AI-Powered Growth

August 6, 2025

Captain's log

One of the best parts of this job is watching smart people rethink the basics. What makes a good marketing org? How should video be made? Where do we actually want AI in our workflows?

This week, those questions came alive. Google’s momentum is real again. AI referrals are spiking. Meta is betting big on next-gen models. And under the radar, RevOps is starting to act like a strategic hub, not just a reporting line.

There’s also a mindset shift happening. We’re not just adopting AI tools. We’re shaping how they work for us. Not copilots. Not passengers. Drivers.

The future isn’t arriving in a perfect package. It’s showing up in fragments, across platforms, in meetings, through scrappy tests and rewired playbooks. That’s where the fun is.

Let's break it down.

Patrick Patterson

CEO at Level Agency

What's interesting this week

Meta Hires GPT-4 Co-Creator for Superintelligence Labs
Meta just tapped Shengjia Zhao, one of GPT-4’s co-creators, to run its Superintelligence Labs. This is a serious move toward owning the next generation of foundational AI. If Meta succeeds, the way we target, measure, and scale campaigns could look very different next year.
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Google Gets Its Swagger Back
The AI Search rollout was rocky, but Google is regaining ground. Search is faster. Veo and Flow are legit creative tools. And advertisers finally have something to work with again. Keep your eye on how this changes performance media in Q4.
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New AI Model Promises 100x Faster Reasoning
A research team built an architecture that matches LLM performance with just 1,000 training examples and processes reasoning 100 times faster. It’s early, but these kinds of leaps suggest a future where speed beats size.
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Deindexed Site Rises from the Dead
Google crushed a programmatic SEO site for thin content. Then, after the site improved experience and quality, it was reindexed. Google’s message couldn’t be clearer. If you’re chasing scale without value, expect to disappear.
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Enough Copilots. Give Me a Heads-Up Display
AI shouldn’t just wait for prompts. It should tell you what matters in the moment. Simon Willison makes the case for AI as HUD, not helper. It’s a framing that could reshape product roadmaps and marketing dashboards alike.
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GPT-4V Power, Now Open Source

Cosyn is a new open-source tool that brings GPT-4V-level visual reasoning to everyone. No APIs, no paywalls, just powerful multimodal AI you can run locally. For growth teams, this opens the door to DIY prototyping, image analysis, and smarter creative review workflows without enterprise overhead.

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Deep dive: AI

Good judgment beats good prompts every time

We hear a lot about AI tools overwhelming teams or taking over jobs. That’s the wrong frame. The better question is who is in the driver’s seat.

AI isn’t making people lose their minds. It’s revealing who is paying attention. The marketers and founders who win with AI aren’t the ones using the most tools. They’re the ones shaping how those tools fit their workflows. Prompting clearly. Reviewing critically. Knowing when to delegate and when to override.

A recent piece from VentureBeat digs into this dynamic. If your team is leaning too hard on autopilot, it’s time to re-engage. Better prompts, better judgment, better outcomes.

Start treating AI like a junior strategist. It won’t think for you. But it can help you think faster, with more context and range.

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Deep dive: Growth

1.13 billion reasons to rethink SEO

In June, AI tools referred more than 1.13 billion visits to top websites. That represents a 357 percent increase from last year. AI is no longer a niche channel. It is a major driver of discovery and engagement.

These visits are coming from chat assistants, search companions, and LLM-powered workflows. They do not link to everything. They link to content that is well-structured, credible, and useful in context.

For growth teams, this creates a new layer of competition. Traditional SEO remains important, but visibility in AI summaries and citations now matters just as much. Start testing your content in tools like ChatGPT with browsing or Perplexity. If your brand does not appear in relevant answers, your content strategy may need a shift.

This is a clear signal. AI is changing how people reach your site. Time to meet them there.

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AI tool of the week

Google Opal

Opal is Google’s new playground for building AI-powered mini apps. Think Zapier meets Gemini, but cleaner and more focused. You describe what you want, and Opal helps you wire up the tools and steps to make it real.

Want to create a Veo video from a single image, then pull in AI-researched content to enhance the story? You can build that in minutes. When you're done, you can share it as a reusable mini app.

This isn’t just for devs. It’s a fast way for marketers, strategists, and creatives to skip the engineering queue and test ideas right away.

Ready to turn AI into ROI?

Level Agency is conducting a research study to understand how organizations are preparing for and adopting AI.

We’re collecting insights from teams across industries and we’d love your input. The survey takes 5 minutes and is designed to give your team a pulse on your AI readiness.

Once we’ve wrapped the study, we’ll share a full report with key findings and industry benchmarks to all respondents.

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