You have to wonder what’s going on when many of the giants of the tech space are, themselves, bringing back a human touch. Facebook has long relied on algorithms to select news stories for its users to see. The social network is now hiring a team of journalists and editors to curate the top stories that will populate its soon-to-be-launched News Tab feature. In addition, Facebook is working on a number of publisher deals to gain access to quality journalistic content - all of this in an attempt to repair their poor reputation for inaccurate and sensationalized news sharing across its platform.

Spotify, Google Play, LinkedIn, and Apple News have all got into the action, now highlighting human curation as a marketing tactic. In one of the most compelling examples, HBO took a direct dig at their rival, Netflix, and its infamous (non)personalization engine. Launched in August, Recommended by Humans is a website that invites users to scroll through an interactive canvas of 36 video testimonials and more than 150 Twitter recommendations from real HBO fans. Each fan was paid for their contribution “because we’re not monsters” according to the site.

Albizu Garcia, a contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine, shares 3 Powerful Uses of Machine Learning in Marketing for CMOs and marketers to superpower your existing marketing capabilities. In one example, he describes how Ben & Jerry’s (the ice cream company owned by Unilever) leveraged machine learning to decipher social and cultural chatter that inspired a range of breakfast-flavored ice cream: Fruit Loot, Frozen Flakes and Cocoa Loco, all using “cereal milk.”

Google has put together a helpful Beginner’s Guide for marketers looking to wrap their head around Machine Learning. This is a great place to start if you are truly thinking about the role and opportunity for machines in your marketing plans.

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