Arizona Tribune - Big Tech is Buying What RAEK Built: First-Party Data is Becoming the Most Valuable Asset in AI

PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESS Newswire / July 10, 2026 / RAEK, the company building the data ownership layer for the AI economy, today issued the following commentary on two acquisitions announced in the past week that signal a defining shift in the AI market.

On July 2, Zoom announced a definitive agreement to acquire Common Room, a buyer intelligence platform that turns fragmented signals and siloed customer data into person-level intelligence. Two days earlier, HubSpot announced its agreement to acquire Warmly, a platform best known for identifying the anonymous website visitors who never fill out a form. Two of the largest names in business software, in the same week, moved to own the same thing: the ability to turn unknown signals into known, actionable, first-party customer intelligence.

Most coverage has framed these deals as sales and marketing technology consolidation. RAEK believes they represent something bigger. For years, the industry has competed on building more capable AI models. As those models become accessible to everyone, the advantage is shifting to the one asset that cannot be downloaded, licensed or commoditized: proprietary, permission-based customer data and the infrastructure to activate it.

"The next generation of AI winners will not simply be the companies with the best models," said Cory Crapes, CEO and co-founder of RAEK. "They will be the companies that own the most trusted, permission-based, and actionable data. When Zoom and HubSpot make acquisitions in the same week to secure first-party data and identity capabilities, that is not a coincidence. That is the market confirming where durable enterprise value is being created. It is the thesis RAEK was built on."

The HubSpot transaction is particularly notable. Warmly's signature capability, resolving the identity of anonymous website visitors, sits in the identity resolution category in which RAEK also operates. Industry estimates suggest more than 95% of website visitors leave without ever identifying themselves, and the deal signals that major platforms now view closing that gap as strategic infrastructure rather than a point solution.

A Market Repricing Data as Infrastructure

The pattern extends beyond a single week of deal-making. Third-party cookies are disappearing, privacy regulation is tightening, and walled-garden platforms are keeping more audience data for themselves. At the same time, enterprises adopting AI are discovering that model performance depends on the quality and ownership of the data underneath. The result is a repricing of first-party data, identity resolution, and private data infrastructure as strategic assets rather than marketing tools.

"These announcements are not isolated events," Crapes added. "They are part of a broader shift toward recognizing data as strategic infrastructure. AI models will keep improving and keep getting cheaper. Proprietary data will keep getting more valuable. The acquirers see it, and businesses everywhere are starting to see it too. The future of AI belongs to the organizations that own the data that powers it."

As enterprises rethink their AI strategies, RAEK believes the conversation is moving beyond model selection and toward the questions that will actually determine outcomes: who owns the underlying data, how it is governed, and how it can be activated securely and responsibly.

About RAEK

RAEK is building the data ownership layer for the AI economy. RAEK helps businesses collect, store, process, enrich, and activate the first-party data they own, turning unknown traffic and underused customer signals into owned intelligence that powers marketing, automation, analytics, and AI systems. The RAEK ecosystem spans three layers: RAEK Data, RAEK Edge, and RAEK AI. Learn more at raek.ai.

Media Contact:
RAEK
Cory Crapes
(509) 850-0130
[email protected]

SOURCE: RAEK

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D.Johnson--AT