The wild success of retail media networks has spawned a need for tools to manage them effectively. IPG Mediabrands’ media agency network UM has introduced jauntily-named Shoptimizer, a budgeting and optimization tool for the purpose. The key feature is a dashboard comparing performance of different retail networks and offering AI-powered budget allocation recommendations.
In a clear win for the AI industry, the California Public Utilities Commission granted Waymo and Cruise permission to charge for self-driving taxis in San Francisco with virtually no restrictions. Previous conditions had largely required paid rides to have a safety driver present, although empty and unpaid driverless vehicles have become common in the city. Local residents are not universally pleased.
Wunderman Thompson reports that 45% of global consumers are interested in shopping after they are dead. Puts a whole new spin on “richest person in the graveyard.” Less surprising but still interesting: 32% of online spending in on mobile devices and 19% of everything ordered online is returned. There’s lots of regional detail here if you want it.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.