Writing

Databricks launched an agentic CDP inside the lakehouse, GEO became a buyable category almost overnight, and Salesforce shipped Summer '26. A practitioner's read on week 25, and why the customer-data layer and the visibility layer just moved at the same time.

Salesforce's agreement to acquire Contentful is not just a CMS move. It is another chapter in the long-running competition with Adobe over who owns the architecture connecting customer data, content, journeys and AI execution.

Salesforce signs a definitive agreement to acquire Contentful, agentic marketing platforms converge on the same agent-plus-MCP pattern, and MCP moves beyond engagement into measurement and GTM data. A practitioner's read on why governance is becoming the real differentiator.

Activation inside the CDP, the CDP inside the CEP, or best-of-breed apart: three ways to wire customer data and engagement, and what each choice really implies.

Marketo brings MCP to the MAP layer, Iterable ships the unglamorous fundamentals, Mailchimp complicates its own strategic signal, and vendors start selling agents as a business model rather than a feature. A practitioner's read on week 23.

Zero-copy activation is not just a new integration pattern. It is a signal that customer engagement architecture is moving closer to the data warehouse, and that the composable CDP idea is becoming part of the broader engagement stack.

MCP is moving from isolated platform news to a common access layer for customer engagement platforms. Braze shows the agentic workflow direction, Adobe shows the operational discipline required, and the CDP market shows why the data foundation matters.

Agentic AI promises to make powerful MarTech platforms easier to use, but unless the architecture underneath is ready, it may simply move complexity from the interface to the operating model.

AJO's May release, Bloomreach's governance update, and Klaviyo's AWS Marketplace listing all point in the same direction: the infrastructure layer of enterprise customer engagement is being rebuilt, quietly, one release at a time.