Hi Reader,

ChatGPT knows your questions, fears, and half-formed ideas.

The career doubts you'd never say out loud. That weird rash you asked it about. The things you don't speak aloud.

And now they're selling ads against it.

The "Last Resort" That Took 15 Months

Sam Altman, October 2024:
"Ads are like a last resort for us as a business model."

Sam Altman, January 2026:
"We are starting to test ads in ChatGPT."

Fifteen months from "last resort" to reality.

Yikes.

I'm not here to pile on. OpenAI isn't evil. This stuff is just expensive. They burned $8 billion in 2025 alone. And when users won't pay enough to cover costs, we become the product.

Google figured this out decades ago. Social media runs on it.

But here's what makes this different:

The Incentive Problem

Ad-supported AI can't fully serve you while also serving advertisers.

The incentives point in different directions.

Google optimizes for clicks, not answers. Social media optimizes for engagement, not wellbeing. Ad-supported AI will optimize for... what? Keeping you in the chat longer? Surfacing products when you're vulnerable?

I genuinely don't know yet. But the pattern is clear.

When you're the product, the tool serves someone else.

Here's What I'd Do

1. Pay for your AI tools.

If you're not paying, you're the product. The $20/month is worth knowing the tool works for you, not advertisers.

2. Choose tools with aligned incentives.

Claude's business model is simple: be useful enough that you pay. That's an incentive I can trust. The tool gets better when it serves me better. Not when it keeps me scrolling or surfaces the right ad at the right moment.

3. Keep your AI brain portable.

Your prompts. Your context. Your workflows. No single tool should own them.

I put together a free guide on exporting your ChatGPT data and setting up a portable workflow. Same system I use with clients: go.dancumberlandlabs.com/migrate​

The Deeper Truth

This isn't about ChatGPT vs Claude. It's about choosing tools that serve you instead of tools that serve advertisers.

For individuals, that means awareness and portability.

For teams, the stakes are higher.

Your institutional knowledge. Your workflows. Your competitive advantage. The moment that lives inside a platform that now serves advertisers, you've handed them leverage you can't get back.

The AI that knows your business best should work for your business. Not against it.

If you're leading a team and want to build a unified AI experience that actually serves your company, let's talk.

Keep building,

-Dan