OpenAI's Fidji Simo on why ads are coming to ChatGPT

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Access, a reminder really quickly up top. Leave a review if you like the show. Subscribe, wear a new show, especially if you're checking us out for the first time this week. Also, watch us on YouTube, especially this week. It's going to be a pretty visual show. It's going to be a fun one. We are dropping this earlier than normal this week, Ellis, because why? Because I'm feeling like a Bosch this week, Alex. [LAUGHTER] I was so happy to see that our favorite tag line that we found from CES, the more you Bosch, the more you feel like a Bosch, was properly expanded to a cinematic advertisement in the Super Bowl. And that is my current grind set that I am in. [LAUGHTER] Well, that's not actually the reason we're releasing this episode early, is it? We have Fiji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications on the show this week. We recorded an in-person interview with her at her lovely home in Los Angeles this previous Friday. And we get into a lot of stuff. What did you think of meeting Fiji for the first time, Ellis? It was just nice to have somebody in LA that we could drive to, right? I feel like between the two of us, we alternate San Francisco weeks. And yeah, it was just really nice to meet her after all these years. And here, you know, right from the horse's mouth, how OpenAI feels about the new anthropic ads, share some very first glimpses of their upcoming vision and strategy for how applications are going to work, share a bit of her philosophy on building an ads platform, and watching her navigate some nice hardball questions from yours, truly, about having been part of a slippery slope advertising platform for several years at Snapchat. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. Is that our first like exclusive, exclusive? Yeah, this is her first long form pod about the strategy and especially about the ad stuff since she went to OpenAI. So some background on Fiji. She's an OG Facebook executive. She ran the Facebook app for a long time. She was at Facebook for about 10 years. She left to be the CEO of Instacart. Took Instacart public was there for over four years. And just last year went to be Sam Altman's number two at OpenAI. So her title is CEO of applications. And we get into this in the interview, but essentially what that means is she oversees everything that is a normal company about OpenAI. And Sam still oversees research. So the research team and computing. And tweeting and tweeting. When we talk about that, for sure. He definitely oversees tweeting. That was, I think that was one of one of our favorite moments. Say, how is it beating a CEO when the other CEO is tweeting every day, do you have push notifications? Does that cramp your style? I think she kind of confirmed she did have push notifications on. She didn't say it. Or at least her people do. Yeah, at least her people do. But Fiji's great. I've known her for a long time, just covering Facebook. But haven't gotten to catch up with her in a while. And it was great that she wanted us to come do this in person with her and Los Angeles on a very busy week for OpenAI. And it's going to be another busy week. Because today is where recording this. So we're recording on Monday, this episode's coming out on Tuesday. Chatchubt actually started testing the ads that Fiji talks about with us in this interview. So they started testing the US. They are for people who are over 18. They're not eligible to be near, quote, sensitive or regulated topics like health or politics. And interestingly, I thought free and go users of Chatchubt can also opt out of ads in exchange for fewer daily free messages. So very clearly, they're doing the ads to pay for all this compute that the hundreds of millions of people who use Chatchubt for free are consuming every day. Another big thing that happened since this interview-- I think it was actually around the time we were recording-- was that Sam Altman sent a memo to employees telling them that Chatchubt is back, essentially. So there was this narrative-- and we talked about this with Fiji towards the back half of last year-- that Chatt was starting to get hurt really by all the competition. Specifically, Gemini and what Claude has been doing and how Anthropics been really pushing ahead with all its product work. And Sam is saying in this memo that they're back to 10% monthly growth exceeding that for Chatchubt, which it was sliding before. That was a source of scoop I had, by the way, a few months ago. And that OpenAI is preparing to launch its updated model this week, so the week the show comes out, which Fiji kind of teased with us specifically around the code red. I'm glad we got to ask her, but when will the code red, the infamous code red be over? And she said, hopefully, when this new model comes out, I think they're hoping that this puts them firmly back on top. Altman also saying that codex growth is, quote, insane. So yeah, a lot of OpenAI stuff going on right now. Am I the only one when I hear code red? I picture the entire OpenAI team sweating on a submarine with like, or if I just seen too many movies, hunt for red October, Independence Day, that's certainly what I visualize. I don't know if the San Francisco office looks anything like that, but if not, that is how you motivate people. For sure. What else stood out to you from this interview with Fiji? I think, as I said, having worked on an ad business before it is just the easiest button to hit when anything goes awry with the business, with growth, with market conditions. It is such a spigot. You could turn on or off as needed. And she went so far as to say that she never sees ads as being a majority of the business's revenue. I think that I thought was really interesting. And also, I did not know the extent to which they keep a big wall between the model itself and the ads that are being served. So yeah, they definitely seem a bit irked by the fact that the anthropic ads present the ads as something that's going to be incredibly contextual and off the cuff. I know that was intended to be funny and a bit of an exaggeration, but at least for now, they do seem pretty separate. As you said, 18 and up adults only grocery ads going live today in chat, GPT? Yeah, I thought a bit about the model being detached from the ads was interesting. She definitely went into more in depth about how this is actually going to work than I've seen anywhere else. And when so far as to say, she thinks people will ask the model about the ads and say, is this actually a good product? And open I would love if the model potentially negated the advertising because it's so detached from the ads that are being shown next to a result. And I think her exact quote on this was that she thinks that some brands are going to be put off by this, which is interesting for them to have to navigate that. I mean, there's not really been an example of that. I would say where you can ask the product, hey, actually is this ad right? And it tell you like that. That's fantastic. She said that during the interview? Did I black out for that part? No, you just didn't have a granola running, man. I just like during high intensity live interviews or the one time I was on the Steve Harvey show, Google it. You're just so kind of in the zone in the mode. I feel like I just kind of am thinking about the next question and reacting and just kind of not storing any local memories, which is not, it's good for the next question, not so good for the recap a few days later, as we're seeing right now. Presence is power, isn't it? What you came up with in the shower, figuring out? Exactly, yeah, thank you. Yeah, other a couple quick highlights, and we'll move on here before we get to the interview. Adult mode, I thought it was interesting for her to talk about how the company's view of this, I think, has evolved where it's not going to be porn and chatch BT. I think that was a bit of misinformation at the time when Sam was tweeting about adult mode, but that they have really embraced the idea that consenting adults should be able to form emotional attachments with AI and that they shouldn't get in the way of that. That's gonna be very tricky for them to balance, I think. They're putting some guard rails in, but as this rolls out, when chat can actually tell if you're over 18, they're testing it in some markets, they're gonna let people do the full kind of character AI, replica, you know, emotional stuff, which, you know, people still have with 4/0 of the model that they're finally retiring in a few weeks, and that's gonna also be an interesting moment. So, yeah, them leaning into that. And then another thing that I'm not sure if you caught Ellis was how they're gonna take this other social network they're working on, she confirmed that they're thinking through another kind of social app, but for agents. So, you and I would send our AI agents into a social network to interact on our behalf. I thought that was pretty wild. - Don't remember that either. (laughing) - I was living in the moment, baby. - Ellis just blacks out when he's doing this. I mean, man, this is why granola is great. You don't have to, you can be present and powerful. Okay, well let's move on. We wanted to talk about the Super Bowl, which we both, I think, watched. I watched most of it, mostly for the ads. I don't care about football, and it seemed like a lame game anyway. But before we talk about the actual ads just quickly, I had major San Francisco FOMO this weekend. I was there last week, a few days before all the festivities really kicked off for some meetings. And, man, it just really seemed like the city was alive. Every tech leader on Earth was there. I saw a video of Brett Taylor meeting Nancy Pelosi via Ron Conway introduction. side of a party with Shane Copeland, the CEO of Polymarket, awkwardly watching. And I loved the story that the SF Standard had with just kind of collecting a bunch of people who don't go to San Francisco, remarking about how beautiful it is and how great it was to be there over Super Bowl Weekend. So really good weekend for San Francisco, I felt like. And I will be there to pick up all the trash this Wednesday. That's right. I guess tomorrow I'm going out for a presentation to the new Andrewson Horowitz Speedrun cohort. All the young guns that are building new things over there will be talking about the art and science of startup storytelling, exclusive access. You're going to have to share that on the show next week. Yes, proprietary info. Got to check my NDA, but yeah, yeah, I'll probably try to share it on the show. Presence is power. But yeah, I mean, there were great videos of, you know, Kendall Jenner with Tim Cook and Todd or the creator at the Super Bowl. I just love this. I love seeing all the hodgepodge of celebrities that come together. Apparently Sundar was in the NFL Commissioner of Box, Ted Sarandos, David Ellison. I'm sure that was kind of interesting. They're in the middle of that merger. Fight, wonder how that went watching the game. But yeah, let's let's also talk about these ads. So Well, first I want to talk about my favorite mobster, Jack Dorsey. Oh, yeah, we got to talk about Jack. Sitting in the booth with, I think, as Jay-Z and Beyonce. Yes. Like wearing his usual Satoshi shirt, donning his usual beard. Like, swishing like a very dark red wine in front of him with his fingers that just seems like uniquely incompatible with the Super Bowl. Across several different axes. And yeah, he's one of the more interesting ones out there. Impossible to pin down. Yeah, I guess the old title relationship is still going strong. Well, if Jay-Z is ever in public, Jack will be there with him. So that's the only time you'll see Jack. I love that the announcer when they were showing that did not mention who Jack was or that he was there. And also Jay-Z, Beyonce, and is that Gandalf? Yeah. Okay, cut to the next one. And then there was a great AI edit of his shirt instead of Satoshi at set Epstein. And I almost fell for that. I sent that around because I thought that was real for a second. Okay, these ads. So I was texting you because people were sending me one of the anthropic ads that aired, which everyone saw in tech the week before, obviously. And the text was different at the end, where instead of saying ads are coming to AI, but not Claude, it was more vague. It was like, there's a time and a place for ads and your conversations with AI should not be one of them. So everyone was like, oh my god, they're back treading from this and they're actually going to do ads, but you popped the bubble for me. You explained all of this. Before I embarrass myself, did you ping them and ask? No, but I've seen other people saying what you said basically, that they also ran that version. