If robots wrote the news, would they write about other robots? I ask because there’s been a suspicious burst of items about AI-powered writing tools, just when live journalists might have set things on autopilot so they could sneak out early for the holiday. Top of the list: writing-suggestion platform Grammarly just raised $200 million at a $13 billion valuation, doubling total funding to $400 million.
ADNOC Distribution, the company’s retail arm has opened ADNOC Oasis outlet, a fully autonomous shop in the UAE, as the beginning of its rollout of AI-powered stores. Customers can buy goods without using a scanner or interacting with a cashier, and they can pay by tap, either with a bank card, doing a QR code scan, or by using their Emirates ID.
Also recently, marketing copy generator Anyword raised $21 million, bringing its total to $30 million. They say their system can be trained to copy your brand voice and/or to tailor copy versions for different customer segments. Just a few days before that, writing assistant Writer reported its own $21 million round. Then we have this (hilarious) piece about – and partly by – writing assistant Sudowrite and its $3 million seed round.
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.