Need to Know News - August 15th, 2025
In this week's Need to Know News edition:
🤖 While everyone thinks GPT-5 flopped, it's secretly dominating one market...
🤖 iOS user growth hack unlocked: Google’s new ads flow that drove 6× installs and –80% CPI...
🤖 YouTube’s newest hustle is “cheapfakes”…with 120+ AI voice-over hoax channels farming outrage and ad dollars...
And a whole lot more!
GPT-5's Rocky Start Hides a Secret: It's a Hit with Businesses
While OpenAI's GPT-5 rollout felt flat for consumers, it's quickly winning over the enterprise market where the real money is. Startups like Cursor and Vercel are already making GPT-5 their default AI, praising its lower price and stronger performance on complex tasks. Some say it now beats its main rival, Anthropic's Claude, at coding.
Since its debut, GPT-5 has seen coding activity double and reasoning workloads jump eightfold. This is a direct challenge to Anthropic, and OpenAI is spending big, on track to burn $8 billion this year, to secure its spot with business customers.
Grok 4 is Now Free for All Users Worldwide
🚀 Missing One of These 5 Essential 'Copy Blocks' Could Cost You A Fortune!
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
Google Unveils 3 Major Updates to Boost iOS App Ads
Google is rolling out powerful updates for iOS app ads, focusing on AI and privacy. New ad formats now let marketers partner with YouTube creators or use playable end cards to grab user attention. The company also launched AI-powered bidding. The feature already helped the app Uatas achieve a 7% higher return on ad spend.
Most impressively, a new privacy-centric measurement tool helped publisher Codeway see a 6X jump in installs while cutting costs per install by 80%.
Marketers Waste 10 Hours a Week on Manual Work
Digital marketers are losing serious time and money to manual work. A new DoubleVerify study shows they spend over 10 hours a week on repetitive tasks, costing North American agencies about $17,000 per employee each year. That’s why most are turning to AI for help.
Interestingly, DoubleVerify just bought an AI ad-buying company called Scibids for $125 million. While its AI has cut costs per action by 61%, some experts worry. DoubleVerify is now essentially grading its own homework by measuring the performance of its own AI technology
Claude Can Now Reference Past Chats
eBay Rolls Out AI and Automation to Boost Seller Profits and Trust
At its first big seller event in five years, eBay unveiled new tools to make selling easier. A new AI Assistant for messaging helps sellers answer buyer questions faster, saving them time.
Sellers can also now negotiate prices directly in messages. But the biggest changes help build trust. eBay will now automatically leave positive feedback for sellers after a smooth sale. Plus, if a tracked item arrives late after a refund was already given, eBay will reimburse the seller.
Gartner's New Report: AI Agents and Data are Stealing the Spotlight
The focus in AI is changing, according to Gartner's 2025 Hype Cycle. The new stars are AI agents and AI-ready data, which are now at the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." This means they're getting a lot of attention. These tools are seen as the foundation for making AI work at scale.
Also at the peak are multimodal AI, which can process images, video, and text together, and AI TRiSM, a system for keeping AI safe and fair. Gartner predicts these will be widely used within five years.
YouTube's New Problem: AI 'Cheapfakes' Are Fooling Everyone
There's a new scam on YouTube called "cheapfakes." These are not high-tech deepfakes. They are lazy videos made with a still image and an AI voice-over. They tell fake stories, like Mark Wahlberg getting kicked off The View. And people are falling for it.
A WIRED report found over 120 channels doing this. Experts say the videos are designed to make you angry. This outrage makes you share without thinking. The goal isn't politics, it's money. These channels, often based overseas, use outrage to get views and earn cash.
Gemini Now Remembers Your Chats, But Adds a 'Forget' Button
Google's Gemini AI is getting a memory upgrade. It can now learn from your past chats to give you more personalized suggestions, like party ideas based on your favorite comic books. This feature is on by default, but you can easily turn it off. If you want to keep a conversation private, you can now use "Temporary Chats."
These chats disappear after 72 hours and are not used to train Google's AI. This update gives you more control over your data, letting you decide if your chats help improve Gemini.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
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