It’s been a bad week for Microsoft’s AI products.
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that many games don’t work on the company’s new Copilot+ PCs. The computers, which debuted in May, use Qualcomm chips which have a different architecture than the industry-standard Intel x86 — which most games are designed for.
Microsoft told the Journal, “Players who want a high-performance native gaming experience may choose an alternate PC optimized for gaming.”
Ouch.
This is reminiscent of the scene in “Spinal Tap” where the manager tells the band all their Boston shows have been canceled. “I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s not a big college town.”
I mean, who uses computers to play games anymore?
Elsewhere, the company said the economy is to blame for people not buying Office 365 with Copilot.
“My sense is that organizations’ ability to absorb the innovation is not nearly as great as the innovation coming their way,” VP Jared Spataro told The Information. “And that’s a statement about how budgets work. They can’t even scrape together the budgets to buy this stuff.”
Or maybe it’s not worth the price you’re charging? Office with Copilot costs roughly twice as much as Office without. AI is being commodified and can be had for free via ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others.
Anyway, here’s this week’s AI-powered martech news and releases:
- Yoast’s AI Optimize is designed to simplify SEO tasks for WordPress users. It uses AI to enhance content and make it more search engine friendly, aiming to improve rankings and boost site visibility. The tool addresses the often tedious and challenging task of manually optimizing content for SEO. AI Optimize streamlines this and lets users optimize aspects of their SEO content during the Yoast SEO Analysis process.
- Pentaleap’s modular retail media platform creates an open, efficient ecosystem for retail media networks and advertisers. For RMNs, the Publisher Manager portal offers control over site monetization with tools like the Fluid Ad Server, SSP, and yield management. The platform’s single integration simplifies managing multiple demand sources. For advertisers, the Campaign Manager streamlines campaign creation, allowing tailored bids and optimization with dynamic pacing, suggested bids, and real-time reporting.
- LinkD is an AI-powered link-building tool. The LinkDR platform includes AI-powered prospecting to find relevant websites and influencers, a verified email finder, customizable outreach templates and follow-up sequences, a CRM-style pipeline for managing link-building campaigns, and an analytics dashboard to track ROI and link quality metrics.
- IZEA Worldwide’s IZZY is an AI assistant for influencer marketing professionals, available to users of IZEA Flex. It combines IZEA’s BrandGraph and IZEA Flow with a large language model to deliver detailed influencer profiles, audience analytics, and strategic recommendations based on historical influencer performance.
- Wick AI is a marketing platform that offers automated tools for SEO, reputation management, and social media marketing. It provides comprehensive, automated solutions across multiple aspects of business operations. The software supports businesses in optimizing search engine rankings, managing their online presence, and automating social media strategies, all within a single platform.
