Salesforce is buying robotic process automation (RPA) vendor Servicetrace, which will become part of its MuleSoft integration platform business.  RPA lets companies automate existing processes without making changes to underlying systems.  It’s been hot as companies seek to improve productivity and agility without making large IT investments.  Think of it as a type of no-code development.

All that fancy AI is nice but most companies would be happy just to make customer interactions a bit less taxing – through a good messaging system, for example. Gupshup has built a $150 million business on that premise, and just raised $240 million to grow it further, bringing total funding to $384 million. The funding announcement includes a singularly unimpressive chatbot named Gupper that answers a few questions about the deal.

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.