CDP Institute

Efficiency, segmentation, and research top marketing leaders’ list of items to improve, in this Aptitude8 survey, but improving the data hygiene these all rely on ranks last.  Seems to be a bit of a disconnect.  Also interesting: personalization is the least common use of AI (25%). Measurement (47%) and research (43%) head the list and content creation (38%) is somewhere in the middle.

Personalization is probably the main way that consumers interact with AI-based marketing. This Optimove survey finds just 26% feel “very positive” about it, while another 27% think it’s beneficial but have some reservations, 28% have objections, and 19% are neutral. Concerns about data use and being watched head the list of objections to AI; only 15% of respondents had no concerns at all.

Consumers may be lukewarm about AI, but they are passionate about their apps.  Cisco finds that 88% have stopped using an app due to performance issues in the past year and 76% are trying to limit the number of apps on their devices.  Two-thirds (66%) now want to use only the best apps and expect an exceptional digital experience as a standard.  How exceptional can be standard, I don’t know.

It’s Amazon’s world; the rest of us just live in it.  Amazon Web Services (AWS) drove the point home this week by launching an Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency program that certifies vendors as capable of doing their jobs.  Proudly participating CDPs include Acquia, ActionIQ, Adobe, Algonomy, Amperity, Blueshift, CleverTap, Cordial, Tealium, Firsthive, mParticle, Treasure Data, SAS, Segment, Zeta, and likely others that I’ve missed.

Every now and then, global governments humbly suggest that Big Tech companies might adjust their actions ever so slightly to avoid existential harm if it’s not too much trouble.  A group of eighteen countries including the U.S. and Britain took one of those tentative steps this week by offering non-binding recommendations for building AI systems that are “secure by design”.   It’s not clear whether the Tech Overlords took notice.

India-based Rephrase.ai, which uses generative AI to create videos from a text prompt, has been acquired by an unnamed Big Tech firm that is almost surely Adobe. Rephrase says it has over 50,000 users.  The new capabilities will presumably be integrated into Adobe’s existing design tools.