Most people don’t know this, but years ago, I was a huge gamer. And if you’ve ever played online games before, then you’ve probably heard of these things called “patch notes.” They’re essentially a simple bulleted list of all the latest changes and developments.
I always really liked this format because it was digestible and easy to read, so I thought, why not try something for lifecycle, especially given how fast things are moving with AI?
So with that, here’s a quick roundup to keep you up to speed. And if you like the post or have a comment, please do share it. I’ve heard community feedback is one of the most useful things for other marketers.
The latest with Hightouch
Most of you probably know Hightouch as the company that helped define the Composable CDP. But that was only the beginning: so much has been happening lately, and as someone who has been here since the beginning, it’s really, really exciting.
We’ve launched Hightouch’s Agentic Marketing Platform (AMP), a full context layer for marketing that encompasses brand knowledge, creative, and external market signals. To fully build out that vision, we just raised $150M series D at a $2.75B valuation, and we crossed $100M ARR.
We launched Ad Studio, a place to build and launch on-brand creative across any of your paid media channels, as part of AMP. (Honestly, written text doesn’t really do this product any justice; you kinda have to see it in action.)
We also rolled out another really cool platform update, so media networks can onboard their audiences directly to demand-side platforms (DSPs), which essentially means companies no longer have to eat the 15% LiveRamp tax.
The industry at a glance
One theme dominates everything else: every martech platform is racing to re-architect around agents.
The legacy enterprise stack is rebuilding itself for agents. Salesforce announced Headless 360, another repositioning of the platform as infrastructure for agents. Adobe unveiled CX Enterprise at Summit, an agentic system inside Adobe Experience Platform. And Treasure Data rebranded entirely to Treasure AI. Honestly, it’s really interesting to see three older incumbents all making major re-architecture moves in the same quarter.
Several major ESPs launched agent products this quarter. Klaviyo launched Composer, Customer.io rolled out a suite of marketing agents, Braze took Operator and Agent Console GA, and Iterable rebranded entirely around Nova agent. It really seems like agents are quickly becoming table stakes for every platform, which probably means that the system with the most underlying customer data will likely win out.
The foundation model labs are converging on the same idea. OpenAI closed $122B at an $852B valuation and deprecated Sora to consolidate into a single agent-first interface with the launch of workspace agents. Google announced the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. And Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, an enterprise-only partnership with Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia around a model called Mythos that they're not releasing publicly.
The most interesting conversation I had
Recently, we hosted our very first Lifecycle Leaders IRL meetup (with more on the way… stay tuned). My mind is still swirling from all the conversations, but there was one in particular that stood out to me. It was about ESPs (the email, SMS, and push delivery systems all of you are probably super familiar with at this point, lol). Anyway, one lifecycle marketer asked a super interesting question: “What if traditional CDPs added delivery functionality?”
I was really curious, as this seems like a bit of a novel take, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. CDPs (especially composable CDPs like Hightouch) already have far more access to data than whatever is in your ESP, so theoretically this type of consolidation is not only possible but also super viable. In theory, delivering messages directly from the CDP would provide much greater flexibility for lifecycle teams.
My favorite reads
If you’ve worked in lifecycle for any amount of time, you’ve probably come across Naomi West. She recently shared her thoughts on how AI is transforming Lifecycle Marketing. It’s worth reading or bookmarking for later if you haven’t already. I personally found this take very refreshing.
I’m also a huge fan of Kieran Flanagan. He’s probably one of the most forward-thinking (if not the most forward-thinking) AI-marketers out there. He doesn’t specifically talk about the lifecycle, but truthfully, if you’re not looking outside of lifecycle to learn and be inspired, you’re going to miss out on some of the best resources. Recently, he did a deep dive on this new concept, which he’s coined the “Opposite Start.” And it answers a really important question: "When all of AI converges on the average, and everything starts to look and sound the same, how do you flip the paradigm?
Closing thoughts
I’m sure there’s something interesting I didn’t cover or missed, so I’d love your thoughts in the comments section to keep the conversation going (that’s what community is all about.)
Honestly, it’s really hard to keep up with everything that is happening in tech, and it can feel a bit debilitating sometimes (even for someone who works at one of these AI companies like myself lol).
I found this LinkedIn post from Justin Williams (friend & community member) really encouraging, so I wanted to share it:
