OpenAI starts testing ads in ChatGPT!

Product update season? Ad season? AI season? Yes, yes (sadly), and absolutely yes!

Forward thinkers, welcome to another issue of the Neural Frontier!

Today, we’re diving into ads in ChatGPT, Elon Musk’s new vision for his companies, and a particularly shocking (or not?) update from Spotify. 

Here we go!

In a rush? Here's your quick byte: 

😏 OpenAI starts testing ads in ChatGPT!

🚀 Elon Musk unveils Moonbase Alpha.

🧑‍💻 Spotify says its best developers haven’t written code since December!

🎭 AI Reimagines: The Lord of the…

🎯 Everything else you missed this week.  

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week.

😏 OpenAI starts testing ads in ChatGPT!

OpenAI has officially started testing ads inside ChatGPT, marking one of the biggest shifts yet in how the platform makes money. 

The rollout begins in the U.S. and applies only to Free and Go users — a newer low-cost plan priced around $8/month. Anyone on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Education won’t see ads at all.

OpenAI says ads will support broader access to AI — not change how ChatGPT answers questions.

🧠 Ads are coming, but answers stay independent

OpenAI is leaning heavily on trust messaging as it introduces advertising into a tool many people use for work, learning, and personal decisions.

According to the company:

• Ads are clearly labeled and visually separated from responses

• Advertisers never see conversations or personal data

• ChatGPT’s answers aren’t influenced by sponsored content

Instead, ads are matched to context — meaning if someone is discussing recipes, they might see meal-kit promotions or grocery services nearby. Advertisers only receive aggregated performance data like clicks or impressions, not user-level information.

The company is also drawing strict lines around sensitive topics. Ads won’t appear for users under 18 or near discussions involving health, politics, or mental health.

💸 Why OpenAI is introducing advertising now

The move reflects a growing reality: AI infrastructure is expensive, and ChatGPT’s usage continues to explode. OpenAI says ads are meant to help fund faster models and maintain access to powerful features for people who don’t want to pay higher subscription fees.

It’s part of a broader monetization strategy that now includes:

• Paid consumer subscriptions

• Team and enterprise plans

• Usage-based APIs

• And now, advertising for lower tiers

If users prefer an ad-free experience, OpenAI’s pitch is simple: upgrade to a paid plan or opt out of ads in the free tier with reduced usage limits.

🎭 Rivalry heats up as competitors take shots

The launch didn’t happen quietly. Anthropic ran Super Bowl commercials mocking the idea of AI ads, portraying awkward chatbot experiences interrupted by poorly targeted sponsorships.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed back hard, calling the criticism “dishonest” and defending the company’s approach as privacy-focused and user-first.

Still, the rollout shows how sensitive the topic is. Previous tests of app suggestions that resembled ads triggered backlash. As such, OpenAI will need to carefully balance monetization with user trust.

🚀 Elon Musk unveils Moonbase Alpha.

After merging SpaceX and xAI, Elon Musk is reframing the company’s long-term story — and this time, the destination isn’t Mars. It’s the Moon.

In a recent all-hands presentation, Musk pitched an ambitious concept: building AI infrastructure in orbit and eventually on the Moon, where massive computing systems could be manufactured and launched deeper into space. 

The idea — jokingly dubbed “Moonbase Alpha” — is less about near-term engineering and more about redefining what the combined company stands for as it heads toward a potential IPO.

🚀 From Mars dreams to Moon infrastructure

For years, Mars colonization served as SpaceX’s rallying narrative — a vision that attracted talent and framed the company’s ambitions beyond government contracts. But with commercial realities reshaping priorities, the story is evolving.

Instead of a multi-planetary settlement, Musk is now talking about:

• Orbital AI data centers as the first practical overlap between SpaceX and xAI

• Future lunar manufacturing hubs building massive “space computers”

• Mass drivers (essentially giant launch systems) firing AI satellites into deep space

The shift reflects a broader pivot: away from speculative colonization timelines and toward a narrative centered on energy, compute, and AI scale — inspired by concepts like the Kardashev Scale, which imagines civilizations progressing by harnessing ever-greater amounts of energy.

⚡ Why AI changes the space narrative

The merger of SpaceX and xAI gives Musk a new framing device. Instead of rockets enabling human settlement, rockets become a way to unlock enormous computational power.

