>>> Roche Obesity data Numbers - First comments

The data released by Roche on January 27, 2026, for CT-388 is considered exceptionally strong and positions the drug as a top-tier contender in the "weight loss wars."

The 22.5% weight loss at 48 weeks isn't just a "good" number—it is a "best-in-class" signal that suggests Roche could break the current duopoly held by Eli Lilly (Zepbound) and Novo Nordisk (Wegovy).

1. Comparison vs. Competition
CT-388 is a dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist, the same mechanism as Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. However, the Phase II data suggests it may have a slight edge in speed or total efficacy.
Drug Mechanism Avg. Weight Loss Duration Context
Roche CT-388 GLP-1 / GIP 22.5% 48 Weeks Phase II (latest data)
Lilly Zepbound GLP-1 / GIP 20.9% 72 Weeks Phase III (SURMOUNT-1)
Novo Wegovy GLP-1 14.9% 68 Weeks Phase III (STEP-1)
Lilly Retatrutide GLP-1 / GIP / GCG 24.2% 48 Weeks Phase II (the "triple G" bar)
The Verdict: Roche is outperforming Wegovy significantly and is matching or slightly exceeding Zepbound’s efficacy in a shorter timeframe (48 weeks vs. 72 weeks). It only trails Eli Lilly's "triple agonist" Retatrutide, which remains the highest bar in the industry.

2. Why this data is "Better than Good"
Three specific metrics from the announcement are particularly bullish for Roche:
  • No Plateau: Roche noted that the weight loss curve had not reached a plateau at 48 weeks. This implies that if the trial continued to 72 or 80 weeks, the total weight loss could potentially climb toward 25-27%.
  • Resolution of Obesity: 54% of patients on the high dose achieved a BMI < 30. Effectively, over half the participants were "no longer obese" by the end of the study.
  • Pre-Diabetic Reversal: 73% of pre-diabetic patients returned to normal blood sugar levels. This makes CT-388 a potent "metabolic" drug, not just a weight loss tool, which is critical for insurance coverage.

3. Expectations & Safety
  • Expectations: Analysts were looking for anything above 18-20% to consider Roche a serious player. Hitting 22.5% (placebo-adjusted) exceeded the upper end of most "bull case" scenarios.
  • Safety Profile: The discontinuation rate (5.9%) is relatively low and "consistent with the class." In these drugs, the main hurdle is whether people can handle the nausea and vomiting (GI issues). Roche’s data suggests their titration (dose-ramping) schedule is working well enough to keep patients on the drug.
4. The "Biased Signaling" Factor
Roche claims CT-388 uses "biased signaling," which is a fancy way of saying the drug stays on the receptor longer without being internalized by the cell. Theoretically, this allows for lower doses to achieve higher results with potentially fewer side effects. The Phase II data validates that this theory is translating into real-world results.

Summary Table: Strategic Outlook
  • Speed to Market: Phase III starts Q1 2026. This puts a launch around 2028-2029.
  • Market Position: Likely a "Top 3" player alongside Lilly and Novo.
  • Commercial Potential: Peak sales estimates are being revised upward, often exceeding $3–4 billion.
Would you like me to compare these results to Roche's other obesity candidate (the oral pill CT-996) to see how their full portfolio looks?

FT : Football regulator vows to look ‘very closely’ at debt-funded takeovers

Football regulator vows to look ‘very closely’ at debt-funded takeovers
Watchdog is seeking financial information from clubs for its first ‘state of the game’ report, due next year

The head of English football’s new regulator has raised the prospect of making it harder for investors to use debt to fund club takeovers, a practice that has previously lumbered teams — including Manchester United — with years of costly interest payments.

The Independent Football Regulator last week outlined what financial information it intends to seek from clubs and leagues in order to produce its first “state of the game” report, due next year. The results of that report — billed as the “most in-depth assessment of the football industry ever conducted” — will then be used to inform policy at the new supervisory body.

Richard Monks, chief executive of the new body, said that there was no desire to stop owners from investing in their teams and that increasing financial sustainability did not mean aspiring to “the stability of a graveyard”. Clubs would not be expected to break even, he added.

