Zendesk prices AI by outcome, OpenAI lets businesses publish agents in ChatGPT, and more - Sales & Marketing AI Weekly #79

In this edition, covering 6 to 12 November:

• OpenAI lets US ecommerce and online services businesses publish free branded agents in ChatGPT through its Business Hub.
• Zendesk introduced its Outcome AI Platform, with plans that charge for verified customer service outcomes instead of seats.
• The European Commission formally proposed the Digital Fairness Act, with fines of up to 6% of worldwide annual turnover.

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From our lists

This list covers AI tools for writing and copywriting.

AI Writing and Copywriting

OpenAI and ChatGPT

OpenAI lets US ecommerce and online services businesses create verified profiles through its Business Hub and publish free, branded chat agents in ChatGPT. The agents use information the company supplies, guide customers through product choices and send them to the business website to buy. OpenAI also offers sponsored versions and gives businesses aggregate conversation themes, mentions, views and website clicks, but no individual chats or prompts. Before the launch, reports said OpenAI was building the Business Hub tool for verified businesses to track daily mentions, impressions and website clicks; Digiday sources said it may be close to launch. Branded agents in ChatGPT · Business Hub report · Brand mention tracker

87seconds Group, formerly Datawords Group, joined the OpenAI Partner Network as a Select Partner to help global brands use OpenAI technologies for content creation, deployment and localization. 87seconds Group

Meta is reportedly forming a sales organisation for its AI products and working with consulting firms and systems integrators to reach larger companies, after its September launch of the Meta Enterprise Platform led by CJ Desai. Meta has not confirmed the plan. Meta enterprise AI

Ads in AI answers

VistaPrint reported a 5.9x return on ad spend from a US conversion focused ChatGPT Ads campaign, and says cost per attributed order fell about 90% compared with an earlier click focused campaign. Most US conversions attributed to ChatGPT Ads came from new customers, and VistaPrint extended the approach to other US campaigns and to the UK, Canada and Australia. VistaPrint

Adthena counted about 175,100 paid ad placements in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode in the US from June to September, about 111,000 of them in apparel and 55,000 in consumer electronics. It also counted 204,489 ChatGPT ad placements across five categories; the report did not measure clicks, spending or conversions. Adthena

OpenAI appointed Aleph as exclusive ChatGPT Ads reseller in 44 markets across Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific, with local contracting, billing and support. Shanghai based BlueMedia started a partnership with ChatGPT Ads to help Chinese brands advertise in global markets, and says early campaigns for a first group of clients performed above industry averages. Aleph · BlueMedia

The Interactive Advertising Bureau released the AI Era Attribution Blueprint, a framework that classifies conversions as Human Owned, AI Assisted or AI Executed and defines the evidence needed to evaluate attribution claims. It asks brands, AI platforms, agencies and publishers to improve measurement of AI's effect on purchases. IAB framework

Deals and funding

San Francisco based Rox raised $100 million in Series B funding at a $1.3 billion valuation, co led by General Catalyst and March Capital with Sequoia Capital, Factory, Databricks Ventures and Prosperity7 Ventures. Rox develops AI agents for enterprise prospecting, pipeline management, deal execution and account expansion, and will spend the money on AI research, custom models, evaluation tools and new industries. Retell says it reached a $100 million annualized revenue run rate, with more than 4,000 customers handling over 100 million calls a month on its AI agent platform; Asbury Automotive Group runs its agents for 157 dealerships. Rox · Retell

Sierra acquired Anon, whose technology handles website sign ins, browser navigation, form filling, credentials and multi factor authentication for enterprise AI agents. Copado acquired Valo.ai, which finds dormant integrations, excessive access and other security and compliance risks in Salesforce setups. New York based Stan acquired Typefully, a writing and publishing platform for X, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads with nearly 10,000 paying customers and about 350,000 scheduled posts a month. Sierra and Anon · Copado and Valo.ai · Stan and Typefully

