As we sleigh into December, let’s inspect how November’s seven most impactful AI news events will affect marketing and MarTech leaders. Expect insights on major industry shifts and technological advancements that could inform strategic planning around marketing as well as talent acquisition.
What AI news emerged in November?
- Nov 15: Google is experimenting with a re-querying method by showing AI Overviews within AI Overviews (Source)
- Nov 20: Meta hired ex-Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih to venture its ‘Business AI’ into the enterprise space by commercializing Llama’s models (Source)
- Nov 20: Salesforce launches Agentforce — an AI platform designed for flexibility with prebuilt and customizable agents to automate diverse business tasks (Source)
- Nov 22: OpenAI engineers “accidentally” deleted data that was potential evidence for the NY Times copyright lawsuit (Source)
- Nov 23: OpenAI hired Google Chrome creator Darin Fisher to challenge Google’s search monopoly with its own web browser (Source)
- Nov 25: Nvidia unveils Fugatto as the world’s most flexible sound machine built by talent from India, Brazil, China, Jordan, and South Korea (Source)
- Nov 27: Zoom rebranded to drop the “video” from its business name and usher Zoom 2.0, an AI-first work platform with bold ambitions to reimagine the 4-day workweek (Source)
The G2 Take
Search marketing could face increased challenges as Google’s AI overviews within AI overviews highlight the value of rich results. AI overviews’ two-level query satisfaction will substantially reduce the chances of users clicking through other results or search ads on the SERP.
While the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser, OpenAI’s hiring of ex-Google Darin Fisher ties in its contention to challenge Google’s search monopoly. OpenAI’s strategies will be fueled by its own web browser creation, partnerships with leading publishers, and smartphone creators like Samsung.
Sonic branding is about to have its big moment in marketing
With podcasts having a 546.7 million listener base and a $4.02 billion ad spend estimate, Nvidia’s Foundational Generative Audio Transformer Opus 1 (Fugatto) will enable powerful and nuanced music and sound creation using text-to-speech prompts. This is an engagement driver to be reckoned with for sonic branding, audio media production, and personalized marketing.
As brands go local to succeed at a global level, Fugatto could empower ad agencies with quick variations of campaigns hyper-targeted to regions, situations, accents, and emotions.
AI is transforming MarTech, and NVIDIA will launch new shoots in synthetic media through Fugatto. There could also be the consolidation of audio editing software and audio synthetic media.
Fugatto’s appeal extends beyond its technical prowess — it’s a convergence point for marketing leaders, CCOs, Directors of UX, CTOs, CROs, CX evangelists, diversity talent directors, and investors alike – drawing interest from a wide spectrum of marketing and adjacent business professionals.
This groundbreaking model’s development by multicultural experts from India, Brazil, China, Jordan, and South Korea is symbolic of how diversity will drive innovation.
Big tech’s mega plans for success are hinging on the talent play
OpenAI, Meta, and NVIDIA are making strategic hires to shore up their future successes. OpenAI is leveraging Darin Fisher’s 16 years’ worth of browser development experience, Meta is driving AI transformation with Clara Shih, and NVIDIA is relying on a diverse talent pool, including those behind innovations like Fugatto.
These strategic moves demonstrate how central talent play is to not only marketing but also in the overarching growth and success narrative of these tech giants. As firms continue to compete for top talent, their ability to execute their mega plans for success will increasingly lean on who they can attract and retain.
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MarTech is ripe for a Marvel-style crossover in enterprise
We can foresee Zoom Workplace, Meta Llama, and Salesforce becoming direct competitors in the near future, battling for the enterprise market share.
Salesforce is on the brink of a major agentic breakthrough that connects four often disjointed pain points for businesses: productivity, workflows, automation, and integration. Powered by their in-house Atlas Reasoning Engine, Agentforce promises flexibility by connecting with AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, and Google across a variety of tools.
Zoom’s rebrand from Zoom Video Communications Inc. to Zoom Communications Inc. signals a MarTech shake-up into categories like productivity, communication tools, and agentic AI. Though not directly relevant to marketing, it inches into the zone of relevance for marketers who have to do more with less — think of the Zoom AI Companion, Zoom Docs, and more to summarize meeting tasks, draft email responses, storyboard ideas, and prepare for meetings. Zoom’s leap into the future of work could become instrumental and iconic in heralding the 4-day work week.
The industry is ripe for a multiverse superhero crossover as the lines between business models continue to blur. Meta’s plan to commercialize Llama’s LLM models by foraying into B2B with a new leader, ex-Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih, echoes the observation. Meta wants to make cutting-edge AI accessible to every business but with a caveat — the open-source models will come with a premium and contractual terms around system ownership and permissions.
Meta’s LLM is a leader on the G2 Grid for enterprises, with an 8.3 rating on contextual understanding and unanimous love from users for being open source and customizable. However, it has yet to achieve a big breakthrough in the marketing function, and the Business AI move could just be that.
Three pitfalls marketing leaders must avoid
- Not re-evaluating and diversifying search marketing strategies to maintain and enhance visibility could harm ad dollars and SEO budgets.
- Failing to invest in skilled talent may impede the ability to implement effective AI-driven marketing strategies.
- Overlooking AI in diverse marketing channels for localization could lead to a lack of personalization in marketing ROI.
AI: the wild wild west
Marketing leaders will have lots of technology at hand to hack productivity, streamline marketing operations, and enhance marketing’s impact on business. And let’s not forget the localization and multilingual content treasure trove marketing teams will be able to tap into using synthetic media. But will it be more MarTech, more problems? Or more opportunities?
From teams wanting to show ROI on AI investments to businesses wanting to generate more revenue through their AI developments, big techs’ “for profit” agenda is bringing color to the AI wars. Meta redefines the meaning of open source, and OpenAI openly challenges Google, soon after which it accidentally loses data evidence regarding the New York Times lawsuit. The gloves are coming off.
Almost every business will eventually become AI-first as business at the speed of AI becomes the name of the game. How talent, strategies, and ethical considerations define this future is yet to unfold.
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Edited by Supanna Das