The logic goes like this: as AI models grow more demanding, Earth-based infrastructure may struggle with energy and cooling constraints. Space-based systems — whether orbital data centers or eventually lunar manufacturing — could theoretically provide access to vast solar energy resources.

Right now, that’s more long-term vision than concrete roadmap. Experts suggest orbital infrastructure might become plausible in the 2030s, but building self-sustaining lunar factories would require dramatic cost reductions in launch and space manufacturing that don’t yet exist.

Still, the narrative matters. Musk has long used bold, science-fiction-style goals as recruitment and investor magnets, and Moonbase Alpha appears to be the next chapter.

📉 The business reality behind the vision

Part of the pivot may also reflect economic pressures. Mars missions never generated significant paying customers, while Starship has increasingly focused on:

• Launching satellites for the Starlink network

• NASA lunar landing contracts worth billions

Integrating xAI adds a new commercial angle: AI infrastructure and data centers could become a revenue layer alongside space services. 

Some analysts see it as an attempt to position SpaceX as a vertically integrated “infrastructure platform” — spanning launch, connectivity, and AI compute.

🧑‍💻 Spotify says its best developers haven’t written code since December!

During its latest earnings call, co-CEO Gustav Söderström revealed that some of the company’s best engineers haven’t manually written code in months — because AI is doing most of the heavy lifting.

That doesn’t mean engineers disappeared. Instead, their role is shifting toward directing, reviewing, and deploying AI-generated work rather than typing out every line themselves.

🤖 How AI is changing Spotify’s engineering workflow

At the center of this shift is an internal system called “Honk.” It combines generative AI — including Claude Code — with automated deployment workflows, turning development into something closer to orchestration than traditional coding.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Engineers can trigger bug fixes or new features directly from Slack — even on a phone

• AI generates and deploys updates remotely in real time

• A new app build can be pushed back to the engineer before they even reach the office

Spotify says this approach dramatically accelerated development velocity, helping the company ship 50+ product updates in 2025, including AI-powered Prompted Playlists, Page Match for audiobooks, and About This Song.

🚀 Why this matters beyond Spotify

The bigger takeaway is a shift in what “coding” means.

Instead of writing syntax, engineers are increasingly:

• Designing systems and workflows

• Reviewing AI outputs

• Guiding product direction and quality

Spotify framed this moment as an early inflection point, suggesting AI-assisted development isn’t the endpoint — it’s just the start of a new software era.

🎼 Data is Spotify’s long-term AI moat

Alongside automation, Spotify emphasized another strategic advantage: its proprietary music data.

Unlike general web content that LLMs can easily absorb, music preferences are deeply subjective and culturally shaped. The company argues that datasets around listening behavior — like regional workout music trends — are uniquely valuable because there isn’t one “correct” answer.

That insight feeds directly into Spotify’s AI models, helping them personalize recommendations in ways competitors may struggle to replicate.

🎯 Everything else you missed this week.

🅿️ Pinterest claims it gets more search volume than ChatGPT.

💸 Anthropic raises $30B in Series G.

🚶 OpenAI disbands mission alignment team.

🤖 Threads rolls out “Dear Algo” feature to help users personalize their feeds.

💰 Runway raises $315M at $5.3B valuation.

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week. 

1. 🛍️ Genstore is an AI-powered e-commerce platform that launches fully structured online stores in minutes with automated product pages, dropshipping integration, multi-channel selling across TikTok and Amazon, and a team of specialized AI agents handling campaigns, support, and analytics.

2. 🎙️ Lemon is a Mac AI agent that converts voice commands into completed tasks across any app, enabling users to reply to messages, research, draft documents, and delegate work without switching tabs or lifting their hands from the keyboard.

3. 📅 Workmate is an AI scheduling assistant that handles all meeting coordination by email CC, automatically offering availability, sending follow-ups, resolving calendar conflicts, and integrating with Google, Microsoft, Slack, and SMS around the clock.

Wrapping up…

Ads enter ChatGPT, space gets an AI rebrand, and coding continues its quiet identity shift. Just another week in AI.

We’ll keep watching the moves, connecting the dots, and bringing you what actually matters — without the noise.

What do you say? Same time next week? 👋