Coframe raised a $25 million Series A co led by Khosla Ventures and Hanabi Capital, bringing its total to $35 million; its AI creates, tests and changes websites, landing pages and ads, and the company says it has generated more than $300 million in extra customer revenue. Creator advertising platform Tano raised $4 million in seed funding led by Cherry Ventures, for a total of $5 million. Australian company AutoSwift received close to A$10 million from Singapore based X Star Technology to develop AI WINGMAN, its car dealership software. Amsterdam and San Francisco based Mondrio raised $3.75 million in a round led by Heartcore Capital for AI agents that handle pricing strategy, quoting, discounts, negotiations and renewals. Coframe · Tano · AutoSwift · Mondrio

Boston based Stage 2 Capital closed $100 million across Venture Fund IV and Catalyst IV, which invest from pre seed to Series A in B2B AI companies, and introduced an MCP agent that connects portfolio founders with more than 1,000 go to market leaders. Stage 2 Capital

Appier Group reported record third quarter revenue of JPY 13.9 billion, up 21.8%, and operating income up 104.7% to JPY 2.1 billion, and raised its forecasts for the year. Appier

Customer service

Zendesk introduced its Outcome AI Platform in San Francisco, with AI service tools, Open Service Directory and Zendesk Bridge, and plans that let businesses pay for verified customer service outcomes instead of seats. Bridge lets external AI agents use approved Zendesk tools and data under permissions, authentication and activity logs; it supports more than 400 tools through the Zendesk MCP server and adds Zendesk plugins for ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. Parloa and OpenAI expanded their partnership with joint work on customer service agents and sales to enterprises, with a focus on North America; Parloa joins OpenAI's Alpha Model Testing Program and plans to offer its platform through the OpenAI Marketplace. Cresta opened a Tokyo office with Jim Tamura as country manager and partnerships with Shop Japan, BELLSYSTEM24 and Kotoba Technologies, and launched Journey Intelligence, which gives human and AI agents a customer's interaction history and predictions about future contacts. Zendesk · Zendesk Bridge · Parloa and OpenAI · Cresta in Japan · Cresta Journey Intelligence

NiCE launched a new version of its Cognigy AI agent platform with AI assisted development, reusable skills, decision tracing, native speech to speech models and integrations with Deepgram, ElevenLabs, OpenAI and Anthropic; current production deployments continue unchanged. Quiq integrated its Voice AI agent with Zoom Contact Center, where it handles repetitive calls and passes call details to human agents. Alchemer launched Voice, which analyzes calls, support tickets and other customer conversations for themes, sentiment shifts and root causes, and integrates with more than 35 platforms. NiCE Cognigy · Quiq and Zoom · Alchemer Voice

Banking AI company Glia says it passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in the third quarter while staying cash flow positive, with AI product sales up 93% year on year; the figures are company reported and unaudited. Norwegian company boost.ai launched Presis, a self hosted model for routing, scope and safety decisions, which it says is at least 2.5 times faster and 33% cheaper in token costs than the models it replaces in internal tests. Glia · boost.ai

BMO is introducing AI Agent Assist at its Virtual Connect contact centre in Canada for credit card transaction inquiries, with staff making the final decisions; it expects resolution times for eligible inquiries to fall 20 to 30%. InDebted launched Voice, an AI agent for outbound debt collection calls in local languages, and says customers using it were twice as likely to keep payment plans in early testing. Bobcat says about 600 dealer technicians use its Service Assistant each day, and troubleshooting cases sent for extra support fell more than 25% compared with the prior year. BMO · InDebted · Bobcat

Sling TV and Pypestream say a phased AI rollout raised customer support resolution from 36% to 71% between the third quarter of 2025 and the third quarter of 2026, while CSAT rose from 42% to 72%, escalations fell 29% and chat sales conversion rose from 15.7% to 24.9%. Australian telco TPG Telecom is developing AI agents that customers could trigger to diagnose and fix service issues; the agents now help contact centre staff find network problems, and the company reports a 40 percent drop in churn among some customer groups. Sling TV and Pypestream · TPG Telecom