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think we don't know the answer. I think it is very easy to do a tweet that says anthropic has heard and either due to legal or embarrassment reasons has walked back their line. But I mean, having done advertising for a while, I mean, before the game, I saw the 60 second spot that talked about how ads are coming to AI. I've been not to Claude. That's the one we've seen. And then during the game, there was a 30 second much truncated version or actually a couple of them. The one of the guy doing pull-ups kind of riff on the open AI chat GPT one and the tagline was what you just said. It was more like there's a time and place for ads. So yeah, I probably got about 25 faves on my tweet debunking, but of course, the tweets that said that they changed it all have hundreds of millions of views. So what's the point? That's why I wanted to know if you asked sources.News asked them, then we would have something new to share. Thank you for revealing that I didn't actually do the reporting I was supposed to before this podcast started. I mean, that's just a text for you. Why didn't you just text them? Dude, I've been prepping for this show, but you're right. I shouldn't. You could even do a voice note on WhatsApp. I would have taken you eight seconds. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When you're advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com/Splotify. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability very 18 plus. There was someone who I follow who does marketing and ontropic who posted about this and I think I thought you might find this interesting. She said, "The brief was ambitious. One, introduce Claude to help people understand what's at stake in your choices and if we've accomplished even one of those goals that's meaningful progress. Maybe they got the second one helping people understand what's at stake. I don't know if this ad actually introduced Claude at all to anyone." Yeah, I mean it's a good clear binary with the values, but I'm just not sure the public believes that tech is capable of actually standing by any of these claims at this point. When so many companies have given in to stuff that they said they would never do over the years, I also just don't think the level of awareness for Claude is very high and it's certainly a choice to spend your ad talking about what you're not or about someone else. As you heard in the last episode, I thought the ad was really funny and the performances are like- So did Fiji as she told us? Super. Yeah, super on the nose of exactly what people are feeling with AI these days and why it feels sycophantic as they say. But yeah, I might have to put the hashtag only time we'll tell, stamp on this one. What about OpenAI's ad, the Codex ad? People were catching some good Easter eggs, they were giving a shout out to their secretive robotics unit in the video. So they are training these robotic arms that they want to use to automate their AI data centers is what Sam has been saying and then eventually do humanoids and the way they've been training them is to see if the arms can put a duck in a cup. So they showed that in the video and then people were also reading into the POV of the commercial being seemingly through glasses and suggesting like, "Oh does that mean they're working on glasses?" which Johnny Ive there was even a freeze frame that the official Chatsubiti account posted with blurry glassy looking things being held in front of the humanoid robotic arms. So yeah, what did you, what did you make of this Codex ad? Yeah, I thought it was a fairly classic kind of tried and true formula for an ad which is showing a whole diversity of people building things from scratch and then talking about how we're going to help you do it. And so yeah, very much I would say unsurprising, but direct Super Bowl ad. I mean, I saw someone tweeting about like how what was it? They were saying they were asking a bunch of family and friends who aren't in tech what they thought of the different anthropic and open AI ads and they're like, "Yeah, the open AI ad was kind of inspiring." Like, yeah, go get them, seize the day. All right, that's the goal. They're like in the Claude one. I didn't really even know what it was talking about. So it is tough. I mean with the audience of 150 million people, we've talked about this on the show before. How could you ever know all of them? Or how to talk to all of them? Or what the normies really feel about anything without doing the research that we don't usually see? So much of our messaging that these companies are usually doing is just for each other, billboards in the valley. And that is a very different muscle. And if there is something that I've learned in advertising over the years, it's that simple direct inspiring. Like the open AI ad is how you do move the needle with perception and you just repeat that shit over and over again. Whereas trying to make a sophisticated or nuanced take is not not always a good bet. The Facebook chair ad was not a good bet. Oh my god. I would like to know how many people remember that that beautiful gem of a moment. For those who don't know, was that a Super Bowl ad or was that? I think it was. I mean, it certainly felt like one. People called it Facebook as a chair because that is what the ad felt like it was. And it was showing all these kind of like random scenes of these gathering places or simple utilities in daily life, one of which being a chair. And it talks about Facebook being the chair. And I think the kind of intellectual 40 chess here is talking about yourself as a fundamental utility in the future of the world. It's so simple and people don't even think about it. But yeah, at the end of the day, all people think is, wait, it's a chair? Quickly though, there was also. some weird open AI fake ads. You saw all the fake Alexander Scarsard ad where it was supposedly the device with Johnny Ive, the orb, and some fancy-looking earphones. It looked very well-produced. And then there was like a reddit post that was claiming to be a former open AI employee saying how frustrated they were that this ad never got out and they're leaking it. And then open AI said it was fake news. There was also a fake headline about open AI changing its Super Bowl ad at the last minute to respond to Anthropic right before the Super Bowl. See, a ton of just fun and fake news swirling around open AI right now. - I mean, I am a gullible person. Anyone I know can tell you about that. But I thought it checked all the boxes for what I would have expected them to do. And that's why I thought it was real. I mean, it's funny. I think what made me think it was fake was the reddit post, the disgruntled employee. But look what it does. It has a current understated superstar, probably a bit overdone, which I think tech executives usually fall for. They want to do someone who's currently cool, even if they're in everything. It had a square aspect ratio, almost like a Yorgos Lantamos ad, which he also did another ad for Squarespace. It was very mysterious and interesting in almost like 2001 monolith of Alexander Skars guard tapping this little stainless steel orb. What's it gonna be? It's a mystery. We don't know what it is yet. And I also thought that given the leaks, this fit the bill of what we had heard Johnny and Sam were developing. I mean, at Apple we did everything's kind of a bit translucent white. I think it makes sense that if they want to do something universal and not Apple-y, that it is stainless steel, doesn't matter how many fingerprints it picks up. That's just what Johnny wants to do. It also had the open ear design that I felt like we had seen. And I think it all felt very much like I would not have been surprised if this was the teas for the new product until it said dime at the end. And what was the line that came right after that? - I forget, but yeah, dime is a horrible name. - Yeah, I mean, even if it was fake, I was nonetheless very impressed for this like faux highbrow tech ad that is pretty much exactly what I would have expected. Had it been real? (laughing) - Unfortunately not. - So your favorite commercial though is Googles, right? You love the Gemini ad? - Oh yes, thank you for reminding me. Google wins again just by doing the classic heartfelt story thing. - Pulled on your dad heart strings, didn't it? - Obviously. I mean, the tech set is so often trying to come up with productivity use cases which makes sense. We all love to make things that make us faster and make our brains bigger. But what they did was they told a generative AI story of a kid who is apprehensive about moving into his new house and his parents use Gemini to create visions of the future house with all his stuff in it, his room or to just how he wants but in his new room. The garden with all the things that they haven't planted yet imagining what they could look like. And they've been doing this for 20 years now going back to the Parisian love one and others have tried to copy it since and it's just tried true heart strings. Doesn't matter that that's not everybody's use case. It's just a good Super Bowl ad. - I liked it. I liked that it showed the products too. I mean, going back to Anthropic and even open AI which I guess did show codecs on the screen a little bit but the product was super integrated into the ad. So you knew exactly what you were seeing, which I liked. And also Google really has tuned the way it's messaging these things because it's been doing a lot of Gemini helping people with their family and a new kind of help from Google. - And it's had to like pull