G2’s October News Round-up Analysis

The AI landscape is a lot like a New York minute — fast and relentless. Marketing and MarTech leaders are constantly overwhelmed, and we understand that keeping up with everything is tough. We recapped all things AI from October to prepare you for Q4!

We break it down by sharing key AI news, big-picture analyses, emerging trends, and an exclusive G2 take.

Google is redefining retail, media, and personalization

Google is transforming personalized consumer experiences in retail and media by rebuilding Google Shopping from the ground up. It has paired its 45 billion product listings in the Shopping Graph data set with Gemini models to fuel Google Shopping’s AI enhancements for a hyper-personalized and efficient shopping journey. This encourages brands to focus on data-driven marketing, schema building, and informative content development for high conversion rates and brand loyalty. 

Google also promises streamlined and precise campaign strategies with its new video experimentation innovation. Marketers are poised to benefit from enhanced video advertising, which will refine creative campaigns and facilitate A/B tests. It will allow users to design highly relevant advertising campaigns that optimize media impact on cost-per-view (CPV) and Brand Lift.

SynthID’s watermarking and AI-generated content identification across text, images, audio, and video offers a strategic edge in maintaining content authenticity. This is crucial for industries that depend on user-generated content (UGC) or have significant media engagement. The deployment plays a pivotal role in upholding brand integrity and consumer trust by combating misinformation.

OpenAI continues to transform marketing playbooks with tools and collaborations

2024 has been a long season of collaborations for OpenAI as it continues to push the envelope for AI innovation, digital interactions, and content creation. 

Launching its suite of new tools, OpenAI aims to bolster usage and cost-effectiveness for businesses. Their recent roll-outs enable developers with model compression, prompt caching API calls, and schema generation. It also caters to non-dev users with an improved speech-to-speech voice model and GPT-4o for fine-tuning text and images.

The debut of the sCM model has revolutionized image and video production. It is 50 times faster than their current diffusion models. This provides speed, efficiency, and scalability that will reshape content and media production workflows.

With Swarm, OpenAI introduces a novel approach to complex problem-solving through synchronized AI collaboration. Considered experimental and currently available on GitHub, it automates complex workflows through a group of lightweight agents.

OpenAI’s strategic service alliance with Bain & Company signals a consultant 2.0 era in which Bain’s subject matter experts will help OpenAI foray into B2B with deeper integration. By reaching conglomerates, OpenAI is invading how MarTech is utilized at the enterprise level.

The launch of ChatGPT Search marks a pivotal shift in information retrieval. It merges natural language processing (NLP) with dynamic data integration to enhance user engagement and challenge conventional search methodologies. Available to Plus/Team users, this will help users find real-time information from trusted, premium publisher sources.

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AI companies strive to build trust with authorities, businesses, and consumers

President Biden’s National Security Memorandum underscores AI’s critical role in national security, reflecting a growing governmental acknowledgment of its vast potential and risks. It intends to protect American AI innovations and democratize AI research beyond major tech firms while strengthening the country’s governance frameworks and AI leadership globally. This calls upon AI companies more than before to take steps for secure AI use and distribution. 

For instance, Meta signs a multi-year agreement with Reuters to build user trust and engagement by delivering verified news while advancing AI-driven content delivery across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

While publishers like Reuters are signing strategic partnerships, Penguin Random House is fighting to safeguard intellectual property from unauthorized AI utilization, further adding color to the complex relationship between AI giants and publishers.

There are updates to user productivity as well. 

Anthropic’s Claude AI update attempts to establish the tool as a versatile and user-friendly productivity tool that continues workflows across different devices and platforms. It also debuted on iPad to enhance accessibility. While Claude’s update claims to enhance flexibility and control for more productive workflows by letting users access previous chats and customize prompts, it doesn’t seem exceptionally different from ChatGPT.

On the technical frontier, Nvidia’s Llama-3.1-Nemotron-70B-Instruct and Anthropic’s latest updates to Claude AI present new opportunities to integrate sophisticated AI tools to boost productivity and customer engagement by aiming to master overarching workflows.

Apple is deepening its B2B integration through the Business Connect program. By displaying custom brand logos in emails, showcasing custom caller IDs, and personalizing the Tap and Pay experience, Apple is enabling businesses to amplify brand visibility, foster trust, and streamline digital interactions in a secure ecosystem.

B2B aims to succeed through identity resolution and customer-centric solutions

October developments in AI technology highlight an accelerating trend of leveraging AI to optimize business operations and enhance strategic capabilities within the B2B ecosystem. 

Zeta Global’s acquisition of LiveIntent underscores its strategic focus on enhancing identity resolution capabilities. It also highlights the importance of data accuracy in personalized marketing amid evolving privacy landscapes.

Meanwhile, Zendesk’s AI-enhanced voice solutions and customer service aim to propel customer satisfaction by reducing response times and improving service quality, something that is crucial for maintaining competitive advantage in increasingly data-driven markets.

The G2 Take

Regardless of whether your business model is B2B, B2C, or D2C, AI is creating a broader movement, making all leaders shift their strategic lens to be B2H (business-to-human). Businesses heavily invested in AI tech across 2023-2024 and now crave to prove ROI.