However, one area of concern was the way debt has been used to fund takeovers, which can then stretch a club’s already fragile finances.

“We want clubs and owners to have ambitions and dreams. We’re not risk averse. That’s what makes English football so special and that’s what fans want”, said Monks, who previously worked at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

“But at the same time, we don’t want the future of clubs to be gambled away. And I think because of that, we would look very, very closely at highly leveraged buyouts, for example.”


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The IFR will have the power to block takeovers if it deems the funding behind them to be insufficient. Monks said that the regulator would look at every club and every takeover on a case-by-case basis rather than introduce blanket rules on borrowing.

“Something we would strongly consider is whether highly leveraged buyouts have any place in football. I suspect they don’t,” said Monks.  

Debt-fuelled takeovers have been a controversial topic in football since the Glazer family acquired United through a leveraged buyout in 2005. The club has since paid more than £1bn in interest and debt payments.

In 2023, the Premier League set a limit for how much debt could be used to fund a club takeover, while many US sport leagues have strict controls on how much any team can borrow.

A report by BDO last week highlighted some of the financial challenges facing the game. The accounting firm found that 90 per cent of English clubs expect to record pre-tax losses this year, and so need further injections of capital from their owners.

Monks said that clubs’ reliance on shareholder funding had left many “on the precipice” financially.

“Owner investment provides great benefits to English football,” he said. “But at the same time, if owner funding is suddenly withdrawn, clubs face immediate financial crisis. So we have to examine liquidity, we have to examine solvency, we have to examine business models.”

Several clubs have fallen into distress after their owners stopped providing the funds needed to cover losses. Sheffield Wednesday, one of the oldest teams in English football, fell into administration late last year after its Thai owner stopped putting money into the club.

FT : Big Tech’s borrowing spree raises fears of AI risks in US bond market

Big Tech’s borrowing spree raises fears of AI risks in US bond market
So-called hyperscalers set to dominate US investment-grade corporate credit

Big Tech companies are on track to dominate borrowing in the US bond market, in a shift that could expose some of the world’s safest securities to greater risk from artificial intelligence.

By 2030, half of the 10 largest borrowers in the US investment-grade corporate bond market will be so-called hyperscalers — companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle that are building colossal data centres — according to Apollo Global Management.

Until now, the major borrowers in the league table have mostly been big banks and telecom companies, meaning that credit investors are largely insulated from shocks in the tech-dominated stock market.

Investors have grown increasingly concerned that the gap between runaway capital expenditure on AI and the returns it generates could amount to a bubble that ultimately hits both equities and the credit market.

Market participants also worry that AI exposure is greater than it might at first appear because the investment boom has also boosted demand in associated sectors such as utilities and industrials.

“What appears diversified across issuers and sectors increasingly represents a single macro trade on AI,” Apollo analysts wrote in the firm’s 2026 credit outlook report.

Morgan Stanley estimates that hyperscalers and their adjacent companies will raise $400bn from the US high-grade market in 2026, a dramatic increase from $170bn last year and just $44bn in 2024.


By contrast, banks are likely to borrow less because of regulatory changes that allow them to hold less capital on their balance sheets.

JP Morgan says the AI and data centre-related sector now makes up 14.5 per cent of the JPMorgan US Liquid Index — a benchmark for the nearly $10tn US investment-grade bond market — bigger than the share accounted for by banks.

While the bank has only tracked the sector since last year, it is growing quickly and JPMorgan forecasts it could account for more than a fifth of the index by 2030.

Lauren Wagandt, a portfolio manager at T Rowe Price, added that hyperscalers’ rapid AI expansion could increase volatility in the previously sleepy high-grade bond market.

“It’s probably a bad thing if we’re more correlated to equity and becoming less of a diversifier than in the past,” she said.

The surge in AI-related bond issuance has already pushed up borrowing costs for the most indebted companies.

Oracle’s credit spread — the premium investors demand to hold its bonds relative to US Treasuries — jumped more than 0.75 percentage points after it borrowed $18bn from the bond market in September, according to S&P Global data.

