The Salesperson in Your Head
Your AI assistant now takes ads and handles your wallet. One of these pays for the other.
In May 2024, Sam Altman called advertising “uniquely unsettling.” A last resort. On January 16, 2026, OpenAI announced it would begin testing ads inside ChatGPT. Twenty months from existential discomfort to premium pricing. The arc makes Google’s two-decade slide from “Don’t be evil” to algorithmic grifting look almost poignant in its restraint. At leas…
