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CMO vs CIO: Why it shouldn't be a battle Chief data officer and chief digital officer roles are on the rise with significant implications for IT leaders and their position in relation to the top table. Zeta Global uses its vast database of profiles and technologies like artificial intelligence to help companies improve their marketing return on investment. Customers include British Airways, American Airlines, Citizens Bank, Ralph Lauren and Sprint. ZDNet talked to the company's CIO, Jeffry Nimeroff, to find out more about the company's plans and priorities. ZDNet: Tell me a little bit about your company and the focus of the business.

In recent years, commenting services have come and go, but one has maintained a consistent presence on some of the world's biggest websites: Disqus. It's spent the past ten years helping brands and news media develop their own communities, while simultaneously amassing hundreds of millions of users of its own. The service is big enough that its commenting tools have been deployed on websites that host unsavory content, which it has, in turn, become associated with. Disqus has said it has no tolerance for hate speech but continues to host discussions on websites that promote toxicity. Now, it says, it wants to do more about it.

Dealing with customer service sucks – it is the bane of our existence as consumers. Once you've searched the site to find the right number – which feels purposefully hidden to discourage you from calling – you then talk to a robot that completely fails to understand what you're saying (I said BILLING not Bill Clinton!). And let's not even discuss the hold music … You answer a few questions asked by a real human, only to find out you're speaking to the wrong person, who proceeds to transfer your call to someone else. When you're finally transferred to the right person, you're so frustrated with the entire process that you lose it, demand to speak to a supervisor or threaten to switch to a new provider all together. Whether it's calling our internet provider to deal with low speeds, our bank to ask about those extra rates or just ordering a pizza, there's just something about picking up a phone and calling to talk to a company rep that's simply agitating.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a reality, and want it or not, it soon will be part of our daily lives. In a recent study, Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that the artificial intelligence market will blossom to $153 billion over the next five years: $83 billion for robots and $70 billion for artificial intelligence-based systems. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that virtual robots powered by artificial intelligence are bound to transform the way companies interact with their customers. In a world where disruption has become the norm, super-intelligent machines have the potential to revolutionize businesses while benefiting users and society in general. But as these smart personal assistants blend into our environment, many questions arise.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing everything from marketing to healthcare. And this holiday season is the beginning of the future for how marketers will leverage AI to better understand, connect with, and create superior experiences for consumers. To better appreciate the impact that AI is having on retailers, I connected with IBM's first CMO, Michelle Peluso. Peluso has a strong background in retail, having served at the CEO of Gilt as well as the Global Consumer Chief Marketing and Internet Officer at Citigroup. Peluso provides her thoughts below on how Watson's AI capability is changing the way retailers impact the consumer shopping experience.

A year ago, I wrote that I had seen the future. I had attended the IBM Insights conference in Las Vegas, an entire conference devoted to the Internet of Things, analytics, cognitive marketing, and related topics. And if the concept of Moore's Law (that technology doubles every year, or every 18 months or two years, depending on what you read) holds true, then a lot has happened since then. While last year's future is now a history lesson, what is currently happening in the World of Watson is moving at warp speed! This past week more than 17,000 people attended IBM's World of Watson, the new name of the conference devoted to cognitive technology. Fifteen "influencers" were invited to attend IBM's first-ever Cognitive College that included product demonstrations and lectures about how Watson's cognitive abilities are impacting marketing and commerce.

Next-generation cognitive computing is redefining how we live and work as more businesses are using all the data available to them to improve performance and customer service, and drive innovation and revenue. Today's business challenges have never been more complex, and the critical insights that can help address these challenges are often buried in an avalanche of data. Previously, these insights were beyond the capabilities of conventional computing solutions – programmable systems based on mathematical principles that harken back to the 1940s. But IBM Watson has changed the game. IBM Watson is built upon a new foundation called cognitive computing – a system that learns and reasons from interactions with humans, files, online interactions and its environment.