“If [hyperscalers] have to borrow $10bn every quarter for the rest of the year, how is the market going to react?” said Dominique Toublan, head of US credit strategy at Barclays, which has an underweight stance on the US tech sector.

But Nathaniel Rosenbaum, strategist on the US high-grade credit team at JPMorgan, said that the hyperscalers’ strong credit ratings made the surge in issuance “a net positive for ratings in the investment-grade universe”.

Cash-rich companies such as Alphabet and Meta still have plenty of room to increase their borrowing without harming their credit ratings, added John Lloyd, global head of multi-sector credit at Janus Henderson Investors.

“If AI blows up, it will be bad for their equity, but their credit would likely still be very solid,” Lloyd said

FT : Israel to seek new security deal from US, official says

Israel to seek new security deal from US, official says
Billions of dollars at stake as Israeli military looks to wean off aid from Washington

Israel is readying for talks with the Trump administration over a new 10-year security deal, with the aim of extending US military support even as Israeli leaders prepare for a future without billions of dollars of American cash grants.

Israel’s current 10-year “Memorandum of Understanding” with the US, under which Israel has received $3.8bn annually, is set to expire in 2028, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he wants US military aid to “taper off” in the coming decade.

Gil Pinchas, speaking to the FT before stepping down as chief financial adviser to Israel’s military and defence ministry, said Israel would seek to prioritise joint military and defence projects over cash handouts in talks he expects to take place in the coming weeks.

“The partnership is more important than just the net financial issue in this context . . . there are a lot of things that are equal to money,” he said, in the first public comments by an Israeli defence official about the expected negotiations. “The view of this needs to be wider.”

Pinchas said pure financial support — or “free money” — worth $3.3bn per year, which Israel can use to purchase US weapons, was “one component of the MOU [that] could decrease gradually”.

But the MOU also includes $500mn annually earmarked for joint projects such as the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, air-defence systems that protect against rockets, drones and missiles.

The brigadier general said Israel would seek to discuss current and future joint development projects for military systems that could continue on an ad hoc basis, and not necessarily as part of a new decade-long deal agreed in advance.

“You put money and they put money and you both win,” he said. “We need to see what the American side says.”

Pinchas also referred to US air defence systems and fighter jets deployed across the Middle East to defend Israel from Iranian missiles and drones, as well as the US B-2 bombers that dropped bombs on Iranian nuclear sites last June, as examples of American aid beyond the MOU that were worth “many billions more”.

Since Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack from Gaza on southern Israel triggered two years of regional conflict, US assistance has proved essential for Israel in what became the country’s longest and most expensive war.

On top of the annual MOU and direct military support, the administration of former President Joe Biden also provided $8.7bn in additional funding, including to refill stockpiles of air-to-ground munitions used repeatedly in Gaza and elsewhere.

The future of such US support is unclear, with President Donald Trump sceptical of foreign aid in general and both progressives on the left of the Democratic Party and far-right Maga Republicans increasingly critical of Israel.

Lindsey Graham, a staunch pro-Israel Republican senator, gave voice to the shifting tides in Washington earlier this month by claiming that, with Israel “apparently” wanting to change the US aid system, he would seek to “dramatically expedite” the timetable to do so.

As the chief financial officer in the Israeli defence establishment for the past five years, Pinchas and his team of 400 economists were responsible for tracking every shekel that came in and went out.

“The system doesn’t move without money,” Pinchas said, alluding to the $190mn he released on the day of the Hamas attack for transportation costs and the mobilisation of 226,000 reservists.

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to health authorities in the enclave, with the Israeli offensive reducing much of the territory to a rubble-filled wasteland. Nearly 2,000 Israelis have also been killed during that time, the majority during the initial Hamas attack.

That first month of the war, according to Israeli data, cost $400mn per day, as the Israeli military frantically increased its arms stockpiles from a dozen countries worldwide and launched a ground invasion of Gaza.

With peaks and troughs in the fighting, the daily average cost ultimately decreased to $232mn per day. In total this came to $70bn in direct war costs, part of a total of $112bn in costs to the economy, according to official figures.