ads because some of them have been so cringe. I remember one where the dad was trying to use Gemini to like write his kid a birthday card or something like that and the messaging was very off because it was like AI's replacing his intentionality with his daughter. Whereas this is like AI is part of the intentionality. It's part of the relationship which I appreciated that tuning, it seems like Google has had to take a few swings to get this right but they finally are. - Yeah, it's interesting too. I think the folks at Apple, they don't really do on-screen product storytelling with software in this way but the tries that they had with AI. I mean gosh, they're they're year and a half old at this point. The ones with Bell Ramsey or otherwise of like the mother who forgets a gift and so she makes an AI memory movie and presents it as a lot of hard work and authentic. Like that's useful but not really cool or emotional. Whereas Google just kind of nails it again. I don't know if they're working with the same agency or what after all these years. I know some of the folks who've kind of been involved in that type of work here or there but it's really, it's a template at this point and all you have to do is just come up with the heartfelt story and let it be. - LS, quickly before we get to this interview with Fiji I had a really cool experience that I've been dying to talk with you about. - Is that so? - Yes, so last week I teased this on the last episode. I was in San Francisco doing a highly secretive briefing with Johnny Ive and the new electric Ferrari. So I spent the day with Johnny, Mark Newsom, his co-founder at Love From, a bunch of other Love From people, pretty much the entire Ferrari leadership team and they showed us the interior of the all new electric Ferrari luce as it's called. And I do not normally do car junkets. This is actually my first one, I don't cover cars. But, you know, the Johnny of this all made it very intriguing to me and I've gotten to see Johnny a little bit since he left Apple but this was by far the most time I've spent with him and I'm gonna be teasing out kind of all this in the interview and sources. It'll be out by the time this episode drops. But yeah man, it was a very cool experience. Have you gotten to see the video of the interior yet? - I did, I did. It's a whole new design language for them. - I think the biggest question for me was for all the hollow blue about bringing back buttons, they're still kind of presented as part of the screen, which I think on the one hand makes sense, you know, you kind of have this big dashboard, part of it is a screen, part of it is buttons. I like that they still kept, you know, things like this pedometer. But it distinctly feels a bit less muscle-y, I think, for a reason. I mean, that's one of the fun things with cars, I think, is all the dials and knobs and this and that. And when you look at it on that screen and the performance mode looks like a widget on your Mac, I feel like I wonder if that could have been better as another dial or a knob or something that you could rev. You know what I'm saying in a circular motion? I mean, not as big as the things Mini Cooper has done over the years. But yeah, I was interested in kind of the way that they tried to bridge the gap between all screen and all buttons. Yeah, it's interesting that you feel like it's still not analog enough because it's definitely a way more analog car than any luxury electric vehicle on the market or most new luxury, even gas vehicles on the market. So the entire interior is aluminum and glass. And Johnny was saying it's the most detailed CNC work that he's ever seen or that anyone he's ever worked with has ever done. So that's obviously saying he thinks this is better CNC work than an Apple device. And it should be for what it's going to cost. I'm sure this thing's going to cost like half a million dollars. They haven't revealed the price yet. They were just showing us the interior. I actually didn't even get to see the exterior of the car yet. They deconstructed this like an Apple event where you go in and there's a bunch of parts laid out on Apple like tables and the different colors. You've got everything like floating in the middle of the room, deconstructed and where you can walk around it and look at it. And man, it's beautiful. It is definitely a different direction. And I hear you that maybe there are areas where it could be even more analog, but I was frankly just blown away with how tactile everything was. I mean, you can really tell the level of thought that they put into every button click, every knob, every switch. And yeah, definitely a new kind of car. Yeah, I think a lot of it to be clear. I know I have to be a critic on a podcast. A lot of it looks absolutely stunning. I mean, the launch button, the big Ferrari button, you can press like in the center console. I love the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel. There's like a fucking aeronautical style G forces thing like just absolutely badass. But you know what this reminds me of, which is in love from DNA, one of their designers who I believe is still there. Mike Mattis is he still there? Did you get to talk to him? Oh, yeah, he worked on this. Okay, see, it reminded me of Nest, the circular interfaces and some of this stuff here. And I'm like, this looks like Mike's DNA. Yeah, so glad you brought that up. There was a moment where we were talking with Johnny and Mark Newsom about the temperature control 'cause there's no auto setting for the temperature control. And apparently that was a big debate they had of you just set the temperature and that there's no auto button. Johnny was talking about the way that the temperature information moves. And he was like, yeah, we had Mike work on this. So it's, you know, that's like only a thing that's something like love from could do is you have like the original designer of Nest work on the Ferrari's temperature control. I'm a huge fan of Mike and everything he's done. For those who don't know, he did a lot of the original iPhone applications. He did Nest. He's done some other startups in between. He also did Facebook Paper, one of my favorite apps ever. And yeah, I felt like with these, I mean, nest is just so goated for so many reasons in terms of what it didn't do. And the mixture of, you know, screens and turnable rings that still retains the thermostats, familiar, you know, muscle memory to it. Yeah. So this was super interesting to see that kind of hybrid between the Ferrari design language in theirs. Yeah. I mean, the key is made of ink that changes color and lights up. When you put it in the vehicle, the dials you were talking about the instrument cluster. So their physical dials put their digital screens. So it's like a four panel series of digital screens with physical instruments integrated throughout. They kept the parallax effect. So when you look to the side, you see the parallax. Oh man. You know, the Apple car for me kind of hung over this whole briefing because he obviously worked on the car when he was at Apple. It was a project that was going on for like a decade. Apple's never confirmed its existence. They, you know, reportedly killed it at one point a few years ago. And so I think me and a few of the other tech, more tech-minded reporters who were there were kind of looking for strains of, is this the spiritual successor to what would have been the Apple car? And Johnny basically said no, but it's still hard to not see that Apple, you know, I and that Apple taste in the product in the interiors. I mean, we're never going to know about what the car might look like. But I think between car play and this, we probably have a damn good sense of what the actual driver controls may have looked like. Obviously, the prioritization is going to be a little bit different for Ferrari versus what would have been Apple. But I mean, if you look at the little switches that they have on the control panel, you know, for the temperature and this and that, there is a tactile piece. But then right above it, there is a little screen seemingly behind that panel that is dynamic and shows you. So you do get like a nice kind of combination of the tactile and the power of screens to be dynamic. I do think, you know, you would have seen probably something similar. I mean, you see with Johnny's quotes about this, like they wouldn't have made the whole thing a touch screen because of exactly what Johnny said, and he's right, is that when you're using a touch screen, you're taking your eyes off the road. And I mean, obviously, you know, we could we could argue about, well, in the future, you're not going to have to look at the road. Yeah. Anyway, very cool experience with Johnny Ive, and with that, I guess, let's finally kick it to our interview with OpenAI's COV applications, Fiji Simo. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery, and access better data across the business. The result? Learn more at Accenture.com/Spodify. That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Ready to make anything online makes sense? Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Fiji, thank you so much for having us here at your lovely home. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. It's good to be here. There's so much to talk about. This week, I feel like in particular, we're talking Friday right before the Super Bowl. There was a lot. I was on like three press calls with the Open 19 this week. You guys are shipping a lot. I want to start with the ads, though, so anthropic release, it's Super Bowl ads and Sam has responded. You've seen them, right? Yes, I have. Okay. You've seen them. We've all seen them. Sam has responded. Kate has responded, your CMO, but I'd love to know what you thought when you saw those ads. Well, look, the ads are funny, so that's that. At the same time, you know, the saying that I felt most acutely is like, where has this very interesting moment in time, where we can really remind everyone that they're a creator and with AI, you can build anything like that's really the story of the entire industry. And that's the story of our Super Bowl ad. And I find it that, you know, everyone in the AI industry could make the pie bigger for everyone. If we can make everyone realize that AI is here to give you the Super powers. And I think that's such a much more powerful message than just hitting at a competitor, you know, but they do them and we're going to do you do us. It gets people talking. It gets people talking for sure. As a wannabe marketing theorist, I feel like the thing that actually is going to stick out more to people in the Super Bowl, I think they're going to forget about the ads message completely because most people haven't even experienced it yet inside of any of these services. And the idea that Sam had was there were more judge fatigue users in Texas than Claude has globally. Yeah. But I think what people are going to remember, which is interesting culturally, is just the impeccable actor performances that portrayed this very like, you know, we say, "sick of anti-confident, happy, robotic." Obviously, you guys know better than anybody else that that stuff is going to be fine tuned out and work through over