CDP Institute

Digital analytics vendor (and owner of ActionIQ CDP) Contentsquare continued its expansion with acquisition of Loris AI, which analyzes AI-based and human customer support conversations. The system identifies the reasons behind customer calls, emerging issues, and churn signals. Price was not announced but, for context, let’s note that Loris AI had raised $19 million (per Crunchbase) and has 68 employees (per LinkedIn).

You might have thought the window to launch new B2B marketing automation platforms closed long ago, but when the founders of Conversion “dove into marketing and became experts” they decided otherwise. Their efforts have borne fruit in a user base of 4,000 companies over two years and, now, a $28 million Series A to expand their platform which features a drag-and-drop email builder, “magic blocks” for dynamic content, real-time CRM and enrichment synchs, no-code workflows, and dynamic audience segmentation “that just works.”

Systems to help companies manage their appearance in genAI query results have gone from new to normal virtually overnight. Last week we were intrigued enough to note an offering from Meltwater; today we have announcements of roughly similar products from Optimizely, Kalicube Pro, Scalenut, and Adthena. And those are just the ones who made enough noise to gain our attention.

“Predictive media intelligence” may sounds like an especially frothy buzzword, but social media management provider Sprout Social sees enough substance to pay $55 million in cash (plus performance-based earnouts) for NewsWhip, which provides it. The idea is to forecast which stories will be most socially engaging, positioning brands to take advantage before the stories reach — wait for it — “peak virality.”

Helping brands to understand how they are appearing in AI-generated search results is definitely A Big Trend. The latest offering is from GenAI Lens from social media and consumer intelligence platform Meltwater. It analyzes responses from AI tools relating to brand, product, or competitors, so companies can monitor brand visibility and protect against reputational risk.

Big Tech is split over the EU’s voluntary AI Code of Practice, intended to outline how to comply with the coming AI Act’s obligations. Meta opted out, leaving oft-criticized Google a rare opportunity to act like a good citizen.

HubSpot now has a connector that links the customer data in its CRM to Anthropic’s LLM, Claude. Claude will provide insights, answers and visualizations within HubSpot workflows and the connector is available immediately to HubSpot customers with paid Claude subscriptions. This comes immediately after enhancements to HubSpot’s ChatGPT integration, allowing the LLM to answer quick questions relating to HubSpot data.

YouTube will extend its age protection capabilities by using AI to analyze signals that distinguish adult from under-18 viewers. Under-18 viewers will not be able to view adult content, although anyone misidentified as a teenager will be able to verify their age with a credit card or government ID. The solution will also automatically disable personalized advertising to non-adults.

The major UK grocery chain Tesco has announced it is partnering with data platform LiveRamp to activate its huge store of first-party customer data in paid media. Much of this data derives from Tesco’s Clubcard loyalty scheme that tracks both physical and digital touchpoints on the customer journey. WPP Media (formerly GroupM) is also involved in the initiative.

Customer experience vendor NiCE has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the agentic and conversational AI platform Cognigy for a reported $955 million. Cognigy empowers leading brands like Mercedes-Benz, Nestlé, and Lufthansa Group to deliver AI-powered customer support. Cognigy will integrate with NiCE’s CXone contact center capabilities.

Meta is shutting down advertising related to political, electoral and social issues in the E.U. given what it calls the “unworkable requirements and legal uncertainties” related to the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation. Burdens include restrictions on ad targeting and delivery which would limit political and social issue advertisers in reaching their audiences. Non-ad debate and discussion, says Meta, can continue to flourish.

One stat that jumps out from Amperity’s new report on AI in retail is that retailers with CDPs in place were twice as likely to use AI daily or several times a week as other retailers. They were also more than twice as likely to have full AI adoption across multiple business units. The report doesn’t mention it, but we assume that CDP users are also taller and better looking.