If you're like the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and got stuck in a bomb shelter in 2017, it may be both a blessing and a curse that you missed the machine learning for marketing media frenzy. Machine learning showed up everywhere, rivaling electricity's systemic emergence a century ago, allegedly injecting sage-like wisdom into everything from sales forecasting tools to email subject lines generators. But buildup and hype aside, real progress was made in using machine learning for marketing purposes, infiltrating impactful areas as unprecedented investments poured in. More resources supporting great minds pushed forward innovation in areas like image recognition, voice technologies, and natural language generation (NLG). And savvy brands that mindfully wired these into marketing applications boosted performance, in some cases realizing 400 percent ROI.