I’m not sure launching an artificial intelligence-based service counts as news. But Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference kicks off today so I’ll mention that they’ve announced “myEinstein” AI services that let non-developers create predictive models and chatbots. General release is due next summer. I’ll let you decide whether it’s a good idea for thousands (millions?) of Salesforce users to deploy automated systems with little oversight. But I’m certain that Salesforce’s apparent decision to refer to all its users as “Trailblazers” is just plain silly.

Of course, few pieces of research are more fascinating than what your competitors are up to. Market intelligence aggregator Crayon scans the Web for news, marketing campaigns, Web site changes, customer reviews and support requests, and such, and then shares the bits that seem important. They’ve just launched a free tool that gives daily digests of competitors’ marketing efforts.

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.