Delight.ai, Sendbird's customer agent company, introduced Delight Customer Agent for shopping, booking, support and retention, and Midas, a plain language tool for business teams to build and test the agent. At its ZERO-IN 2026 conference in Nashville, ChurnZero presented its roadmap, including AI customer success managers, strategy based agents and renewal support. Delight.ai · ChurnZero

Sales tools and training

Salesforce made AI Skills in Agentforce Coworker generally available; users create and share reusable instructions for tasks such as account research, call preparation and case summaries, and record changes need approval. Actively AI is rolling out sales agents across Zillow Rentals after a four week pilot. CloudTalk launched an AI Sales Dialer that works with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho CRM, and says UK mortgage broker My Mortgage Finder went from 15 to more than 100 calls per agent per day. Salesforce · Actively AI and Zillow · CloudTalk

ValueSelling Associates launched Dynamo, built with Replicate Labs, which runs a five round sales deal against an AI buyer for sales kickoffs. Wilson Learning added NovoEd's Practice+ AI roleplay to its Counselor Salesperson program. Pitcher made multi avatar roleplay generally available for life sciences field teams, with compliance scoring, recordings and transcripts. Ambition launched Scheduled Skills, which runs its AI Skills on a set schedule and emails the results to managers and sales representatives. ValueSelling Dynamo · Wilson Learning · Pitcher · Ambition

Distributor Sandler Partners launched ScoutAI, an AI sales engineering assistant that answers partner questions, client invoices and RFPs sent by email. IDP introduced a platform for AI agents and staff in car dealerships and says customer Tim Dahle and Red Rock Auto Group reported a 12% appointment conversion rate, against about 6% through traditional BDC operations. Leverate launched a CRM for CFD brokers with an AI assistant, MCP connectivity and support for MT4 and MT5. Sandler ScoutAI · IDP · Leverate

ServiceNow introduced Autonomous CRM Engine, which analyzes legacy CRM use, transforms business processes and helps enterprises deploy ServiceNow CRM in weeks, then watches configurations for drift after launch. SalesHood launched SalesHood MCP, which brings approved answers, sales content and Digital Sales Rooms into AI tools including Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Glean and Perplexity, with seller approval before content is shared. Mindmatrix partnered with Bodine and Co. to combine its AI based GTMOS go to market system with Bodine and Co.'s Partner Experience services. ServiceNow · SalesHood · Mindmatrix

Brand visibility in AI answers

G2 combined G2, Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp in one platform for listings, reviews, ads and buyer data, with support for answer engine optimization and paid answer engine marketing. Coty is piloting Brandlight to improve how its top six brands appear in AI assistants and generative search across five markets. Bolt will use Searchable to measure how often chatbots such as ChatGPT recommend its services in the UK, Germany, Poland, South Africa and Thailand. G2 · Coty and Brandlight · Bolt and Searchable

UK based Unusual Group and Finn Elliott launched Heading, which tracks brand visibility, rankings and sentiment in AI answers for agencies. Prompted Brand launched a platform that tracks how nine generative AI engines describe clients and recommends changes, with white label access for agencies. A 5W Public Relations analysis with Profound's tools found the firm in 30.3% of brand naming answers across six AI platforms in October and first in 27 of 31 PR topics; 5W said the prompts focused on its own practice areas. Worldcom Public Relations Group chose Brandi AI as a preferred vendor, giving more than 90 independent PR agencies discounted access to its AI visibility tools and training. Danish SEO software company Morningscore launched Momentum, a managed SEO and AI search service that has reached about $100,000 in annual recurring revenue, and says new software sales slowed as small businesses turned to ChatGPT and other AI tools. Heading · Prompted Brand · 5W Public Relations · Worldcom and Brandi AI · Morningscore