The 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June alone cost Israel around $6bn, half of which went to armaments and air defence interceptor missiles.

The controversial Israeli “Grim Beeper” intelligence operation in 2024, in which Israel detonated thousands of exploding pagers targeting Lebanese militant group Hizbollah, cost $300mn going back years, Pinchas said. This included both the components themselves and hours of work by Israeli officers and agents.

Israeli officials from the military, finance ministry and Bank of Israel say the country has come out of two years of war in a strong economic position, pointing to rising growth, a strengthening currency and a manageable debt-to-GDP ratio.

While defence spending soared to 7.6 per cent of GDP in 2024, double the figure of two years earlier, it is set to fall to about 5 per cent according to the latest budget, totalling $35bn. Critically, these figures do not include US financial aid.

Israeli officials expect military spending to further decrease as a share of GDP in the coming years, despite the threat of renewed escalation with Iran, the question marks surrounding Washington’s continued largesse and Israel’s own massive $100bn defence build-up for the coming decade, set to start next year.

While much of the increase in spending stems from rearmament and the lingering costs of the recent war, the need to maintain relatively large numbers of troops on multiple fronts including Gaza, Lebanon and Syria will remain both a financial drag and a domestic political liability.

The Israeli military had asked for more money and more reservists for this coming year. But the Netanyahu government imposed a 40,000-cap on the daily average of reservists on duty. By comparison around 6,000 reservists per day were on duty prior to October 7.

“In some of the places we’ll simply decrease the numbers and manage risk, so to speak,” Pinchas said.

FT : Private credit firms sell debt to themselves at record rate

Private credit firms sell debt to themselves at record rate
Private lenders struck continuation deals worth $15bn last year to generate cash amid deal drought

Private credit firms sold a record amount of debt to themselves last year as the buyout sector’s slowdown pushed them to find new ways to generate cash from loans to companies owned by private equity.

Private lenders struck so-called continuation deals worth $15bn globally in 2025, up from almost $4bn the previous year, according to investment bank Jefferies. Such deals involve fund managers establishing new vehicles to buy loans from their old funds.

Many of the rolled-over loans were originally extended to finance leveraged buyouts by private equity managers, Jefferies said, but were taking longer than expected to be repaid due to a lack of deals.

The boom in private credit continuation deals is the latest hangover from a years-long drought in private equity exits, with buyout firms instead holding on to businesses for longer and delaying repayment of those companies’ loans.

Advisers also say the surge in funds raised by direct lending vehicles in recent years has resulted in more activity in the so-called secondary market. It includes both managers selling to themselves as well as fund backers selling on stakes in those vehicles.

“The amount of capital raised in private credit, coupled with a slowdown in the exit environment for private equity managers, has led to fund investors and credit managers seeking liquidity,” said Todd Miller, global co-head of secondary advisory at Jefferies.

Last week Crescent Capital Group closed a $3.2bn continuation vehicle, the largest in the private lending market, which bought a portfolio of loans to private equity-backed companies and other assets from an older Crescent fund.

Backers of credit funds, such as pension plans, also sold more stakes in ageing funds than ever last year, with the value of transactions up from $6bn in 2024 to $10bn.

Jeffrey Griffiths, global head of private credit at advisory firm Campbell Lutyens, said it was “private equity firms that decide when an exit or a refinancing happens, not the credit manager, and in this higher-rate environment that’s happening more slowly”.

Griffiths said there had been considerable activity by direct lending funds from 2016 to 2018, but that those funds were now approaching the end of their lives: “There’s loans sitting there, nobody knows what to do with them, and credit managers are not in a position to sell them.”

Simon Saitowitz, a partner specialising in secondaries at law firm Weil, said continuation vehicles helped fund managers return cash early to the backers of their original funds to support future fundraising. They also allowed firms to make extra management fees on existing investments.

The spike in continuation vehicles comes as investors, concerned over credit quality following the bankruptcies of First Brands and Tricolor, have pulled back from some of private credit’s biggest funds in a blow to one of the fastest-growing areas of finance.

