Yesterday, I saw Studio Ghibli’s “Princess Mononoke” in IMAX. It was probably the sixth time I’ve seen it, making it my third-most-watched Ghibli, behind “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro.”
So, I am not an unbiased observer when it comes to a recent AI development.
On Tuesday, ChatGPT released a new version of its image generation tool. During the live-streamed demo, the tool was asked to turn a picture into an anime image. The result looked a lot like the style of Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki — raising serious issues around copyright violations.
ChatGPT took the image down, so here’s an example using a little-known science fiction film.
Happily, the outrage about using a technology Miyazaki calls “an insult to life itself” to mimic his work was vast and speedy. Also, happily, OpenAI has made it impossible to do this anymore.
Let this serve as a warning to the AI industry. Mess with the Master again and the angry villagers will break out torches and pitchforks. And our leader will be a raging woman riding a giant, hungry wolf.
Here are this week’s AI-powered martech releases.
- Zeta Global released AI Agent Studio, a generative AI tool suite that allows marketers to select, create, and link AI agents for executing complex marketing tasks. The platform enables users to activate prebuilt agents and create custom agents that can work together to automate marketing workflows.
- Jellyfish developed an AI-driven in-housing media platform that provides a unified framework for accessing proprietary AI agents and tools. The system automates media research, evaluation, content strategy, and activation for marketing teams.
- Deevid.ai launched an AI Video Generator that creates videos from text prompts, images, or existing video footage.
- Ortto introduced Ortto AI, a suite of AI features for marketing automation. The platform includes AI Filters for audience segmentation, AI Decision Shapes for analyzing sales journeys, and AI Enrichment for contact record improvement and lead scoring.
- Syndigo released a Product Experience Cloud for Brands, an AI-native platform that centralizes product data, enables syndication across business channels, and provides real-time performance analysis.
- Algolia launched AI-powered Collections, a tool that helps merchandisers and content curators generate product discovery experiences through an integrated dashboard.
- EngageLab upgraded its Marketing Automation with AI capabilities, offering omnichannel marketing connections, a visual journey orchestration tool, and AI-driven insights for tracking user behavior and optimizing strategies.
- 6sense introduced Intelligent Workflows, a product that centralizes omnichannel engagement and data management for marketing and sales teams.
- Constructor announced a Retail Media Suite with Sponsored Listings, an AI-powered solution that creates personalized ads integrated within search results and product recommendations.
- Kibo Commerce launched Kibo Agentic Commerce, an AI platform with nine specialized agents supporting various commerce operations, including shopper interaction, customer service, promotions, and analytics.
- Monetate evolved its platform with Orchid AI, an engine that unifies search, navigation, personalization, and testing for ecommerce brands.
- MeetingPulse added an AI Summary Tool to transform live Q&A and collaborative sessions into actionable insights.
- Simon Data introduced Goals-Based Marketing, an approach using three AI agent teams to analyze customer data, create audience attributes, and forecast campaign performance.
- Forethought launched Voice, a multi-channel agentic AI platform that operates across phone, chat, SMS, and email, allowing businesses to encode policies using natural language.
- Resulticks released SHOP, an AI-powered retail solution that converts shopper insights into personalized experiences, connecting online and offline consumer touchpoints.
About the author
Constantine von Hoffman is managing editor of MarTech. A veteran journalist, Con has covered business, finance, marketing and tech for CBSNews.com, Brandweek, CMO, and Inc. He has been city editor of the Boston Herald, news producer at NPR, and has written for Harvard Business Review, Boston Magazine, Sierra, and many other publications. He has also been a professional stand-up comedian, given talks at anime and gaming conventions on everything from My Neighbor Totoro to the history of dice and boardgames, and is author of the magical realist novel John Henry the Revelator. He lives in Boston with his wife, Jennifer, and either too many or too few dogs.
