It’s spring, and a cloud giant is dumping heavy rain on AI’s garden.
Last week, Google’s annual Cloud Next event was packed with AI updates, from content creation and personalization to new features for enterprise adoption. But the tech giant also announced new partnerships for its ecosystem with startups like Lytics and Pantheon. This will allow marketers to use generative AI to create personalized campaigns without the use of third-party cookies. Google Cloud also announced a new partnership with Circana to power data assets for media buying through Google’s BigQuery platform.
Google touted expanded partnerships with agency holding companies such as Stagwell and WPP. With Stagwell, Google Cloud powers a new data clean room in Stagwell Marketing Cloud. Google Cloud also powers WPP’s generative AI platform through the newly announced AI model Gemini 1.5 Pro. But overall, Google’s keynote wasn’t focused on advertising.
After Google’s Cloud Next keynote, Gartner analyst Andrew Frank said, “I think the cloud side doesn’t want to gloss things over with advertising and the idea that this is all part of an advertising model that monetizes traffic. I feel that there is no such thing,” he said. “I think they’re trying to be very careful with enterprise applications and non-media applications.”
Lytics, a customer data platform, allows marketers to combine first-party data to find relevant audiences while also providing insights based on what customers are likely to buy and what content they’re interested in viewing. You can also automate your content using Google’s Vertex AI platform. This tool uses the same interest graph as Google’s Privacy Sandbox Topics API.
“There are two very important data elements,” said James McDermott, CEO and co-founder of Lytics. “What do I know about this user? And what content can I deliver that is meaningful and relevant to this user?”
Competitors were actively rolling out their own updates. Namely, Microsoft is opening a new AI hub in London, and he announced a $2.9 billion investment in AI and cloud infrastructure in Japan as well.Meanwhile, Amazon’s annual shareholder A letter from CEO Andy Jass says generative AI “may be the biggest technology change since the cloud” and “possibly since the internet.” One beneficiary he mentioned is the cloud giant’s advertising business, which has added the ability to use AI to generate and customize images, ad copy and videos.
Beyond the big three, cloud data companies are also building their own ecosystems. For example, Snowflake debuted its new Marketing Data Cloud in collaboration with a number of partners, including Snap and Braze, that help with AI, personalization, and other capabilities.
Investments by tech giants in AI startups have also attracted the attention of regulators. Last week, the UK Competition and Markets Authority released a new report. report It outlines the key risks when tech giants restrict access to protect themselves from competition. (The CMA is the same watchdog agency that oversees the development of the Privacy Sandbox.) And on this side of the Atlantic, the U.S. Department of Justice has jurisdiction. reportedly We investigate common board members of various AI companies.
In a statement about the report, CMA CEO Sarah Cardwell said: “The fundamental challenge we face is that we need to protect our market power while preventing the potential exploitation and unintended consequences of market power. , and how to leverage this incredibly exciting technology for the benefit of everyone.”
Prompts and Products: AI News and Announcements
- U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff submitted a new bill This will require AI companies to provide more transparency regarding the content used in the underlying models. Purpose: To provide better insight into how AI models are trained and whether copyrighted material is used.
- Utah Governor signed New AI disclosure law It’s called the Utah AI Act and is scheduled to go into effect next month.
- Consultancy firm Slalom new tools We help different professionals identify how they can benefit from generative AI in their daily work.
- Meta announced New AI chips aimed at powering internal AI workloads.
- Humane has released a new AI device called AI Pin, priced at $699 device has been picked up There are a lot of bad reviews.
- BBDO Energy and Bayer-owned skincare brand Bepanthen have debuted a new campaign in Mexico that uses AI to allow children to create cartoons representing their skin conditions.
1s and 0s: AI in numbers
- new investigation Morning Consult found that Millennial workers are more likely to use generative AI than any other generation in the U.S., including Gen Z.
- new investigation According to SAP Emarsys, 64% of shoppers believe AI has improved the retail experience, up from 51% last year.
- Recent research shows that large-scale language models are more likely to treat names differently based on race and gender. the study Graduated from Stanford University.
- An AI analysis by IV.AI found that 76% of comments submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office expressed negative sentiment about AI and copyright. (See last week’s in-depth article for more details on our findings.)
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