WSJ : Trump’s Feud With Ilhan Omar Is Getting More Intense

Trump’s Feud With Ilhan Omar Is Getting More Intense
The president has ramped up attacks on the Minnesota congresswoman, implying she profited from a fraud scandal and is under investigation

President Trump suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar profited from Minnesota’s welfare fraud scandal and is under Justice Department scrutiny.
Rep. Omar’s financial disclosure from May 2025 showed assets between $6 million and $30 million, a significant increase from the prior year.
Omar’s spokeswoman stated her wealth reflects business valuations where her husband is a partner, not her individual share.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, facing potential investigations pushed by President Trump and House Republicans, isn’t shying away from another fight with the White House.

Trump suggested in a social-media post Monday that Omar profited from the state’s massive welfare fraud scandal and said the Justice Department is scrutinizing her. Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has also suggested he might subpoena Omar’s husband after the pair disclosed a significant increase in financial assets.

Omar, the most prominent member of a Somali community that is in the spotlight amid a sprawling safety-net scheme, said in a statement that Trump has “an unhealthy and disturbing obsession with me and the Somali community” and that “every time he scapegoats communities, he is trying to divert attention.” Omar added: “For years, he has called for investigations against me and they have found nothing.”

Following criticism of the White House—including from some Republicans—about this past weekend’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis, Trump has pointed to the welfare swindle as a rationale for ramping up immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Federal prosecutors have already secured roughly 60 convictions and more than 90 people—many of Somali descent—have been charged in the fraud scandal.

Trump said on social media that the Justice Department and Congress are “looking at” Rep. Omar, “who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars.”

Omar’s office said she received no communication from the Justice Department or Republicans in Congress who have threatened investigations of her.

The first Somali and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, Omar has frequently drawn Trump’s ire. The two have clashed since she was elected in 2018 to a congressional district that includes Minneapolis and nearby suburbs. The animosity has grown amid tensions over the fraud and fatal shootings of two of her constituents this month by federal immigration officials.

Omar’s most recent financial disclosure, from May 2025, showed that she and her husband have assets of between $6 million and $30 million. The forms don’t require exact values but only broad ranges. Those totals were up considerably from a year earlier, when they reported between $37,000 and $208,000.

Omar’s husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, is involved with a variety of businesses. Those include a venture-capital management firm in Washington, D.C., and a winery in Santa Rosa, Calif., according to her disclosure form.

It was a significant increase in the valuation of the capital-management firm and winery that were by far the biggest drivers of the couple’s jump in assets between the form filed in 2024 and the one filed in 2025.

Jacklyn Rogers, an Omar spokeswoman, played down the congresswoman’s wealth.

“She does not have millions in the bank,” Rogers said in a statement. “The value range listed for the assets reflects the full cost assessment of the businesses, in which her husband is one of several partners, and does not reflect her husband’s individual share.”

Trump’s latest criticism comes after he called Omar “garbage” at a Dec. 2 cabinet meeting and said at a Dec. 9 rally in Pennsylvania that she “does nothing but bitch.”

Omar, 43, first gained national attention for her role in a group of younger, nonwhite and progressive women known as “the Squad” who often challenge Democratic leadership and are vocal Trump critics.

She has been challenged in every re-election she has faced, but has always managed to beat rivals for her party’s nomination. The winner of the primary for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party—the label Democrats in the state campaign under—is almost guaranteed victory in November elections in Minnesota’s reliably blue Fifth Congressional District.

“Rep. Omar was the first signal that the more socialist-aligned Democrats were gaining a stronghold in Minneapolis,” said Blois Olson, a nonpartisan political analyst who publishes a newsletter on Minnesota politics. “She’s made a lot of noise nationally but at times has been seen as less focused on her district.”

Rep. Jamie Long, a state lawmaker who represents part of Minneapolis, said Omar holds monthly town halls and her office is very focused on constituent casework. “Ilhan is extremely engaged with her district and constituents,” he said.

Minnesota’s welfare fraud scandal has scrambled the state’s political scene. Gov. Tim Walz announced earlier this month that he would drop his bid for a third term because of the theft during his tenure, while Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is poised to run for his job.

