Messaging platforms are also hot, although I have just one item today: Netherlands-based Trengo has raised a $36 million Series A. Trengo combines customer and employee communications across multiple messaging channels, so it also plays in the equally-hot collaboration platform space.
Conversational analytics is another growing space. The latest news there is that contact center AI vendor Observe.AI bought ScopeAI, which automatically extracts insights from chat, email, and social conversations. Related items we’ve already reported include: ZenDesk’s purchase of Cleverly, Level AI’s launch with $15 million funding, Involve.AI’s $16 million Series A, and Verint’s purchase of Conversocial.
The Irish Data Privacy Commissioner (DPC), the EU’s lead data privacy regulator, issued the fine after determining that WhatsApp did not meet transparency obligations from a December ruling, and did not clearly disclose how user data would be used by Facebook and other companies.
Unauthorized training data isn’t an existential threat to generative AI but it’s certainly a headache for users and developers alike. Most developers are trying to exclude materials that creators have explicitly labeled as unauthorized and citing “fair use” as justification for copying everything else. Getty Images has taken an opposite approach, building its gen AI tool only on materials that are explicitly licensed. It’s possible that tracing the provenance of training data will become a standard, similar to how organic food producers trace the origins of their ingredients.