Community | University 

Feb 05, 2026

Hello, GrowthHackers! 

Welcome to your Weekly unfair advantage.

Once a week, 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. LinkedIn Shares What Works For AI Search Visibility
   (If an AI can’t summarize you, it won’t surface you.)

2. Your DAM is no longer the system of record, and everyone knows it
   (The ‘single source of truth’ has left the building)

3. Google Explores AI Opt-Outs, Gemini 3 Powers AIOs
   (This is Google trying to future-proof consent.)

4. Chrome Updated With 3 AI Features Including Nano Banana
   (No idea what Nano Banana does, but I’m scared and intrigued)

5. Adobe Animate is shutting down as company focuses on AI
   (RIP to a tool that powered half the internet’s early animations)

The Growth joke of the day

Why did the SEO expert panic about AI search?
Because ranking #1 didn’t matter anymore if the AI summarized someone else.

3-Minute News Bulletin with Roxie

This week's 🙌 News Bulletin explores:
AI Innovations Reshape Tech Development, Health, Finance,
and Digital Safety

In today’s News Bulletin: AI is moving from experimentation to infrastructure. From Apple bringing agent-based AI into Xcode to Google’s push for privacy-first, on-device intelligence, the shift is toward AI that supports people, works in context, and operates closer to the user.

For marketers, the signal is clear: visibility now depends on consistency, credibility, and presence across platforms. LinkedIn data highlights the impact of trusted human voices in B2B, while SparkToro’s research shows that winning in AI-driven discovery is about being broadly visible, not ranking first.

AI is no longer a tool you test.
It’s the environment brands now have to grow inside.

Latest Growth Hacking News

Strategies

• How to demonstrate marketing ROI in a way the C-suite trusts
  Marketing has no shortage of data. Dashboards overflow with impressions, clicks, engagement rates and conversion metrics. Yet many CMOs, VPs and directors of marketing still face the same uncomfortable question in the boardroom: “How is marketing actually driving the business?”

• For ChatGPT ads, behavior matters more than targeting
  ChatGPT ads mark a shift from keyword intent to behavioral understanding, changing how relevance, creative and measurement work.

• ElevenLabs raises $500M from Sequioia at a $11 billion valuation
  Voice AI company ElevenLabs said today it raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, which was an investor in the startup’s last secondary round through a tender. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed is joining the company’s board.

• OpenAI’s Sora app is struggling after its stellar launch
  After rapidly hitting the top of the App Store in October, OpenAI’s video-generation app Sora is now struggling. New data suggests the app is seeing declines in both app downloads and consumer spending, as the early hype about the AI video social network wears off.

• Waymo reportedly raising a $16B funding round
  More than three-fourths of that funding will reportedly come from a source close to home Alphabet, where Waymo is a subsidiary. (The company was incubated as part of Alphabet’s “moonshot factory” X.)

• 57% of consumers trust brands more when they use AI, study finds
  Consumers aren’t pushing back on AI they’re embracing it, as long as it adds value without crossing the line.

Did you hear?
The GrowthHackers Podcast is live!🎙️

A Founder’s Journey in Microscope

Building a marketplace is widely considered one of the hardest challenges a startup can face. It requires a fragile balance of matching demand with supply get it wrong, and nothing works.
In our debut episode, "Building Goodbash From Pain Point to Marketplace," we go under the microscope with a founder who dared to implement it. We dive deep into:

• Synchronizing Supply & Demand: How to manage the complexity of multiple personas.

• Reducing Risk: Navigating high marketing costs and fragmented messaging.

• The Waiting List Myth: Do pre-launch strategies create real traction or just an illusion?

Designed for the doers, builders, and growth-minded teams in our community, this episode turns complex startup theory into a proven framework for success.

What's New in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Google Updates Googlebot File Size Limit Docs
  Google updated its Googlebot documentation to clarify file size limits, separating default limits that apply to all crawlers from Googlebot-specific details.

• Flapping Airplanes and the promise of research-driven AI
  A new AI lab called Flapping Airplanes launched on Wednesday, with $180 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, Sequoia, and Index. The founding team is impressive, and the goal.

• xAI Releases Updated Video Generation Process in Grok
  X has officially announced the launch of Grok Imagine 1.0, which it claims is its “biggest leap yet” in AI video generation.

Your Boss Will Think You’re an Ecom Genius

You’re optimizing for growth. You need ecom tactics that actually work. Not mushy strategies.

Go-to-Millions is the ecommerce growth newsletter from Ari Murray, packed with tactical insights, smart creative, and marketing that drives revenue.

Every issue is built for operators: clear, punchy, and grounded in what’s working, from product strategy to paid media to conversion lifts.

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