I was scrolling through my Instagram feed this weekend, looking at the latest artwork from the artists and galleries I follow. This is one way I relax and invigorate the right side of my brain. My personal Instagram account has been an oasis of calm where I could go to escape the frenetic world of technology, at least for a time.
That is no longer the case. Take a look at the first ad that appeared in my feed:
This was wholly unexpected. Rossum.ai is one of the Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) companies that we track. They recently closed an astounding $100 million funding round and I suspect they must spend like crazy to grow market share. So, it appears the CMO decided to feed-bomb Instagram accounts that are in no way connected to a business. Some would say that is a questionable use of funding proceeds, but let’s assume Rossum have determined they can reach business buyers at their private Instagram accounts and have no qualms about invading personal space to sell the product.
Later that same day, I was reading an intriguing article about the Vietnam War on the Business Insider website. BI produces some great writing on a variety of subjects, and it is another place I go to relax and read a good story. Then this ad appeared.
Indico Data is another IDP company that we cover. With over $36 million in funding raised, they too have cranked up the marketing machine to reach a broad business audience. The ads also showed up while I visited CNN, Yahoo Finance, and several other mainstream websites.
Why does any of this matter? Because this advertising signals a huge shift in IDP marketing, one that tracks perfectly with Deep Analysis’ prediction that IDP (AI-powered document capture/OCR) is about to cross the venerable chasm and enter the main street of B2B purchasing. As we also predicted, the charge is being led not by the legacy IDP vendors but by the upstarts.
IDP (aka cognitive capture or OCR) has been around in one form or another since the 1990s. To find buyers for IDP, until now the legacy vendors hunted in small niche corners of the technology marketing world; places such as AIIM, ARMA, or technology publications in verticals like legal, healthcare and finance, etc. No one has invested in the broader business advertising we are now seeing from Rossum.ai and Indico.
In more proof that IDP may be crossing the chasm, we learned that Alkymi has signed a distribution deal with Ingram Micro, the world’s largest B2B wholesaler of technology products. In the high-tech product world, nothing is more mainstream than Ingram Micro who has over 250,000 IT solution partners. This is another big step forward for IDP.
Only time will tell if IDP is ready to go mainstream. Even given the recent advancements in useability and accuracy, IDP remains a complex technology that requires customization and patience to maximize the benefits. As long-time observers of this market space, we admit we are excited to watch this unfold. If only they would leave us alone when we’re trying to relax on the weekend!