Mobile marketing platform Leanplum has purchased AI-powered chatbot company Connecto. The acquisition will give Leanplum capabilities for real-time one-on-one interactions through voice and other channels. Connecto is Bulgarian; don’t confuse them with the India-based Connecto acquired by GirnarSoft in 2016.
Mobile marketing vendor Urban Airship has raised a $25 million Series F, bringing its total financing to $100.9 million. Urban Airship orchestrates and personalizes messages across mobile apps, email, Web push, and SMS and connects with other channels via an open API.
I have a slew of other items about AI being used for cool things including seeing around corners https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/12/researchers-develop-ai-for-detecting-objects-behind-walls-with-a-single-photo/, rendering 3D objects from photos https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/14/googles-deepmind-develops-ai-that-can-render-3d-objects-from-2d-pictures/, and delivering packages via two-legged robots (creepy!) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/agility-robotics-building-two-legged-cassie-robot-and-delivery-robots.html.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.