Mindbox, a Russia-based customer experience platform that qualifies as a CDP, set up a separate U.S. operation shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.  They’ve now formally relaunched and renamed the new company as Maestra.  The focus is on mid-size retail.

Our friends in IT are also eagerly exploring AI integration, with 35% even ranking it ahead of perennial obsessions security (31%) and cost (29%) for the past twelve months.  The gap grows even larger for 2024 (AI integration 35%, IT cost 28% and security 28%).  Meanwhile, 88% are moving towards platforms and away from point tools, perhaps as a way to rein in costs (although just 23% think they’re overspending on SaaS applications).

Stick with me here: what if you didn’t have to write good generative AI prompts, but could instead write a prompt that would prompt you to write a better prompt?  If your head hasn’t exploded yet, that seems to be the idea behind new auto-complete and rewrite features in Copilot AI for Microsoft 365.  Of course, there’s a YouTube video showing how.