Trump suggested the fraud is “massive 20 Billion Dollar, Plus” in size. The state’s largest newspaper, the Minnesota Star Tribune, using court records, has documented more than $200 million to date, while a former federal prosecutor has said it could reach billions.

Omar said the welfare swindling has been politicized unfairly.

“From the moment the fraud was discovered, I denounced it and called for anyone who participated to be held accountable,” she said. “Going after fraud should not be partisan. We should all care about protecting public resources, restoring trust, and strengthening oversight. We must also not blame entire communities for the unacceptable actions of a few.”

WSJ : Anta Sports Set to Become Puma’s Largest Shareholder in $1.8 Billion Deal

Anta Sports Set to Become Puma’s Largest Shareholder in $1.8 Billion Deal
The deal builds on Anta’s efforts to grow its footprint outside of China

  1. Anta, a Chinese sportswear company, will acquire a 29.06% stake in Puma for $1.79 billion, becoming its largest shareholder.
  2. The acquisition, valued at 35 euros per share, aims to expand Anta’s global footprint and enhance its brand recognition.
  3. Puma has been undergoing a business revamp, including job cuts and a brand-reset strategy, to return to growth from 2027.

Chinese sportswear company Anta has agreed to acquire a stake in Puma PUM 16.92%increase; green up pointing triangle for $1.79 billion, making it the biggest shareholder in the German company famous for its iconic sneakers.

Anta plans to take a 29.06% stake in Puma from the Pinault family, founders of the luxury group Kering that houses Gucci, in an all-cash deal.

Anta, which has operation centers in Fujian, China, will buy 43.01 million shares in the German athletics goods company at 35 euros each—a premium to the stock’s last closing price of 21.63 euros.

The deal follows months of speculation that several companies had been vying to buy a stake in Puma, which has been executing a business revamp after former Adidas executive Arthur Hoeld took the reins at the group in 2025.

Puma’s shares came under heavy pressure last year from multiple challenges, including the fallout from President Trump’s tariffs. It has been looking to refresh its product lineup to shore up demand, reduce excess inventory and rein in costs.

In October, the German company announced plans to cut 900 more jobs, expanding its cost-reduction program. It aims to return to growth from 2027 onward as it rolls out a brand-reset strategy.

For Anta—China’s biggest sportswear brand—the 1.51 billion-euro deal with Puma builds on efforts to grow its footprint outside of China, where it competes with the likes of Nike and Adidas.

Anta, which owns labels including Fila and Jack Wolfskin, has been expanding operations across key markets, including Southeast Asia, North America and Europe. With the Puma stake acquisition, “the group is expected to further enhance its presence and brand recognition in the global sporting goods market,” it said Tuesday.

Shares of Anta rose as much as 3.4% in early trading in Hong Kong, before paring gains to 1.6%.

Though the move is unlikely to have much of an impact on earnings over 2025 and 2026, it should continue to strengthen Anta’s global market positioning, DBS Group Research analysts said.

Anta can capture strong market share in Europe while “creating opportunity to expand Puma’s presence in China and Asia,” the DBS analysts said.

Jefferies equity analysts, however, believe the deal creates dilution risks that significantly outweigh long-term rewards for Anta.

“We already felt that the Anta brand was facing challenges stemming from strategy missteps” and this acquisition may further sap its management resources, they said in a note.

Furthermore, since Puma is already well-known in China, Anta may face difficulties in bringing “a sense of brand freshness,” they added.

Anta said it will fund the purchase using internal resources, including working capital, and plans to secure board representation at Puma. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026.

Founded in 1991, Anta is also the largest shareholder of NYSE-listed Amer Sports, whose portfolio features Wilson, Peak Performance and Atomic.

The Information : OpenAI Seeks Premium Prices in Early Ads Push

OpenAI Seeks Premium Prices in Early Ads Push

The Takeaway
  • OpenAI’s existing partnership team made some early ad sales
  • Those clients include existing OpenAI enterprise customers
  • ChatGPT checkouts could drive commission revenue from smaller brands

In its initial rollout of ads, OpenAI is charging prices that rival those for coveted video programs like the NFL, and well above what rivals such as Meta Platforms’ social media apps charge.

