The Week in Data Marketing, MarTech and AI: October 25, 2024 edition

Welcome to The Week in Data Marketing, MarTech and AI, a weekly roundup from Quad Insights that sums up the latest news surrounding the technology-driven transformation of marketing.

As generative AI becomes integrated into seemingly all aspects of digital life, media companies continue to apply legal pressure on AI companies. News Corp, parent of media brands including The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, this week filed a lawsuit against AI chatbot and search engine company Perplexity, alleging copyright infringement, The Verge reports. This comes a week after The New York Times sent Perplexity a “cease and desist” notice, demanding that the AI company stop using its content for generative AI purposes, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, film and TV players are taking legal action as well. Alcon Entertainment — a production company for the film Blade Runner 2049 — filed suit this week against Elon Musk’s Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery, alleging copyright infringement and false endorsement, The Hollywood Reporter’s Winston Cho reports. The suit centers around AI-generated images displayed at a recent Tesla robotaxi event, Cho notes.

More on AI safety & regulation:

• ICYMI: “Penguin Random House books now explicitly say ‘no’ to AI training” (The Verge)

Financial services providers will be required to “unlock” access to personal customer financial data under a new rule just finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The new rule gives customers greater capabilities to access, review and transfer data collected through bank accounts, credit cards, mobile wallets, payment apps and other items. The goal, according to a CFPB statement: “By fueling competition and consumer choice, the rule will help lower prices on loans and improve customer service across payments, credit and banking markets.” Note: It took all of one day for banking industry groups to file a legal challenge, alleging that the CFPB has overstepped its authority, Banking Dive reports.

Separately, the Justice Department has introduced a proposed new rule that would restrict or prohibit the sale of personal data to organizations in countries that are adversaries of the United States. CyberScoop’s Derek B. Johnson explains that the proposal restricts the sale of “bulk” sensitive data across six categories: driver’s license and Social Security numbers, geolocation data, biometric identifiers, human genomic data, health information and financial information. The rule targets six countries by name: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

See also:

• CFPB Includes Payment Apps and Data Brokers in Final Rule 1033 (PYMNTS.com)

More on data privacy, compliance and data ownership:

• PAAPI Could Be As Effective For Retargeting As Third-Parties Cookies, Study Finds (AdExchanger)
• The UK’s ICO Is Helping Ad Tech Companies With Privacy Compliance (AdExchanger)
• Americans are concerned about data privacy, and some feel helpless (YouGov)
• Lack of trust in data is hampering decision-making, finds research by Drexel Lebow and Precisely (Diginomica)
• Who really owns your data? Protecting your business from agency lock-in (Alan K’necht, via MarTech)
• ICYMI: Tech Lab releases ADMaP supporting privacy-centric attribution (IAB)

That’s the share of consumers who said they are concerned over fraud and identity theft when shopping online, according to a new CardRates.com survey, per Chain Store Age.

In response to surveys showing that 80% of U.S. adults include climate change as a factor in homebuying, Zillow just updated its for-sale property listings with information about the risks of flood, wildfire, wind, heat and air-quality problems, Sustainable Brands reports. The online real estate marketplace announced it is building risk assessments into U.S. listing pages and offering data points such as risk scores and insurance requirements.

More on data as a product:

• Planet Rolls Out AI-Friendly Data Product (Payload)
• Totavi Releases New Report on Data Aggregators for Fintech Product Builders (Business Wire)
• ICYMI: Data-Driven and Customer-Centric: Inside Lands’ End’s Digital Transformation (PYMNTS.com)

As a part of its Q3 B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey, Forrester is predicting that B2C marketers will accelerate efforts to break down silos between marketing and loyalty programs. The survey found that 78% of marketing executives agree that the systems are unnecessarily separate. “Conventional wisdom says that eliminating redundant channel execution across marketing and loyalty is low-hanging fruit,” per Forrester, “but the most impactful and pragmatic opportunity lies with synchronizing data.”

More on data integration strategies:

• Delta Decodes the Passenger Brain (CDO Trends)
• The martech paradox: why your stack is breaking your marketing (Business Reporter)
• The importance of getting your data strategies right (ITNews Asia)
• ICYMI: “How Harnessing the Power of Data Can Improve Americans’ Health” (Pew)

OpenAI and Microsoft have partnered with The Lenfest Institute for Journalism to award a total of $10 million in newsroom grants, MediaPost’s Ray Schultz reports. Designed to “help newsrooms explore artificial intelligence and how it can drive sustainability in local journalism,” the grants will allow each newsroom to hire a two-year AI fellow who will focus projects on implementing AI tech, Schultz notes. Grant recipients include Chicago Sun-Times owner Chicago Public Media, The Minnesota Star Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

More on AI partnerships:

• ICYMI: “Meta partners with Hollywood’s Blumhouse to test out its AI movie generation model” (Reuters)

Anthropic just announced AI agents that can “use a computer to complete complex tasks like a human would,” CNBC’s Hayden Field reports. The enhancement, dubbed Computer Use, means the AI agents can “interpret what’s on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing,” Field notes, adding that the feature is now available to developers in public beta.

More on tools & advancements:

• “New vehicle and people tracking software doesn’t need biometrics or license plates” (StateScoop)

As generative AI’s ROI continues to be hotly debated, venture capital firms invested $3.9 billion in gen AI startups in Q3 2024, according to PitchBook data, TechCrunch’s Kyle Wiggers reports. (The figure excludes OpenAI’s recently ended $6.6 billion funding round.) Magic ($320 million), Glean ($260 million) and Hebbia ($130 million) were some of the quarter’s biggest winners, Wiggers notes.

More on AI strategy:

• “Inside AI’s growing role in agency reviews — how it is transforming the pitch process” (Ad Age)
• “Agencies committed millions to GenAI. Here’s how it’s playing out” (Marketing Brew)
• “Women in AI: Marissa Hummon thinks AI will help make the power grid greener” (TechCrunch)