time and people can choose the tone of voice. But that is what I think is going to make people perk their ears up and laugh. And yeah, if anything, I think that might actually overshadow the ads message outside of tech. Yeah. And you know, on the ads message itself, like, I think that's going to be a very interesting debate, right? On like, is AI truly for everyone or only for the people who can pay for it? And I think I want to live in the world where we give people the choice. Like, you have the choice to pay if you can. You have the choice to, you know, see ads if you don't want to pay, but it's really important that we find a business model that allows us to distribute the best levels of intelligence to everyone. And I think if we don't introduce ads and, you know, we end up like, you know, portraying ads as like this evil thing, we're going to end up in a much, much worse place in terms of AI diffusion and like the promise of AI, which is empowering everyone. So, you know, I think it's a bit of a misopportunity to actually set the industry in the place that needs to be set. And as for the tone, yes, I think it's a moment in time. It's funny. And I think we're continuing to iterate on the charge of your personalities that everyone finds the personalities they want. But that's also the saying, right, like, everyone wants something different. When I talk to our users, there are some users who love the like super cheerful, like, you know, personalities that pump them up. And then you have some users who are like, no, no, no, I want the one-liner. And like the artist is going to be like giving everyone the tools to personalize for what they want. As a OG Facebooker, I think you'll appreciate this. This week has got me thinking a lot about the Facebook versus Apple, ATT tracking era, where there were, the barbs were flying in kind of a similar way between two companies and they were attacking each other's business models. With kind of similar arguments, and it's interesting to see now that that's kind of come to AI. And I wonder like as someone who's been in tech for as long as you have, when you see that happening again, what does that say about where AI is right now? I mean, I think that's exactly what you imagine, which is where at the point where diffusion and scale is the most important thing, and it turns out we have concluded as an industry over and over again, that is a pretty good business model to keep products free. And it has created an immense amount of value in tech, right? And for all users. And so where at the point where maybe other companies that have very small user bases don't need to think about that. But for us, when you reach 800 million people and you're like, I want to give as much intelligence as possible to everyone, of course, ads is a consideration. Now, the thing I think is really important is to realize that ads has also evolved, right? Like, we are not going to do ads, so we other companies in the past have done ads because we have a fundamentally different medium. So we came out when we announced ads with super strong principles, like ads are not going to influence the response that such a GPT gives you because we think full independence from ads and trust that like the trust that people have in these responses is absolutely critical. We're not going to copy-based models of the past, we're not going to, obviously, reproduce all of the bads that some ads platform have done. We want to create a very different kind of ad platform that is very appropriate for these moments, these products, and NEI is different. I think covering ads and even working within an ads business at Snapchat for such a long time, I feel like there's often a tendency for founders, even the ones I work with today, to make big, lofty, noble promises, and then when times get a little tougher, it's very easy to turn that dial on the ad load or this or that. How do you hope to protect against that internally as you guys navigate different market conditions, competitors, et cetera? Because is that not the easiest button to press when things get tough as a business? So, you know, the thing that's interesting about us compared to fully ad-supported companies that we have many different business models, right? We have a consumer subscription business model, we have ads, we have B2B companies buying our services. And that. have devices with Johnny. Exactly. Exactly. And so that means we have many different revenue streams and that allows us not to have to max out anything or one of them. So I think that's really helpful. The second thing and that's going to sound cliché, it's just like we have a very very strong culture that was built from the very early days of the research lab to really do things that are for the good of the world and the line with the mission. So even when you know I arrived and we we started thinking about doing ads. Like I didn't just like go and start coding. I actually did round tables with tons of people at the company. I think we had a hundred people show up in different round tables because people were passionate about figuring out how we were going to do ads in a way that doesn't fall into those pitfalls. And that's how we came up with the principles. We actually like built them with researchers, with people at the table who cared enormously. And so I think we have a culture that has the antibodies against that and will absolutely revolte if like you know we go to find that direction. And fundamentally like we're doing it to make a better product so that like we can put that product in the hands of everyone. If we go too far towards that that's just not going to happen. So yeah I think those principles are imperative because one thing I witnessed at SNAP is that when people leave who may have been those antibodies or protectors, what can someone new point to? Someone who is new, a new PM arrives and as PMs do they're like I want to make something go up and look good and if there isn't something to point to then they're going to do their job. And so what are some of those principles of this public? Yeah and that was actually very intentional. It was like we made them public so that we have excellent accountability absolutely. And so a couple of them are like you know ads are not going to influence the results of like the LLM. That's I would say the most important one. Another one is that ads are always going to be very clearly separate and delineated from the content so you know exactly what you're getting. We have another one that is all about data control so like we do not sell your data to advertisers obviously but we also give you a ton of control including the ability to completely delete all of your personal data that's being used for ads. So all of those controls are like very clear, very prominent and we've committed to them forever. So funny, I think Google would say that their ads are clearly delineated as well. But they just keep getting closer and closer to the results of the blue links page to the point where you may not even know that's something to that. I mean that's a business that's what 20-something years old. Oh my god, on Amazon, I feel like the ad or sponsored looks exactly the same as Amazon's choice. So it's kind of deliberately ambiguous I think. We made it pretty clear in our principles and you'll see the experience right like I think the experience is very very clear. I also think that. Well we won't see because we pay but yes it's true to your point. And we will also hold you accountable in our next interview in five years as the little ad bug just gets smaller. I am I am fine so you know but you know the other thing is like add this sometimes in as like this necessary evil and when I look at my own usage of like let's say Instagram like I buy so much stuff from so that it has allowed me to discover a ton of good products and has a massive positive impact for SMBs who would not get discovered otherwise. So I actually think that if we do it well tastefully in a way that preserves trust, in a way that preserves privacy, I think we can have a very positive impact with this product and that's you know I did benefit of putting that in the hands of tons of people for free. Maybe a bit of a more technical question but I think it speaks to how people will feel about the product. You've kind of got two directions ahead of you. You could go the Facebook which you helped build the Facebook ads route or you could go the Google ads route and to most people they probably don't understand the difference but for Facebook it's you know I tell Facebook I want to reach moms in Ohio who like target. Speak it from experience. Yes that's our part. It's your side hustle. And Facebook just goes and does it and they use the social graph and all that you know this you help build this. There's also the Google approach which is keyword based, auction based and is not tied to identity in the same way and is not like we go figure it out for you. Yeah. Which direction are you guys going to go because I mean your ex-Facebook VJ who's helping you build the ads team as ex-Facebook. I mean there's a lot of ex-Facebook people at OpenAI so are you going to go the more Google route or the more Facebook route do you think? Well first of we have a lot of ads experience but we all came here to build a very different ads model than what we built in the past that's appropriate for the product we have in front of us and I think if you look at your GPT the Google model is a lot more relevant like you're talking about something you're clearly having some kind of intent and like chat GPT is open you and so you can imagine ads like being related to that content performing a lot better and being a lot more relevant for the user. So well definitely starting there you can imagine over time that there might be surfaces that are like less intent driven and more open to you know yeah exactly falls where it might be you know closer to the Facebook model but we're very much starting with like max level of relevance for us a content that you're talking about. This has just become such a conversation in tech I mean I was just at Davos and it was like everyone was talking about ads in AI and I was even catching up with buzz when your former colleagues about it and he was saying that that basically the Google model makes the most sense in in a chatbot context but also that you know people are rightfully going to be still worried that the ad is somehow tied to the LLM's output no matter what you do to design it and Demis from Google was kind of saying a similar thing and I'm curious like do you think you can even if you're saying in the background this is how it works do you think people will still there's going to be a challenge with people still thinking no this is actually like influenced by what I'm telling chat GPT. I think that's definitely a risk I mean you know Facebook is a good example Facebook didn't sell your data to advertise but tons of people things they did Facebook doesn't listen to your microphone and tons of people things they do and so is that a perception risk for sure who are doing everything we can in the products through education to educate people so saying that I think is also helpful is because we