A Gartner survey of 408 senior marketing leaders found that 42% monitor and correct misinformation about their brands in AI generated output. A comdaily study of 504 German language AI answers found Arc'teryx leading ski jacket recommendations and Patagonia leading rain jackets. Indeed data says 70% of job seekers use generative AI tools to research employers, and about 40% of the sources cited on company culture come from Glassdoor and Indeed. Cision's State of Search and Social 2027 report compares consumer interest, social discussion and AI responses across sectors. Google says a logging error reduced reported impressions in the Search Console Generative AI performance report from 9 to 11 November; actual search performance did not change. Gartner · comdaily · Indeed · Cision · Search Console bug

Marketing tools

Ogilvy launched ECHO, built with WPP and Creative Artists Agency, which makes localised ads from existing celebrity shoots using talent scans stored in The CAA Vault and needs final approval before publication. NinjaCat introduced Enterprise Marketing AGI, which runs policy based agents across brands, accounts and teams and, the company says, is linked to more than $8 billion in annual media spend. Ogilvy ECHO · NinjaCat

Typeform launched an MCP server for creating forms, analyzing responses and managing contacts in ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools, on all plans. TrueDialog launched an MCP connector that lets AI assistants send SMS and RCS messages, with automatic opt out protections. CreatorDB launched API Version 3 and an MCP server with data on tens of millions of creator profiles and 15,000 brands, from $79 per month. AppsFlyer expanded its Agent Hub and added MCP tools that analyze AppsFlyer data, give recommendations and automate actions, such as investigating fraud spikes or recommending Apple Ads bid changes. Typeform · TrueDialog · CreatorDB · AppsFlyer

Nectar launched a Creator Agent that searches more than 300 million creator profiles, checks content and brand safety, sends personalized outreach and helps manage collaborations; it plans to offer the agent through MCP. South Korean startup Hyperstar launched an AI agent that picks influencers by sales, using order data from eight channels including Amazon, Shopify and TikTok Shop. EX.CO added an AI analyst to its reporting platform that answers publishers' questions about performance data. VerticalScope says AI shopping recommendations helped raise affiliate commerce revenue 29% year over year in the third quarter, while total revenue fell 11%, and it signed data licensing deals with two unnamed AI labs. Nectar · Hyperstar · EX.CO · VerticalScope

GOcxm launched Signal IQ, which connects brand, shopper, trade and sales data for CPG brands and recommends actions by retailer, region and store. Audience Town opened its Advertising Suite to all users, for home builders targeting likely home movers. FanMaxx launched an AI platform that unifies college athletics fan data, and FeedIRL launched a portal for brands and event organizers with listings structured for AI agent recommendations. Constant Contact introduced Catalyst for small businesses, which analyzes a company's digital presence, creates and runs marketing across email, social media, SMS, ads, Google Business Profile and websites, and learns from results; owners approve plans before publication. GOcxm · Audience Town · FanMaxx · FeedIRL · Constant Contact Catalyst

Surveys on AI returns

Validity surveyed more than 250 marketers and found that 61% face pressure from leadership to show measurable AI gains, while half said their 2026 AI investments met or beat ROI expectations. Invoca's survey of 451 US B2C marketing leaders found that only 27% of those using AI agents measure revenue, bookings or conversions. Seismic research found that three in four B2B leaders trust human guidance over AI generated content when the two conflict. Adobe surveyed more than 2,000 US creators and found that 78% of those using creative AI say it sped up growth. Validity · Invoca · Seismic · Adobe

Regulation

The European Commission formally proposed the Digital Fairness Act, with bans on dark patterns, clearer pricing rules, limits on unfair personalised ads and easier subscription cancellations. The proposal sets consumer rights for AI assisted purchases and gives the Commission stronger cross border enforcement powers, with fines of up to 6% of worldwide annual turnover. Digital Fairness Act

Also

PetScreening and North Carolina based HostBuddy AI launched an integration that lets vacation rental hosts spot pet and assistance animal requests, start screening and get updates through HostBuddy AI's guest messaging tools. PetScreening and HostBuddy AI