Two in five markets say emerging tech fails to live up to its hype

A sign lit up to spell 'hype'

Emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI, and IoT platforms are exciting for marketers, but many businesses are not getting the ROI they had hoped for.

That is according to a GetApp survey of 301 marketers, in which 65% say emerging martech inspires them to do their best work, but nearly half (49%) admit they have faced challenges with these much-hyped technologies, including integration issues, governance complications, and cost.

It can be risky to invest in...

NICE and Google Cloud partner on digital conversations and self-service experiences

self service checkouts

NICE, a provider of enterprise software solutions, has collaborated with Google Cloud to address the growing demand for more effective and automated customer self-service systems that integrate with traditional contact centres. 

NICE is integrating its cloud-based, AI-powered CXone customer experience platform – used by 85 of the Fortune 100 companies – with Google Cloud Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (CCAI), a group of APIs that bring the best of Google AI to contact...

Chatbot Botco.ai receives $3.6m investment to help healthcare organisations

Botco.ai, an HIPAA-compliant conversational marketing platform, has received additional seed funding from VamosVentures, bringing the total seed round to $3.6 million. 

VamosVentures is a Los Angeles-based and Latinx-owned venture capital fund focused on technology companies led by diverse founders with compelling products and solutions. Botco.ai will use the funds to accelerate development and adoption of its AI-based conversational marketing platform, which is currently in...

Alfi research shows promising growth for programmatic advertising

Half of senior advertising executives expect spending on programmatic advertising to increase dramatically over the next three years.

This is according to a survey by the Florida-based artifical intelligence (AI) advertising SaaS platform, Alfi. The research also found that, when asked to pick the three most important benefits of programmatic advertising, 94% of those asked cited automation.

Programmatic advertising involves the automated purchasing and management of...

Vimeo becomes first video software company to partner with TikTok

TikTok Logo

Video SaaS company Vimeo has joined TikTok Marketing Partners, a group of specialist companies that create, implement and measure ad campaigns on TikTok’s video-based social media app.

The partnership gives small and medium businesses (SMBs) access to Vimeo’s suite of video creation tools whilst simultaneously enabling them to take advantage of TikTok’s broad userbase.

Pre-release tests of both company’s capabilities saw participants able to double the number of...

The next normal – The recovery will be digital

Tsunamis wipe out things quietly and quickly without giving you time to prepare and react. This is exactly how the year 2020 showed us - the overnight change. Throughout history, the most important lessons emerge from the worst humanitarian challenges. Understanding the development of human evolution motivates us to reflect on what digital transformation really means to humanity. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation. Futurist Gerd Leonard claimed that anything that cannot be...

Why R&D is ‘the wind beneath marketing’s wings’ at Coca-Cola: AI, analytics, and more

Session Even if you are one of the biggest and most recognisable brands in the world, it never pays to stand still.

Coca-Cola is a particular case in point. For years, the soft drinks behemoth regularly topped the charts as the world's most valuable brand. Yet in 2013, according to Interbrand's rankings, Apple took Coca-Cola's crown, ending its 13-year unbroken stay at the top and moving it down to third, behind Google. As of 2019, Apple and Google remain one and two, with...