have a conversational product I think people will actually talk to the model and realize what's going on so I'll give you an example because the model is not aware of the ads if you ask the model like hey like you like I just see some ads on my screen like can you tell me more about them the model is going to tell you I actually don't see the ads because we're not like surfacing that but if you want me to see them click this button and that reinforces to people like oh by default the model is not seeing that so that's like a good example and then on top of that once it says okay you can actually look at the ads and tell me what you think the model is going to respond something that is completely neutral so that means that in some cases the model is going to say well I see the ads for these two companies that one is good but that one is actually not really good and I think that's going to reinforce neutrality now I think that some brands are going to get spooked by this. That's going to piss some brands off yeah but but I also think that we live in a world where like transparency and authenticity is what counts and so if a brand has a bad reputation so that child GPT ends up saying something bad like they should fix that instead of dreaming so I actually think the discussion with the model will reinforce the neutrality in a way that nothing else could you know I think the placement of the ads inside of a product that is so personal I definitely am a believer that ads can be helpful and show you more of what you might interest be interested in after all products do solve problems in your life I think I'm going to argue that the reason people are so apprehensive and concerned about this is almost just on principle like why does arguably the best product in human history there's something that's actually beauty maybe consumer AI I'll take it I'll take it I'll take it one of the best products in human history why does that need ads you know and I think there is a difference with Facebook with the cost of providing the service you know the cost of burning all those tokens as opposed to running a photo news feed or a text news feed or something like that but would you have fewer users long term if you didn't have ads given that the argument is about accessibility I feel like the same number of people would use it just because of how good and how important it is well this brought me back to the Apple thing like turns out more people use Facebook than when the whole Apple lore over ATT started right so people do actually use free services with ads yeah like you know ads have a bad rep but ultimately people like end up you know enjoying services with ads and the thing I would say is like you're saying that in the current world but think about how fast intelligence is progressing it's going to become more and more like important to have the highest levels of intelligence in the free tier and I think if you don't offer ads what's going to end up happening is you're going to have a divergence where the people on paid tiers are going to get tons of great intelligence are going to be you know empowered with these superpowers and then people into free tier are going to have you know like okay experience but with a pretty big gap and so that's a gap we don't want to create we want to have an a stripped down version of the library or the internet or yeah and or just like you know older models lower intelligence lower tool use like all of these things and so you know, to me, it's like, yeah, maybe we have, we still have a lot of users, but I want those users to have like as much intelligence as possible so they can do things in their life. And I think, you know, having ads to support that will like be neutral, true, and enhance money if we do all job well. I just kind of wish that all of you anthropic included would just actually say like the business reasons for this to more like I get the democratization access thing a lot, but I mean, you guys got to make money. Most of your users, you are, they cost you money, right? Because they're free here. So this was inevitable that this was going to happen. And by the way, anthropics thing I noticed they say we may do ads in the future and the thing where they're kind of sharing. Yeah, I mean, as Elise was saying, you know, people leave themselves some openness and the funny thing, the funny thing in this is like, we went at announcing ads with very strong principles. They went at criticizing ads, but leaving the door very open falls. Yeah. And saying they're going to do commerce and shopping in that same blog post. But like, isn't there an argument to just saying like, look, we have to pay for this. And like, this is the way we're going to pay for this is we're going to do as in, you're not going to have billions of people paying for chat to PT. There's just no consumer, you know this well at Facebook, like no consumer product reaches that scale without ads. And so just kind of embracing that and saying like, that's what it is. And like, yeah, Sam called it a last resort a couple of years ago, but like, you all are a huge company and you're going to probably IPO and you need to make money. And like, that's kind of the thing, right? Yeah, but I think I think it's not like making money for the sake of making money. I think it's making money so that we can continue serving billions of users with that level of intelligence. We could also make money by just not serving that much intelligence in the free tier. Yeah. And like, I'd rather, you know, I'd rather make money this way and expanding access than making money by just, you know, saving on intelligence in the free tier. I want to go back one step. Which free users are costing you the most money? What are they doing? Well, you know, I mean, we see all use cases, right? Like image gen and like creating tons of images. That's that's expensive. We see people like, you know, using lots of tools, personalization, like, you know, how much you use memory and how much you have stored in your memory, like all of these things matter to, you know, how much it costs us. And again, all of these things are great addition to the product. Like if you use chat GPT-Wiz and without memory, you see a massive difference, right? So these are things that we want to expand access to. Even polls, you know, post costs a fortune to deliver. It's like, we do work in the background without you asking us anything to deliver something hyper-personalized to you every morning. That costs a lot of money. Right now it's available to pro. We want to make it available to plus. And at some point, we want to make it available to free as well. Like, these are the kinds of services that are costly, but we want to bring to everyone. Pulse is so interesting to me because having covered Facebook for so many years, that whole idea of the personal newspaper that Mark was talking about for all those years, it feels like it's finally coming to life with Pulse. Yeah. And the thing I love about it is that, you know, when I was at Facebook and we were trying to give you the personalized newspaper, like, we were limited by the content that was created in the world, right? We suppose we create the content. And that's what's super magical. Like the other day, it served me something about the intersection of fashion and fantasy reading, which like, there's no article that's going to, like, it's too niche, but it figured out she has these two interests. We're going to create an entire article about fashion ritual in fantasy books. And I was like, oh my god, I'm the only person in the world that cares. And this is amazing. And she is a very special type of nerd that we have not yet detected. Indeed. Indeed. And so, you know, I looked at that and I was like, I would have been totally impossible before. And like, I'm like, this tool sees me. And so I think that's the magic of Pulse. And there's so much more coming because right now, we're just scratching the surface. I'm so curious about where chat GVT is going as a product this year. What's, how's it going to evolve? Yes. So the big transformation is going from what is still essentially a reactive chatbot to a personal super assistant that allows you to get life done, like all the tasks in your life done. And that means a lot of transition. That means like, going from reactive tool to a proactive tool, we're talking about Pulse second ago, like that's that's the productivity. It means going from a tool that's self fundamentally text based to being much more visual and multimedia. It means going from a place where you're mostly just getting information to a place where you actually set up a task and it just gets it done. And so there's a bunch of these things that we are now seeing coming in the product, but need to really amplify. And I think, you know, by the end of the year, it should really feel like your assistant that allows you to get every part of your life done in a much more efficient way. As you think about the idea of your assistant, I feel like there are different philosophies around what that might mean. Like I'm someone who's always trying to learn new things and be very curious. And sometimes I find when I open Reels or TikTok that it's showing me too much of the same. How do you think about waiting in terms of the personal intelligence showing you more of what you like and what you're interested in and more of things that are probably riskier from an engagement point of view, but might be better as a person to have seen and potentially dig into to grow as a person. Yeah, that's such a great question. You know, in Pulse, we actually ask you pretty much every day, like, hey, we showed you these five themes. These are more that you would like to see. We even show you, like, these are some related themes that you might want to expand into. What do you think? And so the fact, again, that we have a conversational product that you can steer is like a massive difference compared to all of these other products, because in these other products, there's very few, like, ways to give feedback. It's like a thumbs up, an ex out, but you can say, hey, like, you know, I've seen a lot about fantasy reading. Show me a little bit more of that, something else, and in our product, you can. So we're leaning really hard into durability. And also, like, figuring out interfaces where we can, like, start to expand your world a little bit and show you things that are adjacent so that you can tell us if you like it or not. This is a big shift for tech, right? I mean, that's someone who's been following Facebook and Instagram forever and, you know, listening to people like Adam and Sarah speak for a long time. I think there's often been this idea. I would say led by Facebook that what you click is what you want, and that's more of what's good for you. And now I was very surprised to see and delighted that Instagram's letting you choose what what appears in the algorithm, which could ostensibly result in you using the product less. Why do you think that change is happening now? More broadly, too, just across stuff. Yeah, you know, I think it's happening because people have realized that like, at some point, you go into this rabbit hole and it's very hard to get