By: Alex Mercer – SeaPRwire – The scramble for first-party data just got louder. In one week, two major business software players moved to lock down tools that turn anonymous web traffic into identifiable customer profiles. Zoom’s deal for Common Room and HubSpot’s move on Warmly are not random tuck-ins for sales tech. They point to a deeper anxiety rippling through the industry. Companies that once chased bigger models now realize the real edge sits in data they actually control.
Zoom announced its agreement to acquire Common Room on July 2. Common Room turns fragmented signals and siloed customer data into person-level intelligence. Just two days before, HubSpot struck a deal for Warmly, known for spotting anonymous website visitors who skip the forms. RAEK, the company focused on the data ownership layer for the AI economy, called this out directly. CEO and co-founder Cory Crapes noted that these moves confirm where durable enterprise value is forming. More than 95 percent of website visitors leave without identifying themselves, according to industry estimates. Both acquisitions target that exact gap in identity resolution and first-party intelligence. RAEK operates in the same space. The timing feels deliberate. As third-party cookies fade and privacy rules tighten, enterprises see model performance hinging on owned data quality. Walled gardens hoard their own audience information. The result is a clear repricing: first-party data, identity tools, and the infrastructure to activate them now count as strategic assets, not just marketing add-ons.
This shift changes the game. AI models keep improving and dropping in price. What cannot be commoditized is proprietary, permission-based customer data and the systems to use it responsibly. RAEK’s layers — Data, Edge, and AI — aim squarely at helping businesses collect, store, process, enrich, and activate what they own. Turn unknown traffic into owned intelligence for marketing, automation, analytics, and AI. Crapes put it plainly. The next winners own the most trusted, actionable data. Zoom and HubSpot see it. Businesses everywhere are waking up to it too. The conversation moves past picking models. It lands on ownership, governance, and secure activation. Companies ignoring this will watch their AI efforts stall on poor foundations. Those investing here build moats that models alone cannot match. Start auditing your own data flows now. Identify where anonymous signals leak value. The infrastructure decisions made today will separate leaders from laggards tomorrow.
Author bio: Alex Mercer, long-time senior commentator for international tech publications covering enterprise software shifts and AI infrastructure trends.