Alex Banks

Building a better future with AI

Alex Banks is a founder, creator and investor. He reaches over 1 million people on social media each week with insights into the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

He is the founder and writer of The Signal, a weekly newsletter that cuts through the AI noise to over 55,000+ readers.

Alex is also an active early-stage investor and advisor to startups across the AI and technology landscape.

👉 All partnerships, enquiries and speaking engagements: contact@noisemedia.ai

Writer

Your AI company is just a wrapper.

But that's the whole point.

When Chinese company Manus AI released their autonomous agent, one comment kept appearing:

"It's just a Claude wrapper."

The comment was absolutely right. Manus is only a Claude wrapper.

As Peak, a Co-Founder of Manus, clearly stated:

"We use Claude and different Qwen-finetunes" alongside various tools and open-source packages.

Yet somehow this becomes a "gotcha" that diminishes what's been built.

For some context, let's extend this logic:

• Salesforce is an Oracle database wrapper valued at $320 billion
• Stripe is a Mastercard wrapper valued at $70 billion
• AWS is an HPC primitives wrapper valued at $3 trillion

It turns out that everything in tech is a wrapper.

But in AI things get interesting:

→ We thought the application layer would be commoditised
→ We believed value would concentrate in foundation models
→ The reality is playing out differently

The models themselves are rapidly becoming commodities.

As the cost of intelligence trends toward zero, the real opportunity lies in:

1. Infusing unique insights
2. Leveraging proprietary data sets
3. Creating magical user experiences
4. Building networks effects and a community
5. Combining the best LLMs with specialised tools

These are the areas where I see a sustainable advantage.

So, yes, your AI company might be "just a wrapper."

But that's exactly where the value is being created.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I cover the most important AI developments each week in my newsletter.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

Unitree's G1 humanoid undergoes brutal stress testing.

And I can't stop watching.

The robot in question is the Unitree G1 humanoid:

• 1.32m tall, 35kg build
• 23 degrees of freedom for human-like movement
• 2m/s walking speed
• Advanced 3D LiDAR and sensors
• 2-hour battery life
• $16,000 price tag

It’s even available to buy at Walmart.

G1 has now learned an "Anti-Gravity" mode.

This means that stability is greatly improved under any action sequence.

Even if it falls, it can quickly get back up in under 2 seconds.

The robot has essentially learned to “hack” physics.

You can see in the video that it uses the inertia from bouncing to perform some action.

Knock over the average human and we’ll be on the ground for at least a couple of minutes.

My takeaway:

Whilst “violence tests” are fun for attention.

I’m more interested in seeing real demos that people actually care about, like doing the dishes, vacuuming, laundry, etc.

Control for body mechanics is mostly solved right now.

But fine motor skills, specifically hand dexterity, are the real bottleneck.

When we achieve this and understand how to scale manufacturing, the future is unlocked.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I cover the most important AI developments each week in my newsletter.

Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

P.S. He forgot to sweep the leg…

Anthropic said no to the Pentagon.
OpenAI signed the deal hours later.
Here's what happened:

Anthropic drew two red lines with the Department of War:

1. No mass domestic surveillance
↳ AI can now analyse bulk data the government buys on Americans at scale
↳ Currently legal, but only because the law hasn't caught up

2. No fully autonomous weapons
↳ AI isn't reliable enough to automate selecting and engaging targets
↳ No oversight framework exists for removing humans from the loop

For context:

→ Anthropic was the first AI company on the classified cloud
→ Deployed across intelligence, cyber ops, and combat support
→ Forfeited hundreds of millions cutting off CCP-linked firms
→ These two red lines represent ~1% of use cases

The Pentagon gave Anthropic a 3-day ultimatum.

Anthropic refused.

The response:

→ President Trump: "Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk"
→ Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: Anthropic is a "supply chain risk"
→ Trump ordered every federal agency to cease all use of Anthropic's technology

Then OpenAI entered.

On Friday morning, Altman publicly backed Anthropic's red lines.

By Friday evening, he'd signed the Pentagon deal himself:

→ OpenAI claims the same red lines as Anthropic, plus a third
→ OpenAI asked the Pentagon to offer identical terms to all AI labs
→ Multiple OpenAI employees signed an open letter supporting Anthropic
→ Altman admitted the deal was "definitely rushed" and "the optics don't look good"

The consumer backlash was immediate:

→ "Cancel ChatGPT" went viral across Reddit and X
→ Claude hit # 1 on the App Store, overtaking ChatGPT
→ Claude is now # 1 in Germany, Canada, and other markets

My takeaway:

Not only have I seen my workflows fully transition from ChatGPT to Claude over the last year, but the consumer mass-market is catching up.

I think it’s also important to point out that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation here.

Claude didn’t just hit # 1 in the app store as a result of ChatGPT accepting the DOW deal.

Anthropic has simply built a better product where the timing of adoption happened to coincide with this viral uproar of the company denying use of their products for the surveillance of Americans and operation of autonomous weapons.

Ethical positioning now has direct commercial consequences.

Values are becoming a competitive moat.

I covered this idea yesterday in my newsletter.

