Tech

Google has found itself back in the limelight as Attorney Generals across 33 US states bring a new suit alleging the tech monopolist "deliberately and in bad faith" deleted millions of pages of chats over more than a decade to hide key evidence from antitrust regulators - despite making assurances to the contrary in January 2020. Future Media's Ricky Sutton shares the full scoop.

An Australian publisher class action against Google’s alleged nefarious and anti-competitive practices to squash the publishing industry is being led by one of Australia’s top silks in competition and commercial law, John Sheahan. The widely regarded barrister is also representing Coles in its case defending ACCC allegations that the two big supermarket chains engaged in deceptive pricing conduct, including Coles “Down Down” marketing. Sheahan is also a member of the Takeovers Panel which is under the remit of the Federal Treasurer.

The AI driven marketing landscape is a big messy, complex ecosystem of disparate technologies all at different points along the technology landscape according to Scott Brinker and Frans Rierersma in their Martech 2025. But irrespective of that, CMOs should expect it to cause significant real-world changes during 2025. Some of the biggest changes are predicted to emerge in areas such content marketing, sales automation and chatbots, which currently dominate early AI use cases. All of this is creating a new headache for CMOs - modern martech stacks connected in a fragile point-to-point fashion to serve specific use cases, according to the report: "We only connect them to customer data in the late stages of campaigns or customer experiences to deliver limited personalisation."

Every customer interaction counts, and brands need to bring their best game in an era when consumers always expect more, says Jamie Domenici, CMO of Klaviyo. She argues modern marketers need to navigate the complex web of touchpoints, from pre-sale to post-sale, to foster loyalty and drive profitability. Speaking with Mi3 recently she showcased the experiences of brands such as Rhianna's Fenty Beauty, and July Luggage successfully, which capitalised on unexpected surges in brand demand, showcasing the need for seamless connectivity between top of the funnel and the systems and processes that have to deal with occasionally dramatic spikes in demand.

The corporate blow torch is turning on the decade-long free rein customer experience has had at the top echelons of industry as the “right thing to do” – the next wave of transformation already underway is customer and business transformation itself, says Nigel Vaz, global CEO of big four consulting rival Publicis Sapient. Vaz made a flying visit last week to announce the new boss of his Australian outpost, former Deloitte partner Angela Robinson. Both talk of a hard swing by company leadership here and abroad to only greenlight investments in customer experience, digital transformation and AI – mostly irreversibly entwined – that prove a “steel thread” to clear, short-term business objectives and outcomes. It’s either revenues up or cost out, they posit. And in the high-stakes, high yield business consulting sector, Vaz and Robinson point to a fault line opening up for the big consulting firms and others like Accenture and Cognizant – enormous threats loom from AI to their massive, arbitraged and outsourced business process services. 

Three weeks before Google is due to pay publishers $100m via a deal struck to avoid Canada's equivalent of a news media bargaining code, the Canadian competition bureau has just ordered Google to sell its ad server DFP and ad exchange AdX, the backbone of its $238bn-a-year ad machine. Plus, it says Google must pay multibillion dollar damages for forcing publishers to use its anticompetitive ad products. If the search giant blocks access to its data, the bureau says it will fine Google “three per cent of its global revenue”, or US$9.2bn.

With new privacy laws passing Parliament last week, Australia's biggest companies find themselves contending with a regulatory regime that will ultimately prioritise 'fair and reasonable behaviour' over the consent management of complicated data and marketing stacks. That might be just as well. Analysis by Mi3 working with DataTrue reveals that only 15 ASX100 firms have implemented a consent management platform or basic banner. (CMP). Nicole Stephensen, managing director of Ground Up Privacy, warns that when the era of fair and reasonable privacy rules with the second tranche of privacy reforms, "If consent lacks specificity and purpose, CMPs "may not be worth the software they're written on." 

Beyond Bank, which provides banking, lending and insurance services to 305,000 members, has successfully transformed its lending process, slashing approval times from weeks to mere days, all while transitioning from a clunky, two-decade-old system to a cutting-edge platform designed to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency. 

Months after Google was ruled an illegal monopolist in its search business that paid handsomely for market dominance, crushed rivals and hiked prices at a whim, the proposed penalties and remedies are known, including more transparency in ad pricing and open data flows for advertisers – a long-held market frustration.

The most recent round of quarterly growth confirms that for the Big Three digital advertising giants Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, age has not wearied them, and neither has a cost-of-living crisis in Western markets. Nor, for now, has the unwelcome attention of regulators across the world. Instead, less than two years after the tech sector went into a sharp and brutal reversal, digital's Big Dogs are experiencing robust growth and rude health on the revenue front. But it's tomorrow's fights that matter most, not the last quarter's, and the future is all about AI, according to the earnings calls with their shareholders.