There is a huge opportunity to bolster digital strategies and a broader shift toward integrated AI solutions that could reshape norms even in the most challenging industries.

While Nvidia joins the AI LLM race, it will be intriguing to see how users review it in the months to come.

While AI in retail and e-commerce leaves a lot to be desired, users do not trust it.

Source: Retail Trends 2025

“AI in retail isn’t fully mature. By 2025, vendors will have to better understand AI’s nuances to enhance products and boost customer adoption.”

Gabriel Gheorghiu and Subhransu Sahu
Research Principal and Senior Research Analyst, G2

This is the best time to focus on building the brand and developing assets to: 

• Ensure your target consumers have brand recall when they move past what Google likes to call the messy middle of the purchase journey
• Lay the groundwork for future innovation in consumer interaction and media authenticity
• Build a reliable foundation that will safely pair data and AI usage with ethical advertising

“Ethical advertising that’s personalized and privacy-conscious will become the standard for digital ad strategy in 2025.”

Victoria Blackwell
Research Principal, G2

Technologies like SynthID will press businesses to have better internal processes around vetting in-house content production to ensure authenticity and brand alignment, as well as prevent potential plagiarism.

Hot and cold AI-publisher alliances will continue shaping responsible digital media and marketing frameworks.

Though Meta isn’t the first AI giant to go down the AI-publisher strategic partnership route, it was one of the first to start a fact-checking partnership with Reuters in 2020.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Amazon-backed Perplexity have struck similar partnerships this year with news organizations while they still face 2023’s legal heat for copyright infringement from The New York Times and Dow Jones, respectively.

Although the strategic partnership trend between AI businesses and publishers is complicated, it also sets a foundation for responsible AI and redefined digital media norms that drive authenticity, regulation, and credible content.

Strategic planners and software buyers can view this trend as a building block for the blueprint to guide future digital marketing partnerships and licensing frameworks with AI technology providers.

OpenAI’s bold expansion will continue.

True to our July prediction, OpenAI is building a suite of innovations, venturing into different arenas to compete with the Googles and Amazons of the world. Expanding into search, media, retail, and healthcare life sciences will change how consumers access information, behave online, and engage with businesses.

While Google has had its monopoly, getting frowned upon in the process, OpenAI seems to be making a web of its own — from ChatGPT Search to the Bain & Company alliance. Considering that search and consultation are two major ways people inform their decisions and the fact that OpenAI could achieve a monopoly-like position, decision makers will have to lean on unbiased views, subject matter experts, and user-generated content (UGC) as a strong source of truth.

What more on OpenAI’s plate? Its already complicated relationship with parent company Microsoft may take a few hits now that Swarm is out. With Swarm, OpenAI has a tool that directly competes with Microsoft’s Copilot.

But as OpenAI is intended to be a for-profit entity that is conquering more markets, G2 data shows it would need to compete with leading AI agents like Kore.AI, Intercom, and Gladly.

Eight pitfalls marketing leaders must avoid

1. Google’s AI personalization engine aims to enhance user experience but also dramatically heightens competition among brands. It provides an interface where buyers might easily bounce off to read more product-related educational content on a competitor’s site.
2. Google’s SynthID may fall to content manipulation as it isn’t completely safeguarded and needs policy development.
3. Deploying video models without strategic resource management can threaten scalability, especially in cases of human oversight. Overenthusiasm could cost companies performance if not tested for respective audience sets across platforms.
4. Falling into the OpenAI Swarm swamp without taking stock of existing workflows, technical skill sets, data exposure, and brand adherence can be a recipe for operational failure.
5. Additionally, ChatGPT Search’s performance hinges upon maintaining data accuracy and impartiality, demanding meticulous supervision to avoid misinformation or bias.
6. Meta’s updates aren’t bulletproof until it transparently communicates its strategies for content verification, and safety protocols to effectively manage data collection and information inauthenticity risks as its partnership with Reuters evolves.
7. The ease of integration across Apple’s platforms might tempt businesses to forego other channels, risking a mono-channel strategy that could alienate non-Apple users.
8. Not balancing AI capabilities with human insight to ensure empathy, contextual relevance, and unbiased delivery will erode customer trust.

Balancing AI: experimentation, agility, ethics, education

The October AI updates highlight an industry eager to maximize operational efficiency, drive personalization, and elevate customer interactions. CMOs and budget holders must rethink their approach to experimentation, agility, and integrated AI strategies to maintain competitiveness. 

Agentic AI, search innovation, and strategic partnerships are evolving elements that will continue to shape the future of marketing and MarTech. As these AI agents integrate more deeply into business processes, maintaining an agile application approach will be key to harnessing AI’s full potential while safeguarding organizational integrity.

“Start cataloging your AI systems and their purposes now. Put pressure on your vendors to explain how they audit their data and models for bias. These proactive measures ensure ethical AI deployment and mitigate risks.”

Andrew Stevens
Senior Director & Senior Corporate Counsel, G2

Investing in AI education is crucial for balancing innovation with compliance and ethical standards. By aligning with enhanced intellectual property protection and security frameworks, organizations can build trust and prepare for long-term technological growth. Staying informed about regulatory developments and nurturing a culture of ethical AI use is essential for leveraging these advancements while ensuring sustainable business success.

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Edited by Supanna Das