But unlike Meta or Google, OpenAI won’t be providing detailed information about the query responses accompanying their ads or whether ads prompted ChatGPT users to take an action, like buying something or looking up a website. OpenAI could introduce that data over time, but it will need to incorporate more-sophisticated ad tools that could take time to set up. That highlights the work that likely remains for OpenAI to build an ad business that could compete with the biggest sellers of ads.

OpenAI has told early advertisers that it will give them data about impressions, or how many views an ad gets, as well as how many total clicks it gets, a media buyer working with some of the advertisers said. Advertisers will get high-level insights like total ad views, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed. That’s similar to what TV networks offer.

But a major reason why Google and Meta have overtaken the TV industry to become the biggest ad sellers in the past 20 years is that they offer advertisers detailed information that allows marketers to measure what they get for their ad spending.

Over time, advertisers will expect OpenAI to start using sophisticated ad technology that gives advertisers more targeted information about the ChatGPT users seeing their ads, and about whether an ad leads to a purchase.

“When you have a nascent ad product and you have demand, you kind of don’t have to do those things,” said Olivia Kory, chief strategy officer at marketing analytics firm Haus, and a former marketing executive at Netflix and Quibi. “As the product evolves, there will probably be more advertiser pressure.”

OpenAI announced earlier this month that it will start putting ads in free and lowest-cost versions of ChatGPT in the coming weeks, a rollout that comes as the company is trying to raise tens of billions in fresh cash. Selling ads is a key part of its efforts to generate $11 billion in annual revenue from nonpaying ChatGPT users by the end of next year.

To line up the first batch of ads, OpenAI’s enterprise partnerships team reached out directly to several potential advertisers, as opposed to approaching them through their ad agencies, the media buyer said. Some of the advertisers that signed on include existing business customers of OpenAI, the media buyer said, and large, well-known companies across a range of categories, the media buyer said. By comparison, Meta and Google rely heavily on small businesses to buy their ads.

For its initial ads, which will appear below ChatGPT responses, OpenAI is targeting a price of roughly $60 for every 1,000 views an ad gets, the buyer said. That rate is on par with targeted streaming and premium TV inventory such as live NFL games, analysts say. Meta’s cost per 1,000 views, by comparison, is typically less than $20.

Some advertisers will likely be willing to pay ChatGPT’s asking price for early batches of ads, given its large user base and the belief that its chats offer unusually strong clues as to what those users are interested in, analysts and marketing executives said. The open-ended searches people tend to use on ChatGPT, like “good suitcase for travel,” appeal to advertisers because they indicate users don’t have a specific brand in mind when searching.

Still, many advertisers will likely hold off on devoting significant parts of their budgets to ChatGPT ads until they see whether those ads are driving sales. The initial ads are a starting point, and OpenAI may change its approach after it begins testing, The Information previously reported.

“The most important thing that ChatGPT has to build next year is the connection to the lower funnel—the connection to the sale,” said Brian Stempeck, founder of AI marketing startup Evertune AI and a former executive at ad tech firm The Trade Desk.

It’s not unprecedented for a company to launch ad sales before building up the technology to improve what it offers marketers. Around a decade ago, Facebook started adding tools showing whether ads led to clicks, app downloads or purchases, even though it largely sold its ads based on views.

“That’s the story of Facebook back in the day. They spent their first several years positioning themselves on reach and impressions,” said Andrew Lipsman, an advertising and commerce analyst. “And then they just totally changed course in 2015, and that’s when the business took off.”

The OpenAI spokesperson said the company has built out a dedicated ad sales team as it works to build the business, and that OpenAI had used its enterprise partnership team to embark on advertiser outreach. The pilot isn’t limited to existing OpenAI clients, the spokesperson said.

The company is in the early stages of using major ad agencies, which often plan long-term media spending for large brands, to recruit new advertisers, a second advertising industry source said. OpenAI is also not yet working with ad tech firms to sell or manage ad placements, the media buyer said.

