Need to Know News - January 30th, 2026
In this week's Need to Know News edition:
🤖 The "front page of the internet" just lost its AI crown... discover the platform now dominating search citations.
🤖 OpenAI’s ad pricing model just leaked... prepare to pay a premium that could be triple what you spend on Meta.
🤖 Elon’s new video model claims to slash creation costs... see the benchmarks that show it outperforming Sora and Veo.
And a whole lot more!
Claude Now Connects Directly to Tools Like Slack, Canva, and Figma
Anthropic is helping relieve the copy-paste dance between your chatbot and your actual work. You can now plug Claude directly into tools like Slack, Canva, and Figma to handle tasks without leaving the interface. It uses their new open standard, so expect more integrations soon.
While this is currently for paid subscribers only, it moves AI from a chat window into your real business operations. The new "Cowork" agent will even update files for you later.
YouTube Beats Reddit as Top Source for AI Search Answers
If you ignored video because AI couldn't watch it, you need to pivot immediately. New data shows chatbots now cite YouTube more often than Reddit when answering user questions.
This is a huge shift. Models are finally reading video transcripts effectively, meaning your written content isn't enough anymore. To rank in AI search results, you have to start producing video content that these bots can scrape and reference.
🚀 Every Ad, Landing Page, & Offer Need these 5 Crucial 'Copy Blocks'
Two $100+ million copywriters discovered what REALLY drives conversions...5 simple building blocks arranged in a specific order. This framework is so powerful that beginners are generating 5-figure profits with it. And you can learn the full system in just 33 minutes.
Discover All 5 'Copy Blocks' Now
91% of Marketing Teams Use AI, But Governance Blocks Scale
Adoption is no longer the problem since almost every marketing team now uses AI. The new Jasper report shows the real bottleneck is governance and legal review.
While 91% of teams are on board, most get stuck trying to clear internal hurdles. The payoff for fixing this is huge. Companies that figure out the red tape are seeing double the return on their investment compared to those just playing around.
Gemini 3.5 Leaked: Build Apps and Marketing Assets in One Shot
Google’s leaked "Snowbunny" model is shocking early testers. It creates entire websites, vector graphics, and original music from a single prompt. Instead of just writing text, it acts like a full production team.
It's currently beating GPT-5 on deep reasoning tasks while costing pennies to run. This could change the math on innovation when you can prototype complex ideas and marketing assets instantly without hiring a single freelancer.
Grok Imagine Offers Cheaper, Faster Video
xAI just dropped a new video model that might actually make AI video affordable. Grok Imagine combines video and audio generation with a focus on speed and low cost, targeting creatives who can't wait minutes for a clip.
Benchmarks show it beating Google Veo and OpenAI’s Sora on both price and latency. If you are building creative tools or need automated marketing assets, this is a serious new alternative to the expensive giants.
ChatGPT Ads May Cost Three Times More Than Meta Ads
Getting your brand in front of ChatGPT users is going to cost you. Reports indicate OpenAI plans to charge you roughly three times what Meta charges for similar placement. They're betting that the high intent of a chat user is worth the premium price tag. While the ad platform isn't fully open yet, you should start budgeting for a much more expensive, but potentially higher-converting, acquisition channel.
Full Story
Chrome's New AI Agent Will Browse and Buy for Users
Your website traffic is about to change because Google is putting an agent directly in the browser. The new Gemini update for Chrome can handle complex tasks like booking travel or buying party supplies without the user clicking through pages. It uses a new "auto browse" feature to fill forms and complete checkouts. This is just another example of why your site needs to be readable by bots, not just humans.
Meta AI Updates Drive 3.5% Lift in Ad Clicks
Meta's AI-powered video generation tools hit a $10 billion annual run rate in Q4 2025. And they're growing three times faster than overall ad revenue. The secret sauce? Their new GEM ranking model that doubled GPU usage for training. Facebook clicks jumped 3.5% while Instagram conversions rose 1%.
But here's what really caught our attention: Business AIs in WhatsApp already handle over one million weekly conversations in Mexico and Philippines. Meta's incremental attribution feature went from zero to multi-billion dollar run rate in just seven months.
Klaviyo Launches ChatGPT App for Instant Marketing Analytics
Klaviyo just made ChatGPT your new marketing command center. Tag @Klaviyo in ChatGPT and suddenly you're asking which campaigns crushed it last week or why revenue tanked yesterday. Real Klaviyo data shows up as interactive cards with actual insights, not generic advice. No dashboard hopping required.
Andrew Bialecki says the next version gets even better. You'll create and review campaigns right in ChatGPT, pulling from past conversations for context. So your data, insights and actions all live in one conversation thread instead of scattered across five different tools.
Full Story
LinkedIn Adds Live AI Tool Certifications Based on Real Usage
LinkedIn just solved the "who actually knows this stuff" problem for AI tools. They partnered with Descript, Lovable, Relay.app and Replit to create certifications based on your real usage.
These companies watch how you actually use their tools and validate your skills automatically. The certification updates live as you work. Gamma, GitHub and Zapier join soon. As a B2B marketer hunting for talent or partners, you'll be able to quickly tell who has real hands-on experience versus who watched a YouTube tutorial once.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
P.S. Help shape the future of this newsletter – take a short 2-minute survey so we can deliver even better AI marketing insights, prompts, and tools.
[Take Survey Here]
