You should offer at least a shred of evidence when making accusations like this.

[delayed]

Right now it's either ChatGPT ads or gaming search data to try and end up in AI overviews.

This is not different from standard SEO. You adjust the page to be more likely to select in the results. That's not the same thing as that LLM providers injecting explicit ads or steering results.

C'mon. It is almost like we haven't lived this in everything else (search, social, ...).

Oh, I agree that is probably BS right now, but when the bias is hidden in the weights, you’re never going to find it.

Just wait for “$1000/mo for a 10% chance your product is mentioned in the AI summary for an auto parts search”.

[delayed]

Baking ads right into the weights would be extra evil, so they will probably do it. But, also, it would take me probably 10 minutes to write a skill to, say, call an API to retrieve advertising instructions and incorporate them into the output.

It's not an accusation, but a very reasonable supposition.

What is an alternative monetization method for Google Search if not that?

A couple that I can think of are: banner ads, sponsored results, subscriptions

Ok so the same old ads and subs. So as usual I expect the ads to be interwoven in the valid results inline with the last 20 years or so.

They could innovate and let people buy unobtrusive ads triggered by keywords. Crazy, but it just might work.

Nah, the more obtrusive an ad is, the more profit the advertiser makes.

Google is a company that is famous for its advertising business. It would be foolhardy to require proof that they are advertising. If they are not already doing it, it is highly highly likely that there are several teams working on it.

“…seems reasonably likely.”

I don’t think the burden of proof for seeming reasonably likely is terribly high. That it sounds very much like something they’d do seems sufficient.