One of the problems faced by AI systems is it’s often hard to know how they’re reaching conclusions – meaning that bias and errors are hidden from users. Arthur is designed to address this by monitoring AI performance. They just raised a $15 million Series A.
Shoppers won’t necessarily rush back to stores even after a COVID vaccine is available: just 41% of U.S. respondents to this BlueVenn survey said they’d be more likely to shop after receiving a vaccination. Quite a bit more here about shopper attitudes and how businesses are adapting to the pandemic. Also, 64% of U.S. companies and 71% of U.K. companies said they had a Customer Data Platform; the figure rises to 95% for those over £100 million revenue.
You may have thought BrightTALK was in the business of delivering Webinars, but it turns out they’re really collecting intent data. At least that’s the perspective of TechTarget, which just bought them to grow its stock of intent information. Price was $150 million.
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.