Alas, we have more typically negative news about Google. They’ve announced an API change that would prevent most ad blockers from working in their Chrome browser. The change would also disable many antivirus, parental control, and privacy-enhancing services. Yikes! Google might change its plan in response to industry complaints.
Digital behavior analysis vendor Contentsquare has raised a $60 million Series C, bringing its total funding to $120 mllion. Contentsquare captures Web and mobile app behaviors, provides journey analytics, heatmaps, and other reporting, and uses artificial intelligence to alert marketers to interesting situations. Founded in 2012, the Paris-based firm now has more than 300 employees worldwide.
Jamie is still on loan to our Department of Counter-Intuitive Results. He offers news that Verizon, a telecom provider not usually associated with great customer experience, is selling a suite of customer service tools. These connect self-service and call center systems with a unified customer view and apply AI to select customer treatments. The ads just write themselves: Now you can offer your own customers that great Verizon experience!
Salesforce’s Dreamforce mega-conference is next week and the company’s publicity elves are already working overtime. In the first of what are sure to be daily announcements this week, the company announced 100+ industry-specific prompts, data models, and AI capabilities across its fifteen industry clouds. It also launched an AI Use Case Library to house its industry-specific AI offerings.