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“Every company is a software company,” as Watts S. Humphrey once famously observed, but this is probably not what he had in mind. As brands bid to wring every ounce of profit from every dollar earned through the efficiency of automated decision-making that understands customers better than they understand themselves, they now face a new and potentially costly risk – penalties in the millions of dollars, and a regulatory regime that makes it easier for the market policemen to write you a ticket. What’s more, it’s not fully clear how broad the definition of what constitutes automated decision-making will be – which puts almost everyone on notice. Privacy specialists Mi3 spoke with stressed there’s much more work to be done than simply writing a new privacy policy. For starters, you have to adhere to it. That might mean costly and complicated business and system process changes that move at the speed of compliance – but in a market powered by the accelerant of generative AI.

A dedicated, multi-channel marketing campaign to engage Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers helped Stan firstly get one in 10 viewers tuning into its 2024 Paris Olympic coverage to watch one of eight dedicated international, in-language streaming channels. Even more importantly, the 2.5 million campaign impressions delivered via agency partner, CulturalPulse, which stirred up word-of-mouth, saw this figure grow to one in seven over the course of the tournament, helping generate a hefty 50 per cent uptick in sports subscribers during that time. For Stan CMO, Diana Ilinkovski, the results speak volumes around how the streaming service can continue to find growth by tapping Australia’s multicultural consumers not only around sports content, but broader entertainment programming. For CulturalPulse CEO, Reg Raghavan, it’s a strong example of an approach that recognised the distinctive collective versus individual attributes of multicultural communities, had a creative eye for the sports and athletic stars that resonate most (cue Greek NBA basketball stars), and demonstrated just how much brands need to invite – not just reach – CALD consumers to win them over. 

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was itching for a street fight with Microsoft and Open AI at a press conference earlier this morning in San Francisco after his “Dreamforce” conference keynote. He claimed the “third wave of AI” had started with reasoning autonomous agents that blended with humans in meetings across every company function was already delivering substantial gains in early trials with Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci and publishing firm Wiley. Benioff launched the company’s “Agentforce” this morning – the most important in Salesforce’s history, he said – which sets autonomous agents into companies trained for business outcomes, not language processing.