Be the first to receive it by subscribing today.

Read it here: https://lnkd.in/e898z7SG

Claude just made switching from ChatGPT effortless.
You can now import your entire memory in 30 seconds.
Here's exactly how it works:

Step 1: Go to Claude Settings → Capabilities
↳ Scroll to the Memory section
↳ Find "Import memory from other AI providers"
↳ Click "Start import"

Step 2: Copy the prompt Claude gives you
↳ The pop-out shows a ready-made prompt
↳ Hit Copy (it's already written for you)

Step 3: Paste it into ChatGPT (or any other AI)
↳ Open a new ChatGPT chat and paste the prompt
↳ It exports everything: your identity, career, projects, preferences

Step 4: Paste the results back into Claude
↳ Switch back to the Claude import pop-out
↳ Paste ChatGPT's response into the text box
↳ Hit "Add to memory"

That's it. Claude now knows everything ChatGPT knew about you.

What gets transferred:

→ How you like to be spoken to
→ Your role, projects, and goals
→ Tools and frameworks you use
→ Every preference and correction you've made

My takeaway:

Claude hit # 1 on the App Store on Monday.
They’re now # 1 on the Android Store today.

A lot of people are curious about switching but assume they'll lose months of context they've built up with their exiting AI model provider.

That friction just disappeared.

Anthropic has removed the last real switching cost.

Whether it be ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok, you no longer have to start from scratch.

Memory portability is vital for the AI to have robust context about you as an individual and tailor outputs appropriately.

What’s more, the utility of memory compounds over time.

My memory with Claude is already over 2 pages long.

If you've been on the fence, now's the time.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I’ll be doing full coverage in this week’s newsletter.
Subscribe to The Signal: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

The people building AI keep walking away from it.

And they're not leaving quietly.

In the past week alone:

1. Mrinank Sharma, Anthropic's Safeguards Research lead, resigned with an open letter declaring the world is facing "interconnected crises."
2. Zoë Hitzig, an OpenAI research scientis,t published a New York Times op-ed warning about user manipulation through ChatGPT's emerging ad strategy.
3. Two more xAI co-founders left (half the founding team is now gone)

Rewind further and the list grows:

→ Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder, left to start a safety-focused company (May 2024)
→ Jan Leike, co-lead of OpenAI's Superalignment team, resigned saying safety had taken a backseat (May 2024)
→ Miles Brundage, OpenAI's senior advisor for AGI readiness, warned that no lab is prepared for what's coming (October 2024)

Every industry has turnover.

But this isn't normal turnover.

These are researchers who spent years building the most advanced AI systems ever created.

And something about what they saw made them walk away.

If the people who understand this technology best can't reconcile building it with their own conscience, what does that tell the rest of us?

Or are they partnering with national publications to generate clicks while leaning into the "fear AI" angle to drive demand for their next venture?

Only time will tell.

Follow me Alex Banks for daily AI highlights and insights.

I explore ideas like this weekly in my newsletter The Signal.
Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ePSZP6KF

Founder @ Growth Marketing Agency - Single Grain, Podcaster @ Marketing School + Leveling Up

Single Grain is a digital marketing agency focused on driving scalable and predictable revenue growth using Facebook advertising, Google Ads, YouTube advertising, SEO, video production and content marketing. 

We've worked with companies such as Amazon, Uber, Nordstrom and venture-backed startups to create and execute on custom-tailored growth strategies.






-> For those of you that are interesting in marketing and personal growth tips from top entrepreneurs, please visit http://www.levelingup.com for our free podcast. You'll hear from billionaires, authors, and other high performers.

-> For my daily marketing podcast, go listen to Marketing School at https://www.singlegrain.com/marketing-school-podcast



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Growth Hacking

Eric Siu ✓

If you are obsessed with Claude Code, OpenClaw, etc., we want to hire you.

First step is to go through our ‘beat claude’ challenge at Single Grain | Start Growing . 🙂

I believe that this will be the future of hiring. Feel free to take the template for your own company.

Link in first comment.

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84% of the world has never used AI.

Let that satisfying visual sink in for a second.
Each dot in this chart represents ~3.2 million people. 2,500 dots = 8.1 billion humans.

The gray? That’s ~6.8 billion people who have never touched an AI tool. Not once.

The green at the bottom? ~1.3 billion free chatbot users. That’s only 16%.

The tiny sliver of yellow? ~15-25 million people paying $20/month for AI. That’s 0.3%.

And the red dots you can barely see? ~2-5 million people using coding scaffolds like Claude Code or Cursor. 0.04% of the planet.

I run a business where AI fluency with Claude Code is now mandatory. We’ve replaced significant headcount costs with autonomous agent systems. We build business tools with Claude Code.

Most founders I talk to think AI adoption is “everywhere.” It’s not even close.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely in the top 1% of AI users on Earth. The opportunity gap between those who use AI and those who don’t is only getting wider.

We’re at the dial-up era of AI. The people building skills now will compound their advantage for the next decade.

What’s your take on the adoption curve?

Join Neil Patel & Eric Siu live as they talk about the latest in AI and marketing

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