It’s been a busy six months for the newly merged marketing teams at Adelaide University as they concurrently roll out a new brand identity, martech platform and data-driven digital experience firstly through its global website and extending into its media campaign efforts. All with the aim of personalisation at scale. Capability building – along with a focus on using prospect and current student insights to inform experimentation and content online – has been critical, says head of digital marketing, Emily Primavera.

Analysis of 1,000 company financial reports by IAB Europe underlines that marketing costs are rising while growth is slowing. That’s forcing some major shifts and accelerating those already in play – and piling pressure onto CMOs. Daniel Knapp, chief economist at IAB Europe, said that pressure presents an opportunity for publishers – but they may not be seeing much of that increased spend, because it’s going to other parties. “If you are not seeing it that doesn't mean it doesn’t exist. It means you are in the wrong market or selling the wrong thing.”

The government has yet to decide whether to create a single centralised system that all social media platforms would need to integrate with, although that would be unusual according to Tony Allen, the executive leading the consortium overseeing the trial. Meanwhile a scientist tasked with assessing the rigour of the results of the trial says stopping people under 18 from accessing porn is definitely in play, although there are question marks over gambling content. For its part the government is waiting until the results of the trial before determining the design of any age assurance process, as well as policy questions such as to whether every Australian with social media accounts will need to authenticate – not just kids – and whether to ban will apply to the current accounts of children and teens on social media. The proposed ban comes in light of a parliamentary committee report revealing that over 90 per cent of Australian adolescents use social media daily. Artificial intelligence is expected to play a key role.

Virtual professor Mark Ritson reckons key strategic marketing planning functions face automation within five years or so. Marketing and its supply chain should prepare accordingly, though Ritson thinks creative agencies may survive a cull coming faster than many realise. With a hard swing to the right globally, he suggests sustainability and purpose are being rapidly downgraded – and only the "naive" now position the latter as a revenue driver. Big platforms have likewise pivoted to mass reach over pure personalisation – hoovering up what the virtual professor sees as an investment swing back to brand. Hence TV, especially locally, being overlooked despite continuing to deliver the goods, per Ritson: "I've never seen a bigger delta or disparity between how the tool [TV] continues to work very well for brands and how marketers look at it ... It's still a very strong medium."

Edible Beauty, a skincare brand founded by naturopath Anna Mitsios, has experienced a remarkable transformation. A recent proof-of-concept trial delivered an 18 per cent conversion rate improvement versus the average over the previous 12 months of a third-party chatbot and enabled the company to shift to 24/7 sales and service without having to add three full-time staff. The results underscore the efficacy of its AI-driven chatbot named Ava, says Mitsios. And the chatbot is a better salesperson, outperforming human chatterers in sales by over 50 per cent. This success has not only enhanced customer engagement but also positioned Edible Beauty for greater growth. The success of the proof of concept also prompted Live Verdure, a strategic partner and shareholder, to secure a memorandum of understanding with Decidr for further investment, potentially expanding funding from AU$2.5 million to $10 million.

In an era where generative AI is reshaping business operations, three Australian giants - Telstra, ANZ and KPMG - are leading the charge in harnessing the gen AI based co-pilots to enhance efficiency and customer engagement. Telstra has implemented innovative tools that significantly improve customer service agent effectiveness, resulting in faster resolution of queries and a smoother onboarding process for new staff. Meanwhile, ANZ says it is fostering a culture of AI adoption through its AI Immersion Centre, aiming to equip its leadership with the skills to leverage generative AI across all facets of the bank's operations for improved service delivery and compliance. KPMG is also at the forefront, utilising generative AI to streamline compliance assessments with its ESG Comply AI platform, drastically reducing the time spent on manual evaluations while enhancing collaboration and productivity among its teams. In each case, the firms are using Microsoft's Copilot technology in their solutions.

Technology service providers were given a briefing into an Age Authentication Technology Trial designed to support the Federal Government's proposed ban on social media access for users under 16. Allocating $6.5 million for this trial, officials hope to mitigate online harms such as bullying, stalking, and exposure to inappropriate content. However, critics warn implementing age verification measures creates significant cybersecurity risks and privacy concerns, potentially creating a "honey pot" for cyberhackers.  

Top digital marketing and customer execs at the fancied $22bn New Zealand appliances giant Fisher & Paykel are quick to acknowledge they were “just very lucky” to have had colleagues “passionate about getting the data right early on”. Because as AI deployments gather pace – along with corporate frustration – Fisher & Paykel has been able to test, adapt and deploy fast from bots to co-pilots and now autonomous AI agents. The business has been “hot” on clean data for some time, says Chief Digital Officer Rudi Khoury and General Manager of Digital Sarah Lukins, underpinning their confidence in early trials that autonomous AI agents powered by Salesforce’s “reasoning engine” will ultimately solve “80-90 per cent” of the company’s customer contact volumes at much higher satisfaction levels than today. It’s only part of the Fisher & Paykel plan for AI across marketing, customer service and ecommerce, but it’s where some of the early learning and gains are being made. 