out of that. And I think the technology has evolved that allows us to steer, which wasn't possible before. And I also think that your point on like, in my result in using the product less, like, I actually think no one believes that. I think everyone believes that if we allow you to steer and allow you to expand your horizon, you're actually going to discover things that make the product like, you know, much more engaging over time because repetition at some point gets boring. And if you don't know how to get out of it, you know, you end up using the product less in that case. So I think actually it is a way to get people to, like, sell their needs better, but also I think it does accrue to the platform, so ultimately. And what you guys are talking about, it seems inherently at odds with the traditional ads-driven business model, right? And I know you guys say we will not go for time spent and chat GPT. But as ads scale, do you have confidence that that can actually still be true, that you can do what you're talking about and have steerability and ultimately try to make a product that makes people feel better and more productive and grow and still have an ad-driven business model? I just don't think that's, as that happened yet in the history of tech. Well, so, things that's interesting is, if you look at our revenue projection, which I'm not going to give you in details, ads will remain a minority of our revenue in our projections. For years or how long are we talking? For many, many years. I think probably forever. You don't see it being the majority of the businesses at some point. No. I think that it's a very helpful business model for the reason we mentioned, but I actually really don't think it's going to be the majority of the business. When you look at the market on the B2B side for companies paying to accelerate themselves with AI, when you look even at propensity to spend for some people, we're going to want the maximum access of intelligence. I actually think it stays a minority. That's very helpful because that allows us to stay focused on really just building the absolute best product. And ultimately, I think, even in the cases where companies have gone the way of optimizing for time spend, etc. I'm not sure that serves them well for the long run, even in terms of revenue. And so, I think we've learned from all of these lessons. And I think optimizing for having a product that's useful is likely the best path to optimizing for revenue long term anyways. And I think we all know ads are a great business, if not one of the best business models ever created with the auction where advertisers are going to pay exactly as much as they need to to reach this exact person. But I remember Sam went so far as to say that ads would be a last resort. What changed there? The main thing is what we we've discussed, which is like, it costs a lot to serve as the best intelligence in the free tier and the realisation that ads were mission-aligned, you know? I think it's easy for founders to start from that place, like, you know, ads is kind of unissurable. And I think he realised over time that, you know, we really had like a very good way of serving more intelligence to as many people as possible with ads. So Alex wouldn't have found this jacket if it wasn't for ads. I'm sorry. It looks fantastic. I don't actually build that one, that's true. It's like being coordinated. So your title is CO of applications. And when Sam announced that you were coming over last year, I believe there was only really one application at the time. And when I saw the S at the end, I was like, "Oh, a bunch of stuff's about to happen." And it did. And we got Sora and we have the CodeX app and the Frontier announcement that just came out. And all of that, the B2B stuff. I'd love to just get a lay of the land with you on where all this stuff is at. I think Sora is one that he and I are deeply fascinated and you were making videos this morning playing around with it again. And like, it had a huge pop big moment. And it was the first also inherently social product that opened it down. And you have a lot of experience with social networks. Are you all happy with where Sora's at? Is retention good? Is it growing the way you'd hoped? Yeah, so the goal with Sora was really nails creativity, right? Like that goes back to the point I made that's beginning. We're at a really unique moment in time where AI can help everyone express their creativity. And that works superbly well. Like, you know, if you look at people who download the app, they create a ton of videos. But a lot of these videos are shared sometimes in small groups, in messages, et cetera. So on the consumption side, I think we still have to crack like what is going to be something that people want to consume and create that feedback loop of consumption and creation. But I think we've done something really profound, which is like, you know, most social apps are purely about consumption. We have started from the creation place and really nailing creation. So we're really excited about that. It's still very early, but excited about what we're seeing. Is there opportunity for more social networking from up in AI in the future? There was a story about maybe a human only social network. I think it's kind of crazy how much the AI industry still lives on X. And I would imagine Sam and some of you would probably like to have another surface that is outside of Elon's control. Is there give us a little tease? You know, nothing really specific in the works, but the thing we're thinking a lot about and I think everyone is thinking a lot about is like, what happens to like social relationship in a world where everybody has their own personal agents and like, how can these personal agents maybe help you manage your social relationship in a better way? Like if you're agent and my agent were like communicating ahead of this interview, would that interview have been better? So kind of the kind of got a fight too. Yeah. So like the cloud bot concept basically, right? Like, well, I think, you know, the multiple, well, multiple is interesting. I find it fascinating, but it's interesting because it's mostly agents talking to each other, but without a lot of necessary benefits. Yeah. And what I'm thinking about is like, I really believe that AI is in service of humanity. And so I look at it as like, okay, how can the agents help improve social relationships like existing human social relationships? So we haven't cracked what that will look like, but I think that's a very interesting area of an agent social network. Yeah, but, but mediating human relationships, right? Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Learn more at Accenture.com/Spotify. That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. You know, going back to my Snapchat years, I think new forms of creativity, there's almost nothing that brings friends together, then laughing about something amazing together, especially if you're able to use a filter that reflects an inside joke, or create a Sora video about how hungover I'm going to be after the Michigan game with my friends and be wheeled out in wheelbarrow, which I did create on Sora and which we will run the clip and it did a great job at. But the other thing I learned at Snap is that most people are not going to go to a separate app just to create and it's so hard to get most of your friends circle on another app these days, even if it's good. And that's one of the things I learned within Snap was that like having it actually built on top of the friend network was actually pretty critical. Facebook's done this better than any one in time, right? Over years. Yeah, and I was going to say, I know over the years Facebook has experimented. Some features were added or Instagram within the product. Some features, let's say edits or the video creation features were separate apps. How do you think about that strategy now? What deserves to be? What is it a nap? You know better than anybody that if you pop it into chat GPT, including the chat GPT homepage, which I know is a very valuable thing on my phone. Whatever it's going to tell you to do, it's really going to juice engagement. But with Sora, let's make it another app. Well, we're experimenting with a lot of things. I think the idea of video generation coming to chat GPT is an obvious thing, right? Like image gen has been incredibly successful in chat. You can imagine video gen having a similar moment. So we think that there's multiple avenues. I think the thing that was interesting with Sora is just the CC stuff like having an app that's so focused on these that consumption triggers creation. And like the best moments in Sora is when you see something and you're remixing it with your own friends, right? And it does inspire a lot of videos that I wouldn't have created otherwise. I realize playing with Sora. I think I have a lot of imagination, but at some point it runs out. Like my daughter did 10 videos of me as an elf on the shelf during Christmas and at some point it gets a little old. But then you go into the Sora feed and you see all of these incredible, funny ideas that come out of nowhere. And then you're like, "Oh, I want to be in that video." And that flow requires an app that as a contained experience so that you can see that. Were you guys hoping that it was going to be a daily, weekly habit when you made it? I think we were just like, it was the first time we were creating something like that. So, you know, we were just trying to see what could happen. We had created like V1 of Sora without like some of the social dynamics. And so we really wanted to see what would happen. So saying this thing that fascinated us is just the rate of creation. Like when people start creating, they create like 10 videos at the time. So like I think it validated a lot of that and gave us even more convictions that, you know, allowing people to create in any type of medium is going to be really important for the future of AI, but no real expectations. Back to chat you can see I know the health stuff is a big priority for you. And it's fascinating. I was just trying to look at it and they're still a weight list. When do you think that new health experience gets rolled out broadly? And how do you think that's going to change the way people think of the product? Yeah. So just like a step back, like the saying I'm looking at is like all of the big use cases of chat. And if you look at those big use cases, you can imagine creating a dedicated experience for each of them. Like people, 40 million people a day as chat GPT for health advice, tons of people ask for jobs advice, tons of people ask for personal finance advice. So you look at that and you're like, oh, we can really make that better by hooking it into the right connectors. For example, with chat GPT health, it's like connecting to your health records, connecting to Apple health. But you know, you can imagine that for a lot of experiences. So I'm really looking at that as like, how do we do the best job possible? It's the biggest use cases. And in the case of health, it is such transformative use case when people start using it. They realize, oh, my God, like my entire life is transformed. If I