Spiceworks announced at its annual Spiceworld conference in Austin, TX that it is adding new machine-learning based capabilities to its IT marketplace in order to create "intent-based targeting capabilities" in matching buyers and sellers. The Spiceworks IT marketplace is visited by around 17 million people every quarter, according to Spiceworks, and is growing at 30% year-on-year. Spiceworks CEO and co-founder Jay Hallberg likened the proposed change to that of buying a house 15 years ago compared to the experience today with online marketplaces like Zillow. "We're building the first community-powered marketplace for the IT industry, one that couples unique first-party data and pervasive intelligence to directly connect technology buyers and sellers with the resources they need in any given moment," Hallberg said in a prepared statement. Traditionally, recommendation engines have struggled with opaque signals based on observing purchase and browsing behaviour.