CDP Institute

“Predictive media intelligence” may sounds like an especially frothy buzzword, but social media management provider Sprout Social sees enough substance to pay $55 million in cash (plus performance-based earnouts) for NewsWhip, which provides it. The idea is to forecast which stories will be most socially engaging, positioning brands to take advantage before the stories reach — wait for it — “peak virality.”

Helping brands to understand how they are appearing in AI-generated search results is definitely A Big Trend. The latest offering is from GenAI Lens from social media and consumer intelligence platform Meltwater. It analyzes responses from AI tools relating to brand, product, or competitors, so companies can monitor brand visibility and protect against reputational risk.

Big Tech is split over the EU’s voluntary AI Code of Practice, intended to outline how to comply with the coming AI Act’s obligations. Meta opted out, leaving oft-criticized Google a rare opportunity to act like a good citizen.

HubSpot now has a connector that links the customer data in its CRM to Anthropic’s LLM, Claude. Claude will provide insights, answers and visualizations within HubSpot workflows and the connector is available immediately to HubSpot customers with paid Claude subscriptions. This comes immediately after enhancements to HubSpot’s ChatGPT integration, allowing the LLM to answer quick questions relating to HubSpot data.

YouTube will extend its age protection capabilities by using AI to analyze signals that distinguish adult from under-18 viewers. Under-18 viewers will not be able to view adult content, although anyone misidentified as a teenager will be able to verify their age with a credit card or government ID. The solution will also automatically disable personalized advertising to non-adults.

The major UK grocery chain Tesco has announced it is partnering with data platform LiveRamp to activate its huge store of first-party customer data in paid media. Much of this data derives from Tesco’s Clubcard loyalty scheme that tracks both physical and digital touchpoints on the customer journey. WPP Media (formerly GroupM) is also involved in the initiative.

Customer experience vendor NiCE has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the agentic and conversational AI platform Cognigy for a reported $955 million. Cognigy empowers leading brands like Mercedes-Benz, Nestlé, and Lufthansa Group to deliver AI-powered customer support. Cognigy will integrate with NiCE’s CXone contact center capabilities.

Meta is shutting down advertising related to political, electoral and social issues in the E.U. given what it calls the “unworkable requirements and legal uncertainties” related to the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation. Burdens include restrictions on ad targeting and delivery which would limit political and social issue advertisers in reaching their audiences. Non-ad debate and discussion, says Meta, can continue to flourish.

One stat that jumps out from Amperity’s new report on AI in retail is that retailers with CDPs in place were twice as likely to use AI daily or several times a week as other retailers. They were also more than twice as likely to have full AI adoption across multiple business units. The report doesn’t mention it, but we assume that CDP users are also taller and better looking.

Composable CDP GrowthLoop is introducing a real-time messaging feature, partly to combat the idea that relying on warehouse-stored data compromises response speed to customer signals. The feature uses event streaming solutions such as Kafka and Pub/Sub to avoid reliance on batch data processing. Marketers can combine the real-time event data with information stored in a cloud database.

As AI Overviews replace traditional web search results, marketers need new tools to assess how their brands are being presented. Marketing intelligence platform Similarweb is on the case with an AI Intelligence Toolkit that shows brands which topics are most associated with them as well as the top cited sources within AI answers. The toolkit will also benchmark brand performance against competitors.

Further blurring the line between web browsers and search engines, Google is adding store reviews to its Chrome browser. Users who click on an icon next to a store web address will see AI-generated assessment based on information from partners like Bazaarvoice, Bizrate Insights and Reputation.com. The reviews will let customers know about a web store’s customer service, product quality, shipping, pricing and returns.