AI-driven marketing language generator Persado has added story-telling to its skills. But don’t get too excited: it’s not describing a sequence of events like what happened on its summer vacation. Rather, it’s writing copy snippets that reflect brand voice, seasonal themes, audience interests, and campaign goals. Still, it’s a step towards better AI-written copy. And, for now, what happened in Vegas still stays in Vegas.

Here’s an excellent NTT Data survey on attitudes towards big data. You won’t be surprised that consumers are skeptical: while 65% of business executives said big data will be used to help consumers, just 40% of consumers agreed. The skepticism is justified: 80% of executives said their company gives strong protection to corporate data but just 42% said consumer data is strongly protected. Lots more about what’s creepy and how consumers are protecting themselves.

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.