Next generation solution enables customers to better manage information, reduce costs and improve efficiencies

AvePoint, the most advanced platform to optimize SaaS operations and secure collaboration, today announced the launch of AvePoint Opus, its AI-powered information lifecycle management solution, at #shifthappens Conference 2023. As part of the AvePoint Confidence Platform’s Resilience Suite, AvePoint Opus is a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to discover, classify, protect and manage their data across Microsoft 365 accurately and at scale.

AvePoint Opus is a robust information lifecycle management solution that ensures organizations can manage all stages of the data lifecycle and represents the next generation of AvePoint’s Resilience solutions. A key component of AvePoint Opus is AvePoint Maestro, which uses AI models powered by Azure Machine Learning to analyze content and metadata and assign appropriate policies to documents.

With AvePoint Opus, organizations can now achieve the following:

• Manage Information and Ensure Compliance: Automatic data classification, powered by AI, helps reduce the risks associated with information over-retention or accidental data deletion to meet compliance standards.
• Optimize Cloud Storage: Specific rules ensure organizations meet retention and disposal requirements to reduce excess cloud storage costs, so that organizations maintain greater control over their budgets.
• Streamline Processes: Automatic records management removes time intensive work, allowing organizations to focus on higher value projects and speeding time-to-value for organizations seeking data-driven insights.

“Organizations today are excited about the power of AI and machine learning to transform business, but to truly unlock this technology, they need a comprehensive data strategy that will accurately analyze, govern and classify their data,” said Dr. Tianyi Jiang (TJ), Co-founder and CEO, AvePoint. “AvePoint Opus provides a solution that is automated and capable of learning over time, allowing organizations to manage the troves of data they produce today to build that data foundation, maintain compliance and reduce storage costs.”

AvePoint Opus uses an AI model that rapidly identifies and classifies content in weeks, as opposed to years if done manually. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, for example, has already benefitted from this efficiency.

“AvePoint has always had a modern information management solution, which allows the Australian Transport Safety Bureau team to seamlessly integrate recordkeeping and compliance as part of their responsibilities,” said Angelo Santosuosso, IT, Property & Security at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. “New capabilities within AvePoint Opus will enhance our organization and we look forward to continuing to work together.”

In addition, by integrating more AI capabilities, AvePoint’s channel partner ecosystem will be equipped with smarter, more automated tools to manage and protect their clients’ data and collaboration environments.

“With the rapid growth of cloud data, our customers are experiencing a host of information management challenges,” said Jacqueline Stockwell, CEO and Founder, Leadership through Data Limited. “AvePoint Opus and its industry leading AI-powered data classification capabilities helps us empower our customers to better manage their information, minimize cloud storage costs, improve efficiencies and truly thrive in the digital workplace.”

AvePoint has a track record of innovation spanning more than 20 years, aimed at providing solutions that democratize insights and provide recommendations and comprehensive protection for customers and partners. Built upon a robust data management strategy, AvePoint Opus is one of many AI-powered solutions the company plans to introduce.

Markable.ai, an award-winning company providing world-class artificial intelligence infrastructure, is excited to announce the launch of its newest features for creators, including Deep Links, Auto-Updating Bio Links, and the Comment Bot. These features are available now.

Stackline’s Shopper OS platform yields learnings that Ratings and Reviews have a greater impact on brand performance than previously estimated.

Stackline, the leader in full-funnel connected commerce, and only provider of Amazon-verified shopper-published reviews, has released stunning learnings around the importance of Ratings and Reviews to brand performance.

For years, we've known that Ratings and Reviews play a role in attracting shoppers. However, our understanding of the complete shopper journey has evolved with the launch of Shopper OS, our revolutionary platform that aligns first-party data into a comprehensive view of the omnichannel shopper. For instance, we've found that retention rates have plummeted, with only 12% of brands successfully retaining their shoppers annually.

So, where do Ratings and Reviews fit in? They are not just a component but the most vital element for brand success, beating out pricing and inventory. Here are six groundbreaking insights illuminating how Ratings and Reviews shape the connected commerce ecosystem.

1. Shoppers prioritize Reviews. In a survey of 50,000 shoppers, Reviews emerged as the most crucial factor in purchasing decisions, outpacing Price, Content, and even fulfillment.
2. Brand leaders recognize the shortfall. In a survey of 400 brand leaders, 87% reported the need for more reviews, and 81% expressed the need for better ratings. But why?
3. Shoppers rarely leave reviews. On average, shoppers review only 0.2% of the products they purchase. This lack of engagement is prevalent across the connected commerce ecosystem, not just on Amazon. It's no wonder brand leaders are eager to find solutions.
4. When shoppers do leave reviews, they're not always glowing endorsements. On average, brands receive a 3.93-star rating. Except for Apparel, brands in every department fall below a 4-star rating on average.
5. Five-star reviews make a significant impact. Leveraging Stackline's vast data capabilities and our ability to empower reviews for the world's largest brands, we conducted a study. Adding 20 five-star reviews to a product page resulted in remarkable results. Visitor traffic increased by 8%, thanks to improved organic placement and enhanced brand perception. Moreover, conversion rates experienced a staggering 22% boost. Brands must recognize these results.
6. What's the actual value of a 5-star review? The true worth of a five-star review depends on the product. For high-consideration purchases, like Baby, where shoppers meticulously read every review, the average value of a five-star review is $472. In the case of high-ticket items like Electronics, the value is $441.