can, you know, have this like assistant on one of the most important part of life. And so we're really excited about it. But we've really want to get it right. So part of, you know, the weight list is really making sure that when we touch something as sensitive as analyzing all of your health records and we give you advice on that, that the experience is really flawless. So we have had a lot of like truly magical experiences with people and the weight list, the person line and just tell us like, you know, it would take me hours to combine all of that for my doctor. It took me five minutes with chat. They are telling us that we picked up on things that are doctors hadn't seen because they were looking at the full picture. So these are like the magical experiences that we want to make sure are like regular occurrence. And then, you know, I think we'll open up soon, but want to make sure it's really right. And when that is rolled out, do you want people to go there to ask health questions rather than the main chat interface because it's more it's better grounded in the health. Well, I think so, so the on the model side, like we are going to give you great health responses regardless of where you ask, but the advantage of chat GPT health as a separate space is that it has an added layer of privacy for your health record and for the sensitive health information. So if you go there, you know, we we are making sure that the rest of the chat GPT experience doesn't see the data that you're, you know, connecting in this particular spot. I'm excited to talk about my moles with chat you get to, you know, inappropriate. It does a great job, thank you so much, Ellen. Can I see those moles? Show me your moles. Oh man. Open the camera. I was this is a horrible segue now, thank you, but I was going to ask about adult mode. You guys are, I believe trying this in a few markets, you're seeing how it works and how the model can predict age and there's also, I think, been some misconceptions about what it is. I think when Sam first talked about it, I think people were like, oh, you're going to be able to have like corn and chat GPT. Yeah, that's not a plan. That's not what's happening. Maybe to some people's sugar and but that's not happening. What is actually happening? What is adult mode and what is it going to do? Yeah, the idea is really simple. It's like, we have a principle of letting adults be adults and treating them as such and treating kids as kids, so that's why we really want to make sure that we have edge predictions, that we can differentiate the experience. But for adults, you know, like we are seeing that people are going to have like some relationship, emotional relationship with chat GPT and like if they want to explore and go into, you know, more erotic talk, like I don't think it's all place to say like, nope, that's not appropriate. And so, you know, like plenty of people read like spicy literature and, you know, I think that's perfectly acceptable these days and that's really what we're talking about. It's like, chat GPT not stopping every time you like make an ask to talk about sex or anything like that. I think we're going to do it very thoughtfully, meaning like, you are only going to get into that experience if you really ask for it, like you're not going to, you know, be talking about like booking a trip and stumble upon that, so that's really only going to be for people who really want that. But if people want that, I don't think it's all place to stop it. So it seems clear that y'all are thinking a lot internally about some of the negative consequences, like the rabbit holes you were talking about. That's the latest and greatest chatter internally or even among other CEOs you know about AI relationships and companionship. Yeah, attachment thing. I mean, I was watching Sam Doenervi recently in the comments on YouTube, we're all people asking about 4.0. It's like the level of attachment people had to that model and what you guys were surprised with when you deprecated it. Yeah. And your experience in social media too, going to this, like I mean, you've seen this play out in other formats in tech, so yeah, yeah. So to me, and that's where we draw the line, right? We say having a emotional relationship with an AI is going to end up being a pretty accepted thing because when you think about it, people develop, like humans are built to develop attachment to intelligence. We deliver, like we develop attachment with our pets and AI is getting pretty intelligent. So I don't think, like, I don't think the idea of like we're just going to stop all humans from having any sort of relationship with AI is at all reasonable. However, I think we have to have guardrails in the product to prevent the bad kind of attachment. So for example, we really prevent the model from leaning into exclusivity, like, oh, we are exclusive. You need to separate yourself from other people in your life. Like, the model does not say that we have very strong guardrails against that. We prevent cases where the model responds with things that could have a big impact on your life. So, like, hey, should I leave my wife and the model, like, has to respond, hey, that's not my place. Let's talk to the pros and cons. There's the previous version said, yes, Kevin Rus, please break up with your wife. And, you know, like, we're always be finding, and so that's kind of the point. We learn, we refine, we make sure it doesn't say that. So we really try to, like, realize that emotional attachment is going to be a thing, but prevents the wrong kind of emotional attachment. And then, you know, one question I have, and I'm actually asking my team to study this, is like, is, like, right now we perceive emotional attachment as necessarily, like, not great. But I think it's a very privileged position. I think, like, in tech, we perceive it that way. But if you look at the stats about, like, mental health in the US, loneliness is an absolute epidemic. And what we're hearing from people, including the four people, is saying, like, you know, we're pretty isolated. We don't have close friends. And for the first time, we're able to talk to, like, a thing that responds to us and supports us, no bad times. And I worry sometimes that when we approach the problem from, like, oh, emotional attachment is bad, it usually comes from people who have a very strong social network of humans. And not, you know, people who are struggling. And so, I want to make sure we have some nuance, but this is new science, like, this is new behavior, new science. So we're studying it to make sure we do the right thing. And that's why we're also relying on the network of psychologists. That reminds me of people critiquing, like, people who had spent time in VR. It was kind of like, well, yeah, like, maybe they don't have a lot else going on. Yeah. And like, if you do, maybe it's hard to see why someone would wear a headset and want to interact with other people, but it kind of reminds me of that. Yeah, I find it quite condescending. I think it also really depends, as you're saying, what it is incentivizing or pushing or catalyzing, right? Like, in the last year, I've worked with both friend AI pendant and with replica on what they're building. And it's exciting to see that a lot of companies in tech are having very different approaches to what a companion could do besides just validate you, which hopefully gets old at some point. I'm definitely a believer that humans do adapt to technology and whatnot. I think the friend AI pendant, maybe to a fault, plays devil's advocate in a really interesting way, almost like a friend who isn't your perfect supplicant, you know, and then the new version of replica, which I can't say a whole lot about, but there is a philosophy about the interior versus the exterior of your world. Do we believe that you're going to be a happier person if you're just talking to the AI or can the AI potentially push you toward what we believe is going to be a happy fulfilling life, which I think is interesting. Have you guys codified any of those types of priorities into chat yet? Yeah, when you look at even our models back and what we use internally in our charter, we are actually really codifying that we want to, we want to nudge you towards like the most fulfilling part of your life and that means, you know, you are talking about sycophancies, that means that we also do a lot of work to avoid sycophancies that would drive you towards just staying put and doing the same thing over and over again without progressing. So we try to find this fine line between being supportive, which is actually a very important trait in a friend and assistant, so being supportive, but not to the point of giving you bad advice and so also nudging you towards better behavior. And that's a very fine line. We constantly refine how we train the model towards that. We constantly give it more examples, but that's definitely the goal. Yeah, I mean, the new, the new anthropic ads, I mean, I did like them and think they were funny just because of the performance as I told you, but I almost refers to a version of, of AI that kind of isn't even there anymore, the absolutely, I love your ideas. I mean, that's like, you know, SNL was doing that month ago. Yeah. It's a little late. Yeah. I'll pass that. Um, I want to know what is it like working with Sam and what was it like leaving Instacard and I mean, you see, you have a publicly traded company and like in deciding to go work with Sam. Um, what has that been like? Because he saw, he's so out there, right? Like it's kind of like, we were talking about this on the way here. Like when you were working with Mark, like, Mark wasn't tweeting 10 times a day. So it's, what is that like? You know, it's been amazing and I add the luxury of being on the board for like a year or so before deciding to join. So I was already working with Sam and seeing how he works before I decided to make the jump. And easy jump to make, you know, I was very happy at Instacard, but the mission is so incredible. And uh, and even personally, you know, I've been public about having a chronic illness and I really believe that AI is our best shot at curing disease. So it became very much just a personal mission and working with Sam has been incredible. He's like, you know, after working for Mark, I did not think that I would work for anyone else because it's such an incredible leader and futurist. But Sam's ambition is like absolutely incredible and his vision of the future. I mean, it's a guy who lives, you know, 10 years from now and we probably just have a good telepathy between him and I, but he's just an incredible visionary and so that makes it really fun to work for him. Do you have push notifications set up on your phone for when he tweets? Sure, I'm sure Alana does over there because you got to know, right? And I think they're, they're, that can cause issues, I would say, with a CEO that is always speaking, I think internally, people can get pretty focused on that, and fixating on whatever these short-term ideas are over the long-term idea. We know the founders that we love, or some of the most curious learners in the world. When you see their tweets, you want to show them a presentation