cquisitions decline, the martech market grows.

CabinetM released its Q1 2020 MarTech Innovation Report. This report is a summary of the latest technology, updates, and acquisitions.

Key Findings. We’re seeing a rise in the number of product announcements compared to previous quarters.

The investment in martech companies increased from $3 billion to $13.2billion in Q1 2023. The number is skewed because of a $10 billion investment in OpenAI. If OpenAI is removed, the investment would be consistent with Q4 of 2022 due to the continued innovation and investment in Marketing Technology.

Dig deep: Why CMOs need to cross the technical divide

The rise of AI. AI is a technology that has been widely discussed and used in martech since quite some time. It is a powerful tool that can process massive amounts of information, generate new customer segments and provide valuable insights into customer behaviour. The recent appearance of generative AI has created a renewed interest in AI’s potential to drive martech innovation. These tools are easy to use and accessible, making them a great tool for marketing.

CabinetM began tracking and cataloging generative AI as well as categories and products that leverage AI in the last two quarters. In Q1, 13 new AI products were announced, and four vendors announced AI capabilities in their existing products.

Categorizing AI can be difficult. CabinetM chose to categorize AI in the following way:

• AI-enabled products: These are products that would not be possible without AI.
• Enhanced: Products that use AI to provide new features or improve performance.
• Egregious: Products which claim to use AI, but in fact do not.

Enabled products have their own categories. Enhanced products remain within their core categories (e.g. Business Intelligence is flagged with AI as the key to delivering functionality. We try to ignore egregious products, but it can be difficult to determine what’s real.

Why we care. Everyone who is paying attention to the martech industry will need to categorize AI offerings. CabinetM’s proposal is very useful. Compare it to our own thoughts — “Are AI vendors in martech space?” — .

The Q1 2023 CabinetM MarTech Innovation report has not been gated, and we are told that downloading the document will not lead to a flood of emails or phone calls.

M&A activity. M&A activity in the first quarter of 2019 was down with only 40 acquisitions compared to 74 in 2022 and 52 in 2021. The number of acquisitions in Q1 is the same as the previous quarter. We are still too early to make any definitive conclusions on whether or not we’re experiencing a general decline.

You can access all CabinetM MarTech innovation reports without a password on libraryM.

The article MarTech space expands as acquisitions decline first appeared on MarTech.