Mobile marketing platform Leanplum has purchased AI-powered chatbot company Connecto. The acquisition will give Leanplum capabilities for real-time one-on-one interactions through voice and other channels. Connecto is Bulgarian; don’t confuse them with the India-based Connecto acquired by GirnarSoft in 2016.
Mobile marketing vendor Urban Airship has raised a $25 million Series F, bringing its total financing to $100.9 million. Urban Airship orchestrates and personalizes messages across mobile apps, email, Web push, and SMS and connects with other channels via an open API.
I have a slew of other items about AI being used for cool things including seeing around corners https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/12/researchers-develop-ai-for-detecting-objects-behind-walls-with-a-single-photo/, rendering 3D objects from photos https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/14/googles-deepmind-develops-ai-that-can-render-3d-objects-from-2d-pictures/, and delivering packages via two-legged robots (creepy!) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/agility-robotics-building-two-legged-cassie-robot-and-delivery-robots.html.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.