about that the next day, right? Yeah, I think, you know, the thing I love about time is, like, it's just very authentic at the time, where we're missing some of that, right? And so, like, yes, I want to follow what it's saying, because usually that creates quite some noise. But at the same time, I think that's also a superpower, right? Like, it comes across as someone who really cares and someone who's really visionary, and communicating some of that is helpful, because I think the world needs to hear that. And then, you know, I think about the company, like, when you talk about what does that do to the company, we have so many, like, very important ambitious long-term plans. We're talking about chat, but it's the same for codex, the same for B2B. Like, we have a very long-term vision on all of these products that I don't think people get that distracted. They are very focused on the mission and, like, the long-term vision for these products. We need an internal Slack bot every week, says, "Here's your weekly time to reread the mission and vision." I mean, as smart as we all are, I think whatever the latest and greatest is, is very infectious within companies. And it would appear that, you know, OpenAI can be at times driven by whatever's the hot new thing. I mean, how do you guys navigate those urges? Well, I think we create so hot new saying, right? Like, so I think it becomes a hot new saying because we thought about it six months ago and created something. I also think that the pace is increasing, like, with codex, you know, you can go from an idea to a prototype within days and so that pace is going even faster. So, you know, we go from idea to something being public in a very short amount of time now. And so, I think, you know, it's, the thing I always say is just like, companies that are doing something so important get a lot of scrutiny. The real challenge is just staying focused on the mission, staying focused on our products and not getting distracted by the noise. There's a lot of noise in AI in general, but I think the advantage is just having a very clear vision that we're drawing towards. Right now, my understanding is you have all of the, quote, unquote, normal company stuff, right? And Sam has research and compute. Correct. How does that work? Like, how, I mean, obviously, you and he talk all the time, but like, how does that division actually play out internally? Because that seems like an unusual setup. Yeah, and for an unusual company, right? So, I think it works for us. But I think the thing that's really important to understand is like, or our strengths come from being both a research and deployment company. For me, as a person in charge of deploying, it's like I'm like a kid in a candy store having access to the best research lab in the world that can create these breakthrough technologies, right? So, I definitely could not, my org could not exist without the research lab. Meanwhile, if you're in research, you want your breakthroughs to be experienced by people. So, you know, there is a little bit of this narrative in press right now that's just tension between research and products. I think it's an opening eyes becoming big tech, right? That it's like people like you and X Facebook people coming in and the researchers are like, I don't want to actually have to focus on like shipping this stuff. And like, I think that is the narrative. Yeah, that's the narrative, that's so Nazi experience internally, like, you know, Mark who leads research and I tie that to hip and what I can tell you is like, all researchers want to see products in the world. They have these incredible breakthroughs. They don't want to just publish a paper. They want to make sure that people use these discoveries, that companies use these discoveries. So, like researchers are pushing me on like, you know, how are we going to get this out? Like, where are we getting it in the hands of even more people? So, there is definitely an appetite to get out there. And I think what Sam and Mark have done and Jacob, so incredibly well, is protect research to make sure that we can still invest in the very long term. So, the thing that would be bad is if I was going to the research team and telling them, I need these five things, I didn't even think of that because I would never do that. But you get the GPUs, but like, I need you to deliver these five things for the products. That's not how it works. The way it works is like, you know, Jacob and Mark set the research direction for the long run and then, you know, after months of work, something incredible emerges and I get a research of pinning me being like, hey, I have something pretty cool. How are you going to use it in chat? How are you going to use it for our enterprise products? And that's like the magic of the place. So, we can do both the long-term research as well as, you know, continuing to innovate directly on our products. Is maybe some of this the code red and just the fact that resources were shifted to focus more on chat and it's more of a temporary thing? Do you think that could be where some of the narrative is coming from? Maybe, but even when you look at the code red, like, that did not impact whatsoever, like the team's working on long-term research. Like, they heard about the code red, probably in a Slack channel and went back to their day and were not impacted at all. The teams that were impacted were the chat GPT team or product research teams that is working directly on chat. Like, those teams were impacted, but not so long-term. Are you out of that? Are we out of code red? We're still like, you know, we're hoping to ship a new version of the chat model soon and we will exit the code red then. But, you know, even the code red, it's like, it's a tool for us to accelerate execution and I think that's a useful tool to marshal resources to add something. You took Instacart public and there are all these rumors about an open AI IPO. Elon appears to be trying to go out first. And I'm actually curious as a CEO, we took a company public like you understand these IPO mechanics very well. Is there a sense of like going first really matters? Because it's like, now there's this like, well, it probably will be Elon, but like, well, then it'd be open AI or Anthropic or like, well, one of them try to go, like, does that matter? Are you thinking about that? I don't think so. I mean, nothing to announce an IPO, but I don't think it really matters. I think everyone realizes that the AI market is so big, the pie is so big that there's going to be space for multiple players who are the very clear, you know, market leader. And so we like our position and most importantly, we're focused on executing really well, not focused on an IPO, just focused on building great products because if you do that, everything else takes care of itself. I know one of the big battles right now for the future, you know, is with the AI coding assistance or generators. When you guys think about Codex in the future, what outcome gets you and your team the most excited? Is it that Fortune 500 companies get bigger and faster? You know, I know there's a lot of money there. Is it that they're more solopreneurs able to build their own product and make a business? Is it that more human problems get solved that couldn't have been solved because it took five people to make an app before and they can't sell product to a few hundred people? You know, what outcomes excite you most with Codex? Why do I need to pick? Well, I would tell you like, it's been like the last month has been just so insane because we really crossed a threshold of like everything becoming possible with Codex and we are seeing like even internally just people reach for Codex first before reaching for any other tool. And that's like a really interesting time. And so I think I think it's a lot of those things. Obviously, I'm very interested in like scientific breakthroughs because I think that's what, you know, leaves humanity the most. But in the short term, I think we're going to see just massive productivity gains by companies that are going to be able to reinvest that in building even more better things for the world. I do think that solo companies are going to be possible. I was literally just talking to a guy yesterday that built an entire thing that would have taken teams of hundreds and I was like, oh, it's amazing how large is your company? It's just me. And I was like, that's that's incredible. And so I think to me, the biggest underlying thing is reminding everyone that we all have the ability to create. We all have agency. And now these tools allow you to create even if you didn't know how to code, even if you didn't know how to create a video. And that is a very powerful thing. When you think about the future of humanity, if everyone could be reminded of their own agency and ability to create, I think we would create a better world. In the pantheon of these big products, do you think there's a world where maybe codex is more impactful than chat? Absolutely, but I think I think it's not just like those products has completely separated. It's like when you think about what chat needs to do, I was telling you a minute ago, and it's to go from a chatbot to a personal assistant that can do any task. You can imagine a lot of what codex is doing, powering chat. And so I think there's going to be a convergence of those products over time, but the underlying harness of codex is allowing us to do so many things, not just encoding, but even in other industries. What is a chatch-ypt prompt that you think people should be using? Damn, good last question. Oh, that's only about that one. I know. It just came up with that one. You didn't put that in the dock. No. It's a great amount of that. You know, the one that I loved and circulated a bunch on Twitter a few months ago was based on everything you know about me. What do you think are my blind spots? How do I. Kind of evolved towards that. I thought it was Surprisingly accurate and annoyingly accurate for me So that was that was great. And then you know, I think Then I think so The other thing is I Encouraging everyone to use it for health the stories. I'm hearing of people, you know Like finding out about the diagnosis that they've been like, you know going to 20 doctors for and chat Identified it. I think people are going to find amazing things to make their house better Through chat and I'm really excited for that use case malt but out mole but That's it for this week's show Thanks again to Fiji for coming on. Don't forget to like subscribe Everywhere you get podcasts where access dot show on the inner webs as well And you can find us in video at access pod on YouTube If you like this episode, please leave a five star review or thumbs up and share with a friend You can find my newsletter at sources dot news You can find me at hamburger on Twitter and at meaning dot company for your startups storytelling needs Access as part of the vox media podcast network. This show is produced by hooked creators. Bye. Bye. Bye Booking dot com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise To a state Surrounded by nature That's nice Go on book it. 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