Community | University 

Jan 29, 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. Why Google Gemini Has No Ads Yet
   (No ads… yet is doing a lot of work here.)

2. Unlocking Meta’s Product-Level Ad Data
   (This is the difference between guessing and scaling.)

3. Sam Altman Says OpenAI “Screwed Up” GPT-5.2 Writing Quality
   (Even AI needs a writing editor.)

4. Meta to test premium subscriptions on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp
   (Pay to exist, but make it social)

The Growth joke of the day

Growth in 2026 is simple:
If it’s free, ads are coming. If it’s paid, the algorithm still decides.

3-Minute News Bulletin with Roxie

This week's 🙌 News Bulletin explores:
Tech Giants Unveil AI Upgrades and Industry Shakeups Across Search

In today’s News Bulletin, Google takes the lead with its biggest Search evolution yet, moving users from AI Overviews into a fully conversational AI Mode powered by Gemini Three and Personal Intelligence. At the same time, Amazon faces accountability over returns while doubling down on fixing trust at scale, and Samsung raises the stakes in hardware with its bold TriFold launch.

We also explore how AI shopping agents are compressing the buying funnel, why OpenAI’s move into ads marks a turning point for AI monetization, and how global policy debates around youth and social media could reshape platform strategy overnight.

From creator tools and wearable AI to search, commerce, and regulation, this week’s signals point to one truth: AI is no longer an add-on. It’s becoming the interface, the marketplace, and the business model.

Clear signals. Real shifts.
Built for marketers watching the future arrive in real time.

Latest Growth Hacking News

Strategies

• What Is Human-First Marketing?
  Τhe core of effective marketing is, really, storytelling, empathetic messaging which understands the reality of the situation that your target consumer is facing.

• Anthropic, Apple, OpenAI CEOs condemn ICE violence, praise Trump
  Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed concern over “some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days,” referring to the violence of Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.

• Everything you need to know about viral personal AI assistant Clawdbot

  Clawdbot, a personal AI assistant, went viral within weeks of its launch and will keep its crustacean theme despite having had to change its name to Moltbot after a legal challenge from

• X Launches ‘Brand Ranx’ To Measure Super Bowl Ad Response
  The Super Bowl is getting close, which means that advertisers are scrambling to hype up their Super Bowl campaigns, and grab the maximum share of attention during the big event.

• Node-based design tool Flora raises $42M from Redpoint Ventures

  Flora, a design tool used by designers at Alibaba, Brex, creative agency Pentagram, and entertainment company Lionsgate, has hit a new milestone. The startup has raised $42 million in Series A led by Redpoint Ventures

• YouTube Tests Paywall For Playback Speed Feature
  YouTube is quietly running an experiment that makes its playback speed controls a paid perk for some users, signaling the platform may put a long-standing convenience behind the YouTube Premium paywall.

The Podcast Where Growth 
Actually Happens

At GrowthHackers, we believe the best insights come from the community itself.

That’s why for our next podcast episode,
"From Ideas to Impact: Building a Community Platform,"
we’re handing the mic to you. 🫵

Jack, the founder of ARK STEM, will be joining our next episode to discuss the journey of building platforms that matter.

What have you always wanted to ask a founder about community growth?
We’ll select the best ones to feature in the interview!

What's New in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Google Photos brings its prompt-based editing feature
  Google is bringing AI-powered photo editing to more users around the world, making it easier to fix your photos with simple text commands instead of complicated editing tools.

• AI boom will produce victors and carnage, tech boss warns
  Chuck Robbins, chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems, told the BBC the technology will be "bigger than the internet", but the current market is probably a bubble and some companies "won't make it".

• Airtable gets into the AI agent game with Superagent
  It might sound crazy to some, launching an entirely new product line while your flagship business has shed two-thirds of its paper value. But Howie Liu, the founder and CEO of Airtable, suggests it’s the sanest thing he could do.

• Former Googlers seek to captivate kids with an AI-powered learning app
  A lot of those experiences are limited to text or voice, and kids might not find that captivating. Three former Google employees want to get over that hurdle with their generative AI-powered interactive app, Sparkli