Brands and publishers were put on notice yesterday that policing, fines and infringement notices are coming over the use, disclosure and consent required for tracking pixels on websites – and the likelihood that some user details in data matching and cleanroom processing is "personal information" and breaches current privacy legislation. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which houses Australia's Privacy Commissioner, this week published new advice on pixels and personal information, ahead of an enforcement crackdown flagged last month in Mi3's podcast with Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind. The OAIC now has powers to impose substantial fines – up to $330,000 – and has signalled more aggressive policing. Privacy specialists urge brands and publishers to heed the warnings ahead of the new year.

Three years after taking on the daunting challenge of rebuilding respect for the AMP brand, Renee Howie has been lured by the appeal of a group-level executive role to join Insignia Financial as chief customer officer. It's a mega remit, spanning all traditional marketing functions through to digital, data, analytics, marketing, brand, customer analytics, government relations, media, public relations – and, overseeing the advice business, she’s also picking up a P&L. All of which comes under the watch of a recently installed CEO who’s future focused and chasing growth for an ASX-listed group that now managed $311bn in funds. As Howie tells Mi3, it was too rare an opportunity to pass up.

Twilio had the opportunity to exit the customer data platform (CDP) market thanks to a strategic review ordered by new CEO Khozema Shipchandler in February this year. Instead, it is staying the course and doubling down on the strategy that saw it buy Segment for US$3.2 billion at the start of the decade. Now, the popular Segment CDP is seen as central to its embrace of generative AI and ultimately to executing is conversational commerce plans. Twilio Segment President Thomas Wyatt describes to Mi3 the importance of data orchestration in delivering personalised customer experiences in an increasingly complex digital landscape, as Twilio seeks to integrate its Communication platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) with its CDP offerings to unlock new market opportunities.

Use of generative AI by business decision-makers in the US doubled over the last 12 months with 72 per cent now utilising the technology weekly. It's a significant leap from just 37 per cent a year prior. This growing reliance on generative AI is accompanied by a dramatic increase in budgeting, with organisations planning to double their spending from an average of US$4.5 million in 2023 to an impressive US$10.3 million in 2024. As companies shift their focus from initial experimentation to strategic implementation, the potential of generative AI to drive efficiency and innovation is becoming increasingly clear, prompting executives to re-evaluate their investment strategies in pursuit of tangible returns on investment.

Tech investment advisor Terry Kawaja – the man behind the adtech Lumascape – thinks adtech’s lean M&A period might be about to turn, driven by an incoming wave of what he calls “creative tech” start-ups. Canva's $370m acquisition of Leonardo.AI is an early example and Luma Partners, he says, is “one hundred per cent” eyeing potential deals. Meanwhile, he thinks agency arbitrage via principal-based media buying is anything but nefarious. “It’s fine,” per Kawaja. But he doubts it will prop up business models under “encroachment” from all quarters. The holdcos, he suggests, are going to need a bigger tool belt. Kawaja’s also spoiling to fight Apple CEO Tim Cook, at the very least verbally, for hobbling the digital ad industry in the name of privacy while, he claims, using the same data to fuel its own ad business. Apple, per Kawaja, is putting itself in antitrust crosshairs – he hopes it’s next.

Generative AI costs have plummeted 80 per cent in less than two years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Some of the world’s biggest firms have rolled out company-wide use cases, saving hundreds of millions of dollars and driving new previously unimaginable revenues. What’s more, AI is fuelling itself. “We're using AI to build AI tools to build better AI”, per Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Addo AI CEO and cofounder Ayesha Khanna says the costs will keep falling due to Scaling Law, AI's equivalent to Moore's Law.

The ways firms use data, and the technology architecture that underpins that usage has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. But one thing has remained constant, according to Sriraman (Sri) Annaswamy, a pioneer of the Australian analytics sector, whose firm Swamy and Associates has been a go-to service provider for some of Australia's biggest organisations in finance and healthcare. Value from each new wave of innovation, whether that be business intelligence, data science, or now, generative AI is realised when it is applied to very specific parts of the business operations.

Australian accounting software powerhouse MYOB was a pioneer in the use of customer data platforms (CDPs) in Australia. Even a decade later, the technology is still delivering new and impressive benefits, and equipping the brand for a new stage of technology innovation: Personalisation at scale.