Let’s try to find some good news today, if only for the challenge. We can start with this FitForCommerce report on leading retailers, which found they were steadily adding digital services even before the pandemic. Since 2016, the number offering online purchase for in-store pickup doubled from 33% to 66% while Web display of in-store inventory rose from 39% to 67%. An impressive 69% offer next day delivery and 20% offer same day delivery. Remember when those were crazy talk?

Spending your budget on privacy tech instead of cool things like trigger campaigns and personalization? OneTrust is offering a collection of free tools for data mapping, data access requests, cookie consent, and more. That’s free as in free beer and if there are limits, I couldn’t find them listed.

It’s deal-making time for generative AI model builders and publishers who can provide them with quality data.  Germany publishing giant Axel Springer is trading access to its data for Microsoft adtech, AI, and Azure hosting solutions.  Meanwhile, The Financial Times has struck a deal with OpenAI to license its content with attribution of summaries and quotes.