Hi! Welcome to the 32nd edition of the TomorrowToday newsletter.

We’re here to decode the AI chaos so you don't have to. Think of us as your friendly neighbourhood tech translators - we cut through the chaos, translate the jargon, and spotlight new AI tools that matter for founders, builders, and curious minds.

Buckle up, because the future's moving fast and we're here to make sure you don't get left behind! ⚡

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/ChatGPT /Monetisation /FreeTier

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: OpenAI is bringing ads to ChatGPT. If you're on the free or Go tier, prepare to see sponsored content appearing at the bottom of your responses in the coming weeks. Starting in the US (of course), ads will roll out globally to hundreds of millions of non-paying users.

Here's the reality check: with over 800 million weekly active users but only 35 million paying subscribers (that's barely 4%), OpenAI has been haemorrhaging cash. They generated $4.3 billion in the first half of 2025 but burnt through $2.5 billion - mostly on the eye-watering infrastructure costs of running AI at this scale. The economics simply didn't add up. Ads were always inevitable.

The silver lining? If you're shelling out for Plus (R420/month), Pro (R4,200/month), or any business tier, you're safe. No ads for you. OpenAI promises that ads won't influence answers, your conversations stay private from advertisers, and you'll have control over personalisation. They're taking a page from Meta and Google's playbook - and honestly, who can blame them when those companies are making over $50 billion quarterly from ads alone?

For marketers and agencies, this is your wake-up call. The platforms that understand how to leverage ChatGPT's ad ecosystem early will have a massive advantage. Think about it: AI that actually knows what users are asking about in real-time. That's advertising gold.

/Gemini /PersonalIntelligence /Privacy

Google just flipped a switch that changes everything. With their new Personal Intelligence feature rolling out to US subscribers, Gemini can now connect to your Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube history, and Search activity - all with a single tap. The result? An AI assistant that genuinely knows your context, your habits, and your life.

Imagine standing in a tyre shop (true story from Google's VP) and asking Gemini about your car's tyre size. It doesn't just give you generic specs - it suggests options based on your family road trips found in Photos, pulls ratings and prices, and even retrieves your number plate from a random photo when you need it at the counter. That's not incremental improvement; that's a fundamentally different experience.

The privacy trade-off is significant but transparent. It's off by default, you choose which apps to connect, and you can disconnect anytime. Crucially, Google isn't training their models directly on your inbox or photo library - they use limited info like specific prompts and responses to improve functionality. Your road trip photos stay yours; they just help Gemini understand what you might need.

For South African users, this feature is US-only for now, but it signals where personal AI is heading. The companies that can securely access your data whilst respecting privacy will win the assistant wars.

/Manus /Similarweb /MarketResearch /Agents

Whilst everyone was busy watching the big model releases, Manus (one of the leading AI agent platforms) quietly partnered with Similarweb in what might be one of 2026's most underrated announcements. The integration embeds comprehensive web traffic and market intelligence data directly into Manus, transforming market research from a manual slog into a conversation.

Here's why it matters: businesses have always struggled to truly understand their digital landscape. Who's dominating their vertical? Which marketing channels are competitors using? Where's the traffic actually coming from? Similarweb has this data, but accessing and analysing it requires either expensive subscriptions or hours of manual work.

Now, Manus users can simply ask: "Show me the marketing channel breakdown for [competitor].com over the past year" or "Compare mobile traffic growth for the top 5 companies in our space." The AI agent fetches the data, analyses it, and can even convert findings into presentation-ready dashboards or reports. What used to take market research teams days now takes minutes.

The kicker? You get 12 months of historical data - deeper than what some paid Similarweb users access. For South African founders trying to understand how global competitors operate or identify untapped regional markets, this is massive. You're not just getting data; you're getting AI-powered insights that help you act on it.

The catch? You'll still need people who understand what to do with these insights. Agencies and strategists who can interpret the data and turn it into action won't be replaced - they'll be supercharged.

In this section, we aim to spotlight an incredible AI tool or use case and guide you on how you can try it.

Remember when learning a new skill meant shelling out thousands of rands for courses, watching endless YouTube tutorials, or hoping your company would sponsor that certification? Google Skills (formerly Google Cloud Skills Boost) just made that significantly easier - and it's completely free.

Google recently launched this consolidated learning platform that brings together nearly 3,000 courses, labs, and credentials in one place. We're talking everything from AI fundamentals and prompt engineering to specific tools like Gemini Code Assist and data analytics. The platform combines content from Google Cloud, DeepMind, and even Google for Education.

The best part? It's hands-on. Rather than just watching videos, you get access to actual cloud environments where you can experiment with AI tools, build projects, and earn skill badges that employers actually recognise. Over 26 million people completed courses last year alone.

For anyone whose 2026 resolution was "learn AI properly" (we see you), this is your sign.

Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Sign up and explore

Step 2: Start with the fundamentals

Step 3: Get hands-on

Step 4: Level up with credentials

Pro Tips:

In this section, we're spotlighting real businesses using AI to solve actual problems.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the US, had a monumental problem. Their lawyers and loan officers were spending 360,000 hours every single year combing through commercial loan agreements - checking clauses, ensuring compliance, and spotting risks. That's over 41 years of work annually, costing an estimated $144 million (roughly R2.6 billion) in labour costs. Even worse, critical details were still slipping through the cracks, and deals were dragging on for weeks.

The problem: Manual contract review at scale is unsustainable. Each commercial loan agreement is dense with legal language, regulatory requirements, and custom terms. With 12,000+ new contracts annually, JPMorgan's legal teams couldn't keep pace. The bottleneck was slowing down the entire loan approval process, and human error was inevitable when reviewing thousands of pages.

The AI solution: JPMorgan built COiN (Contract Intelligence), an AI-powered platform using natural language processing and machine learning to automate legal document analysis. COiN can read commercial loan agreements, extract 150+ key attributes per contract, identify critical clauses, flag compliance issues, and assess risks - all in seconds. The system was trained on thousands of contracts to understand legal language and can now process what used to take lawyers days or weeks in literally seconds.

The results:

The best part? JPMorgan's legal teams didn't lose their jobs - they were freed up to focus on high-value strategic work like negotiation, advisory services, and complex analysis that genuinely requires human expertise.

The lesson: AI in compliance isn't about replacement; it's about augmentation. When you use AI to handle repetitive, error-prone tasks (like reviewing standard contract clauses), you free up skilled professionals to do what they do best - think strategically, advise clients, and tackle genuinely complex problems. JPMorgan's COiN has now become a foundation for broader AI adoption across their legal and compliance functions, setting a benchmark for the entire financial services industry.

AI is full of jargon, and we’re here to decode it. Each week, we’ll give you a plain-English definition of a buzzy term you’ve probably seen (but never fully understood).

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