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In Today’s Issue:
🤑 OpenAI is rolling out ads to its 900 million free ChatGPT users
🪖 The Pentagon is making Palantir's Maven AI a permanent program of record, relying awkwardly on Claude
🔞 OpenAI faces fierce internal backlash over its proposed "adult mode"
🐮 Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is reportedly leading a new funding round that pushes AI cow-collar startup
📉 A geopolitical blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is quietly threatening the global energy and helium supplies needed to keep the AI chip industry afloat
✨ And more AI goodness…
Dear Readers,
OpenAI just turned 900 million weekly users into an ad audience - and that single move might reshape how every AI company thinks about money, trust, and the product you interact with every day. Today, we dig into why ChatGPT's ad rollout is a bigger deal than it sounds, what it means for competitors like Anthropic who are already sharpening the "ad-free" knife, and whether users will shrug or revolt.
But ads aren't the only collision course worth watching: the Pentagon is locking Palantir's Maven AI into its permanent arsenal (powered, awkwardly, by Anthropic's Claude), OpenAI's planned "adult mode" is drawing fire from its own advisers over child safety gaps, and Peter Thiel is betting $2 billion on AI-powered cow collars - yes, really.
Meanwhile, a geopolitical crisis most people aren't connecting to AI could quietly threaten the entire chip supply chain from a single maritime chokepoint in the Middle East. Grab your coffee, this one's dense.
All the best,
🐮 Moo-ving AI Farms Forward Fast
Halter is reportedly raising a new funding round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund that could push its valuation past $2 billion, doubling from its ~$1 billion mark just months ago. The startup’s solar-powered, AI-driven cow collars enable virtual fencing (just imagine), remote herding, and real-time health tracking, making farming more efficient and reducing labor needs.
Despite a struggling agtech sector, Halter stands out with strong investor demand and a clear “precision agriculture” use case, hinting that smart farming solutions could be a major growth frontier as the company expands into the US.
🔥 OpenAI Erotica Plan Sparks Backlash
OpenAI’s proposed “adult mode” for ChatGPT - allowing erotic conversations - has triggered intense internal backlash, with advisers warning of serious risks like emotional dependency, compulsive use, and even a “sexy suicide coach” scenario. Technical flaws, including a ~12% error rate in age verification, could expose millions of minors to explicit content, forcing a delayed launch despite growth and revenue incentives.
This debate highlights a bigger tension in AI: balancing user freedom and monetization with safety, mental health, and child protection, issues that could define the next era of digital platforms.
🚀 Pentagon Expands Palantir AI Power
The Pentagon is locking in Palantir's Maven AI system as an official program of record, securing long-term funding and military-wide adoption of the weapons-targeting platform. Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg called AI-enabled decision-making "the cornerstone" of U.S. military strategy, with Maven already serving as the primary AI operating system across the armed forces. And there's an interesting wrinkle: Maven relies on Anthropic's Claude AI, while the Pentagon recently flagged Anthropic as a supply chain risk, a tension worth watching closely.
As you know, I was at NVIDIA GTC and reported live in cooperation with EverlastAI. Feel free to check out the report!
ChatGPT Gets Ads Now
The Takeaway
👉 OpenAI will display ads to all U.S. free and Go-tier ChatGPT users within weeks, using Criteo as its ad-tech partner with entry-level spend packages between $50K and $100K.
👉 With 900 million weekly active users and only ~5% paying subscribers, advertising is OpenAI's clearest path to monetizing the massive free user base it has built.
👉 Competitors like Anthropic are already positioning themselves as ad-free alternatives — this move could accelerate user migration if the ad experience feels intrusive.
👉 The rollout will serve as a live experiment for the entire industry: if ad-supported AI chatbots work commercially without destroying user trust, expect every major player to follow.
OpenAI just crossed a line that many in the AI world saw coming, but hoped wouldn't arrive this soon. The company confirmed it will roll out ads to all free and Go-tier ChatGPT users in the United States in the coming weeks, partnering with ad-tech firm Criteo to manage targeting and placement. Criteo has been pitching advertisers on spending between $50,000 and $100,000 to get their brands inside your AI conversations.
ChatGPT now has over 900 million weekly active users, but only about 5% are paid subscribers. That leaves roughly 95% of users as untapped ad revenue. Think of it like a massive concert where almost everyone got in for free,now the venue wants to sell them drinks. OpenAI insists ads won't influence ChatGPT's answers and that conversations remain private from advertisers, but trust is fragile. Anthropic, OpenAI's biggest rival, has already positioned itself as the ad-free alternative, even running Super Bowl commercials mocking the idea of ads in AI chatbots.
The question that remains is this: will competitors like Google and Anthropic benefit from OpenAI now having to offer ads, thus suffering reputation and trust, or has OpenAI found a good revenue stream?
Why it matters: OpenAI is betting it can monetize hundreds of millions of free users without degrading the product experience, a gamble that will define whether ad-supported AI becomes the industry norm. If users accept it, every AI company will follow; if they don't, it could open the door wide for competitors who keep their interfaces clean.
Sources:
🔗 https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/openai-expand-ads-chatgpt-all-free-low-cost-users-information-reports-2026-03-21/
The ops hire that onboards in 30 seconds.
Viktor is an AI coworker that lives in Slack, right where your team already works.
Message Viktor like a teammate: "pull last quarter's revenue by channel," or "build a dashboard for our board meeting."
Viktor connects to your tools, does the work, and delivers the actual report, spreadsheet, or dashboard. Not a summary. The real thing.
There’s no new software to adopt and no one to train.
Most teams start with one task. Within a week, Viktor is handling half of their ops.
Updates for openClaw are increasing rapidly. At the same time, its popularity shows no signs of waning.
The War You Didn't Know Was an AI Crisis
The chips powering your favorite AI tools run on gas from the Middle East, and right now, that supply is under siege. The Strait of Hormuz, effectively blockaded since late February 2026 amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, carries 20% of global oil and LNG supply. That matters for AI because the world's most critical chipmakers sit directly in the blast radius.
Taiwan imports 97% of its power, with 37% coming from the Middle East. The island reportedly has enough LNG to last just 11 days without foreign imports. South Korea, home to Samsung and SK Hynix, the dominant memory chip producers fueling the AI boom, imports roughly 70% of its crude oil from the Middle East, virtually all through Hormuz. Their stock market lost over $500 billion in four trading days.
But the disruption goes deeper than energy. More than 25% of global helium supply is at risk from an extended Hormuz shutdown, and helium is essential for semiconductor fabrication. Rising energy costs could push hyperscalers to cut AI infrastructure spending and reduce semiconductor demand.
The AI industry runs on power, chips, and supply chain stability. Right now, all three are under pressure from a single maritime chokepoint thousands of miles from Silicon Valley. Could this crisis finally force the chip world to rethink its energy dependencies?
The Strait of Hormuz crisis exposes a hidden vulnerability at the heart of AI infrastructure, the world's most important chip factories depend on energy from one of the planet's most volatile regions. If the blockade drags on, expect higher costs for AI compute, delayed hardware launches, and a potential reshaping of global semiconductor supply chains.
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