I don't think it's related to AI, at least not originally. To me this is about the slow death of display advertising. The arms race of ad blockers and ad blocker blockers and such has created a world where people hate display ads, especially because they require so much creepy data to even work in the first place.

AI probably would help their display ad business overall -- they finally just launched a "have Gemini create your ad!" feature, and I imagine having to hire a designer was a common blocker for SMBs.

> To me this is about the slow death of display advertising.

That's good. I hate ads. I will fight them down until they are gone.

But I don't think this is the case here. Ads are still pushed down onto the people willy-nilly style.