Community | University 

Μay 12, 2026

Hello, GrowthHackers! 

Welcome to your daily unfair advantage.

Every morning, we cut through the noise to bring you sharp insights, fast news, and fresh sparks to light up your brain and fuel your hustle. From scrappy hacks to big tech moves, AI shifts to culture flips this is your intel to stay ahead, move fast, and break boring.

Think of it as your growth-fueled espresso shot.
Short. Smart. Addictive.

Let’s dive in.👇

Quick Hits

1. YouTube is testing clear screen viewing for Shorts
   (Less UI, more dopamine)

2. Instructure strikes deal with hackers who breached it twice
   (When the breach becomes a negotiation)

3. Finally, texts between Android and iPhone users can be end-to-end encrypted
   (Cross-platform peace treaty unlocked)

The Growth joke of the day

Why are marketers nervous about Gmail’s AI Inbox?
Because getting past spam filters was hard enough… now they need to impress a robot too.

What's New in Growth Hacking/Growth Marketing?

Strategies

• TikTok launches ad-free offering in UK
  The subscription model lets users pay a monthly fee to disable data tracking for targeted promotions, in line with current regulations.

• Google’s AI Announcements Are Events, The New Search User Is The Trend
  Google’s Keyword Team published their recap of the biggest AI announcements from April 2026. Cloud Next ’26 introduced the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Google’s eighth-generation TPUs, built for agentic workloads.

• Are Keywords Becoming Obsolete in Google Ads?
  If you’ve been running Google Ads for more than a few years, your job description has changed without your consent. Match types that once signaled precision now target “related intent”; a 2023 rebuild made Broad Match competitive again; and Smart Bidding shifted the focus from keywords to outcomes like return on ad spend (ROAS) and cost-per-action (CPA).

• AI is turning connected cars into pothole-finding machines
  History is littered with claims that technology can help solve or blunt the problem of potholes, and still they persist. But as cars become increasingly laden with advanced sensors, they are becoming a tool that can quickly alert cities to potholes and other municipal problems.

• GM just laid off hundreds of IT workers to hire those with stronger AI skills
  General Motors has laid off more than 10% of its IT department, or about 600 salaried employees in a deliberate skills swap: clearing out workers whose expertise no longer fits and making room for some with AI-focused backgrounds.

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People

Not many movements from our fellow Senior Growth Marketers today 🫠

What's New in Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

• How to Maximize Your AI Visibility
  A 161% growth rate in 10-word queries year-over-year is not driven by users who suddenly got more verbose. It’s driven by AI agents decomposing a single user prompt into dozens of parallel sub-queries, a process researchers now call “fan-out.”

• Riding an AI rally, Robinhood preps second retail venture IPO
  Just two months after listing its first venture fund on the stock market, Robinhood is preparing to launch a second. The company has filed a confidential registration for RVII, a standard regulatory step that allows it to work through the approval process before making details public.

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Viktor is an AI coworker that lives in Slack, right where your team already works.

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