Future Tense

Future Tense

Research Notes: The Salesperson in Your Head

A Z Mackay's avatar
A Z Mackay
Feb 10, 2026
∙ Paid

Sam Altman called advertising a “last resort” for OpenAI. Eight months later, OpenAI announced it would begin testing ads inside ChatGPT. That reversal is worth noticing, but what grabbed me was a bigger, structural question: what happens to a tool when it starts getting paid by someone other than you?

The Research Trail

The trail started with the January…

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