“You can get that test budget no problem, but if you want to get to $10 billion, $15 billion, that’s where you’re doing a joint business plan with Omnicom and with Coca-Cola,” Stempeck said.

Commerce Connection

Another way OpenAI could eventually offer clearer ad outcomes is by tying ads more closely to a checkout feature it started adding inside ChatGPT in September. In theory, combining ads with in-chat checkout could pave the way for shoppable ads.

For now, OpenAI’s checkout feature offers a way to generate revenue when ChatGPT leads directly to a sale—instead of paying for clicks or impressions, merchants pay a commission when a purchase is completed. Starting this week, most U.S. merchants using Shopify will be able to opt in to selling their products through ChatGPT, in exchange for paying OpenAI a 4% cut of sales after a free trial period.

The initial checkout rollout has in part targeted smaller online shops and direct-to-consumer brands, which tend to rely heavily on digital ads from Meta and Google as well as ads on Amazon to drive sales. The Shopify integration makes it easy for those merchants to test the channel, said Kory, who works with direct-to-consumer brands including Mejuri and Jones Road Beauty. “If it’s kind of like flipping the switch, then they’ll try anything,” Kory said. “It’s so easy and low risk.”

Still, buying goods inside chatbots represents a new form of online shopping rather than an ingrained habit, and some brands are skeptical that ChatGPT checkouts will drive meaningful sales.

“If somebody’s looking up protein bars on ChatGPT, is that high intent? Are they just doing research?” said Yoga Acharya, president and chief operating officer of protein bar brand Mezcla, which does most of its online sales through Amazon.

“My [customer acquisition costs] are through the roof on Amazon,” Acharya said. “But it’s a very high-intent purchase, because people are going there explicitly to buy.”

TechCrunch : SpaceX eyes mid-March for first test of upgraded Starship rocket

SpaceX eyes mid-March for first test of upgraded Starship rocket

The delayed first test of SpaceX’s upgraded Starship rocket is now slated for mid-March, according to a post from CEO Elon Musk on his social media site X.

This third version of Starship, or V3, is larger and more powerful. Crucially, the company plans to use Starship V3 to launch its next-generation Starlink satellites, which will be capable of faster data speeds but weigh more and are larger. It’s also the first version of the rocket that is meant to dock with other Starships in Earth orbit, a capability the company needs in order to reach the moon or Mars.

This all comes as SpaceX is racing toward an IPO later this year, and under pressure from the Trump administration to return U.S. astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of his second term. Starship, the most powerful rocket ever developed, is currently a key part of NASA’s mission to fulfill that goal.

SpaceX was making progress toward a launch of Starship V3 in late 2025. But in November, the booster stage suffered an explosion during testing that blew out an entire side of the steel rocket. The company said it was performing “gas system pressure testing” when the explosion happened, but has yet to offer a more detailed breakdown of what went wrong.

The company has been hoping to move on from the second version of Starship, which was a mixed bag. It was able to successfully reach orbit with Starship V2, deploy dummy versions of the next-generation Starlink satellites, and catch multiple booster stages after they returned to the launchpad.

But Starship V2 also suffered a number of explosions and setbacks of its own. Some of those came as a result of SpaceX’s developmental approach, which involves pushing the test vehicles to — or past — their limit and then iterating based on what the company learns. Others were more unexpected, like when one of the Starship vehicles that sits atop the booster stage erupted in a massive fireball during ground testing last June.

SpaceX has come to dominate the global launch market over the last decade, and it is relying on Starship to maintain that dominance. But competition is creeping in at the edges. Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin launched its first mega-rocket, known as New Glenn, for the first time in January 2025 and again in November. The company launched its inaugural commercial payload for NASA on that second flight and also completed the first landing of its booster stage.

Blue Origin is planning a third launch of New Glenn in late February and hopes to send its own lunar lander to the moon sometime after that. While New Glenn is smaller than Starship, Blue Origin revealed late last year that it is developing a larger version of the vehicle that more directly competes with SpaceX’s super-heavy rocket.