CDP Institute

Google goes head-to-head with SearchGPT, planning to add an AI Mode tab to existing search tabs like All, News and Images. AI Mode will send users to a Gemini-like interface where they can interact and ask follow-up questions. Some reports suggest voice interaction may also be available, but Google’s not talking.

Forget those rumors of stack consolidation: Ascend2 reports that 63% of marketing decision-makers plan to spend more than 20% of their 2025 budget on martech, more than double the share in 2024. Over 50% rate social media as the top area for investment in 2025, with CRM running next at 43%.  Sadly, CDPs rank last at 20%.

Let’s end the year on a positive note: 75% of marketing executives told 10Fold they’re optimistic about having bigger budgets in 2025. Over 450 marketing executives in (primarily B2B) technology organizations revealed that they prioritized spending in digital channels including websites, digital advertising, social influencers, webinars and virtual events.  Print advertising (remember that?) was bottom of the priority list.

The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned against using SMS as a second factor in two-factor authentication. SMS messages are not encrypted and can be read by bad actors accessing the telecomms network. This follows reports in October of a major breach by hackers aligned with the Chinese government.

There were few surprises in the five trends highlighted by a new Google report. Multimodal AI, the evolution of multi-agent AI systems, assistive search, AI powered CX and AI-improved security were all highlighted. The surprise might have been that the work for the report was done by Notebook LLM; then again, perhaps not.

The martech space saw some recovery during H2 2024 with some major M&A announcements and several IPOs according to research by Founders Advisors. They highlight the huge acquisition of IPG by Omnicom this month as well as Innovid’s acquisition by Mediaocean. An active 2025 is anticipated with entrepreneurs and private equity firms considering exit strategies.

It was by no means a sure thing that the Supreme Court would take up this case, but it has agreed to hear TikTok’s challenge to a law that would ban it in the U.S. (unless Chinese owner ByteDance sells its share). This is going to be a highly expedited process, with oral arguments due to be heard on January 10. The ban would go into effect on January 19, so it’s fair to assume the Court will rule promptly.

Hightouch has announced a new integration with LG Ad Solutions as CDPs find more and more scope to participate in the adtech space. LG will provide a means for Hightouch customers to activate their first-party data on CTV. Audiences can be built in the data warehouse, then onboarded to LG.

CDP Simon Data has released three new features. Enrich+ will enhance customer profiles with new core demographic fields. An Engagement Index (yes, scoring engagement) will be added to Simon Predict, while AI Smart Fields will attach attributes to profiles based on data rather than a predefined model.

Nielsen built its business measuring advertising audiences, but if you’d rather measure attention, they’re cool with that.  Their Outcomes campaign effectiveness suite just added technology from Realeyes, which uses AI-powered attention heat maps to detect visual elements that drive higher attention. Users will get performance scores for ads across multiple markets and audience segments.

Integrated Ad Science is also in the attention game, releasing a new Quality Attention Optimization Tool. Partnering with Lumen Research, it will offer attention measurement across programmatic and social campaigns. Lumen’s technology unifies media quality and eye-tracking measurements and is, of course, AI-powered.

Once Open AI admitted it was considering ad sales, it followed like night the day that they’d want to expand the audience they can deliver.  Sure enough, ChatGPT Search is being offered to everyone, not just paid subscribers. You can even make it your browser’s default search engine.  Oh joy!