Meta taps chats for ad targeting

PLUS: Patients control AI and robotics with thought

Jennifer Mossalgue

October 3, 2025

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Starting December 16, Meta will begin using your chats with its AI assistant to sharpen its ad targeting — and there's no way to opt out.

While OpenAI bets on in-chat commerce, Meta is feeding its $180B ad machine with something far more valuable: the unfiltered things you tell your chatbot.

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In today’s tech rundown:

Meta to mine AI chats for ad targeting
Oura’s smart ring gets a ceramic glow-up
This startup wants to deliver cargo from space
Tesla sells 497K EVs in record quarter
Quick hits on other tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

😵‍💫 Meta to mine AI chats for ad targeting

Image source: Meta

The Rundown: Meta plans to mine your chats with its AI assistant for ad targeting, starting December 16. Those casual conversations about vacation plans or personal problems? Now they're data points for hyper-personalized marketing.

The details:

The company already collects data from posts, likes, and clicks to build ad profiles, but chatbot interactions add a more direct layer.
Meta also plans to feed chatbot data into its recommendation algorithms, potentially reshaping the news, posts, and videos you see in your feeds.
Meta’s advertising already pulled in a staggering $46.5B in revenue last quarter, a 21% jump from the year before.
The new policy applies globally, except in the EU, the UK, and South Korea, where privacy laws block this type of data collection.

Why it matters: Chatbot conversations reveal intent in ways that likes and clicks can't — they're explicit requests, unfiltered problems, real-time needs. For advertisers, that's precision targeting at its finest. For users, the trade-off hinges on whether Meta's AI can deliver genuinely useful recommendations without crossing into creepy.

INVERSION SPACE

🚀 This startup wants to deliver cargo from space

Image source: Inversion Space

The Rundown: Inversion Space, a Los Angeles startup with a flair for the dramatic, just unveiled its answer to rapid-response logistics: a capsule called Arc that’s less delivery van and more miniaturized spacecraft.

The details:

The sleek vehicle is designed to carry about 500 pounds of cargo, or roughly the payload of a pickup truck bed.
Instead of conventional transport, Arc would launch into orbit and reenter Earth’s atmosphere before landing its cargo essentially anywhere in the world.
The pitch targets the military: medical supplies, ammunition, or emergency gear dropped into combat zones or disaster sites within hours.
Inversion’s approach echoes decades of speculative projects, from DARPA’s experiments to SpaceX’s musings about “point-to-point” rocket travel.

Why it matters: The Arc vehicle — roughly table-sized and built as a lifting-body spacecraft that uses parachutes for landing — is slated for launch by late 2026. Think FedEx by way of DARPA, with hefty price tags to match. But whether the Pentagon actually cuts the check remains very much an open question.

OURA

💍 Oura’s smart ring gets a ceramic glow-up

Image source: Oura

The Rundown: Oura just dropped a colorful ceramic ring lineup with multi-ring support in its app, a slick new USB-C charging case that juices your ring up to five times, and the ability to order blood panels without leaving the app.

The details:

The $499 ring is slightly thicker and heavier than the titanium Oura Ring 4 but retains the same inner sensors and features.
Users can track over 50 health metrics, including sleep, readiness, activity, heart health, stress, metabolic health, and women’s health.
At $499, the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic is priced well above the $349 titanium base model, yet it matches the cost of Oura’s premium gold and rose gold editions.
The company launched a new bloodwork tracking feature called Health Panels, letting U.S. users order blood tests and view results directly in the Oura app.

Why it matters: Oura’s health rings — especially popular among women, which represent 60% of its user base — are launching a new model just as the company seeks $875M in funding at an $11B valuation, double last year’s worth. Rival Whoop is also integrating blood-test data and expanding its holistic health offerings.

TESLA

🚘 Tesla sells 497K EVs in record quarter

Image source: Phillip Pessar / Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: After a sluggish first half of 2025 and mounting skepticism about Elon Musk’s political distractions, Tesla roared back to life in Q3, delivering over 497K vehicles, outpacing rivals, and beating Wall Street’s expectations.

The details:

Most of the surge came from the U.S., as buyers rushed to close purchases ahead of the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs.
Deliveries jumped nearly 29% from the previous quarter and over 7% year-over-year, marking Tesla’s strongest three-month run ever.
Model 3 and Model Y dominated, accounting for 481,166 vehicles delivered globally — a 9% annual increase and the backbone of Tesla's business.
Tesla also posted a record in its energy storage segment, deploying 12.5 gigawatt hours of battery storage worldwide during the quarter.

Why it matters: The blowout quarter shows Tesla can still execute when the incentives align, but it also exposes how dependent the company remains on subsidies and Musk's ability to stay out of his own way. Whether this momentum holds or evaporates along with tax credits will determine if Tesla's comeback is real or not.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in tech today

Elon Musk’s fortune briefly topped $500B on Wednesday before settling at $499.1B by 5 p.m. ET, according to Forbes’ billionaire index.

Amazon launched Amazon Grocery, a new private-label brand uniting staples from Amazon Fresh and Happy Belly, with over 1K grocery items, most priced under $5.

Amazon-owned Zoox will begin mapping Washington, DC, with sensor-equipped vehicles this year before starting tests of its self-driving cars by the end of 2025.

Fitness band maker Whoop officially opened its Advanced Labs blood-testing service this week, giving access to a 350K-person waitlist.

Waymo’s permit to test its robotaxis in NYC has been extended through year-end, still requiring a human driver but exempting them from New York’s hand-on-wheel rule.

The FTC alleges Zillow paid Redfin $100M to eliminate it as a rental ad competitor, leading to fewer unique listings and less choice for renters across both platforms.

Spotify founder Daniel Ek is stepping down as CEO and will take on the role of executive chairman at the end of the year.

German AI translation company DeepL is considering a U.S. IPO that could value it at up to $5B, more than doubling its $2B valuation after a March funding round.

Einride, the Swedish startup behind self-driving electric freight trucks, raised $100M in new funding.

Japanese beer giant Asahi Group Holdings was hit by a cyberattack this week that forced it to halt production in its Japanese factories and suspend shipments.

COMMUNITY