Need to Know News - April 2nd, 2026
In this week's Need to Know News edition:
🤖 Two man startup hits $401 Million in first year with AI... his only reason to consider hiring is loneliness.
🤖 Macy's quietly launched an AI shopping assistant... customers using it spend 4.75x more per visit.
🤖 A 30-million-citation study reveals which sources AI search trusts most...
And a whole lot more!
Two Employees, $1.8 Billion in Sales: The Medvi Story
Matthew Gallagher spent $20,000 and two months building Medvi, a telehealth company selling GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, from his house in Los Angeles. He used ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney, and Runway to write code, generate ads, and run customer service. First-year revenue: $401 million.
This year he's on pace for $1.8 billion with one employee, his brother, and no outside funding. The NYT verified the numbers. His only reason for thinking about hiring: "I'm lonely."
People Trust AI for Recipes and Tips, Not Life Decisions
A third of U.S. and U.K. consumers now use AI daily, mostly for cooking tips, meal planning, and quick answers. But a Cint survey of 1,000 people finds a hard ceiling. People will hand AI their vacation booking or financial planning, yet won't let it pick a school for their child or decide where to live.
For advertisers, one number stands out: 42% to 44% said knowing an ad was AI-made didn't change how they felt about the brand.
🚀 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
Shutterstock Puts Licensed Stock Inside ChatGPT
Shutterstock built an app that lives inside ChatGPT. Users can now search and preview licensed images, videos, music, and sound effects without leaving their conversation. With over a billion ChatGPT queries a day, the distribution is enormous.
The strategy: become the rights-cleared content layer for AI workflows. A marketer drafting a campaign brief in chat can go from idea to licensable image in the same window. If creative work increasingly starts inside AI tools, the stock library already embedded there has an edge.
Google Cuts AI Video Costs in Half with Veo 3.1 Lite
Half the price, same speed. Google's new Veo 3.1 Lite model generates video from text or images at less than 50% the cost of its Veo 3.1 Fast tier, with no slowdown.
It handles landscape and portrait, 720p and 1080p, and lets developers set clip length at 4, 6, or 8 seconds. On April 7, Google is also dropping the price of Veo 3.1 Fast. For anyone building video into a product or workflow, the cost barrier just got meaningfully lower.
Macy's AI Chatbot Drives 4.75x More Revenue Per Visit
Customers who used Ask Macy's, the retailer's new AI shopping assistant, spent 4.75 times more per visit than those who didn't. Powered by Google Gemini and released March 23 after a quiet internal launch in December, the tool goes beyond search.
It asks about budget, occasion, and style, then surfaces curated recommendations and a virtual try-on feature. Macy's chief digital officer framed it as "curated discovery, not search." If that revenue-per-visit number holds at scale, expect every major retailer to build one.
Meta Bets Big on AI Video Ads and Creator Matching
If you run ads on Meta, the toolkit just got wider. At IAB Newfronts, Meta rolled out AI video generation from single images (beta testers saw 10% higher click-through rates), UGC-style ads with AI avatars, automated voiceover translation, and tools that auto-convert product catalogs into video.
On the creator side, better audience filtering in Instagram's marketplace and a redesigned Partnership Ads Hub. The common thread: let AI multiply your creative output so your team doesn't have to.
60% of Corporate America Hasn't Moved Past Early AI Adoption
The spending is real, but the execution is stalled. A Conference Board survey of 250-plus HR leaders found that 60% of organizations are still just experimenting with AI, not embedding it into daily work. Only 11% report advanced integration.
The disconnect runs deeper: 52% of workers believe AI skills would help them get promoted, yet 56% of HR leaders say AI fluency plays little or no role in advancement. And despite the headlines, just 6% of companies cite AI as a primary reason for layoffs.
Full Story
Reddit Is the #1 Source AI Search Engines Cite
Where your brand shows up across the web now shapes how AI talks about you. A study of 30 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI features found Reddit is the top source, followed by YouTube, LinkedIn, and Wikipedia.
The platforms diverge after that: Google's tools lean toward social content and Yelp, while ChatGPT pulls more from editorial sites like Forbes and TechRadar.
Review platforms like G2 and Trustpilot also shape AI recommendations. For brand visibility, your website alone isn't enough anymore.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
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