users, according to the company.

In the process, Snap announces that its chatbot My AI, available to almost everyone, will also be entitled to advertising in the form of sponsored links in discussions with users. The company says sponsored links are meant to be relevant to the conversation. For example, the chatbot, which can already recommend local restaurants based on the app’s Snap Map, can bring up a sponsored message from a local restaurant or food delivery service in response to a question about where to dine. Similarly, a conversation about travel or video games might bring up sponsored links from an airline or game store.

Snap says the ads in My AI are a first experience. But the fact that the group chose to integrate ads into the chatbot so soon after its launch is notable. The company claims to have seen a high level of engagement with this feature which, unlike chats between friends, does not keep conversations private. But the company’s recent move to put the chatbot at the top of everyone’s conversations has also been controversial, so placing ads at this point could also put some users off.