Media in retail expert Rockbot acquires Nerdy Bunny to optimize customer engagement and meet the evolving demands of the market.

Rockbot, a multiproduct media platform that creates enhanced in-location customer experiences, announced the acquisition of Nerdy Bunny, an interactive signage and retail display solutions platform. This strategic endeavor brings together two industry leaders with a shared vision of redefining the future of the in-store retail environment.

"We are thrilled to join forces with Rockbot and supercharge our mission of helping retailers innovate, solve complex challenges, and bring ambitious customer experiences to life," Nerdy Bunny CEO Itai Ben-Gal says.

Nerdy Bunny brings a wealth of specialized knowledge in experiential retail and a background in solving complex media and audio-visual problems. The partnership strengthens Rockbot's offering to retailers, brands, and other customers looking to create interactive merchandising and demo experiences.

"The Nerdy Bunny team has been leaders in leveraging technology to enhance experiential retail environments for over a decade. From merchandising electronics to changing the way we shop, they are experts in the intersection of customers and the retail experience," says Garrett Dodge, CEO and co-founder of Rockbot.

Retailers today seek a simpler, more turnkey approach to delivering engaging and interactive merchandising experiences, like seamless in-store digital displays, audio and TV demo experiences, and virtual shopping assistants. This acquisition enhances Rockbot's ability to meet these needs while broadening the Nerdy Bunny reporting and retail media ad-serving solutions.

With Nerdy Bunny's expertise in experiential retail solutions and custom technology and media innovation services, Rockbot is now poised to bring never-before-seen media experiences to life. The partnership will also extend its reach to serve Nerdy Bunny's customers.

Rockbot is the only platform that unifies the full range of in-store media in a single CMS, giving businesses simplified control, billing, user, and device management. The new partnership aligns with its commitment to delivering innovative solutions that enrich the shopper's journey and path to purchase. Nerdy Bunny offers an industry-leading TV merchandising solution with interactive features, size visualization, robust analytics, and now, with Rockbot, a library of content and retail media advertising capabilities. This collaboration will bring value to retailers seeking to enhance customer engagement and drive sales.

"We're beyond excited to welcome the Nerdy Bunny team into the Rockbot organization and look forward to continuing to build best-in-class experiential media solutions for retailers everywhere," Dodge says.

Dispatch released the definitive guide to distributed commerce during the recent Dreamforce Conference

Dispatch, a comprehensive distributed commerce platform, today announced the prior release of its definitive guide called Distributed Commerce 2023: Everything You Need to Know at Dreamforce 2023 hosted by Salesforce. The guide is designed to educate marketing and sales executives looking to enhance their sales strategy by leveraging untapped channels via shoppable content and distributed commerce.

Dispatch Co-Founder & CEO, Byron Sorrells, commented on the release of the guide: "Consumers are everywhere all at once. With the ubiquity of fast, free shipping and payment methods like ApplePay, buyers are willing to buy-it-now when the feeling strikes. There's an irreversible wave of shopper behavior change towards instant gratification. With music, we went from buying albums to buying songs to streaming whatever we want whenever we want. With e-commerce, there's a tendency to focus on AOV, cart size, and trying to have total control over the customer journey. In some cases, we now need to look past these antiquated metrics and realize it's about making a sale or not making a sale."

The goal of distributed commerce is to meet customers where they are which is critical as a recent study from the Baymard Institute found that a $260B loss could be avoided by retailers with a better checkout design and flow. Furthermore, the study found that an improved checkout experience would lead to a rise of 35% in large e-commerce store conversion rates. Distributed commerce looks to address this issue by embedding a full-fledged shopping experience, not just a hyperlink to a shopping cart, directly into a relevant article, social media app, or even directly into a video game or VR/AR experience.

Dropbox announces Dropbox Dash in open beta, AI enhancements, a redesigned web experience with a new plan lineup, and all-in-one video collaboration Studio

Aug X Labs and LlamaIndex named first investment partners as part of Dropbox Ventures

Today at its Work in Progress user conference, Dropbox announced enhancements to its latest category of AI-powered products, Dropbox AI and Dropbox Dash, a redesigned web experience, an all-in-one video tool called Dropbox Studio, and three new workflow plans, along with the first investment partners of Dropbox Ventures.

Over the last few years, knowledge work has radically transformed, and the pandemic lockdown ushered in a new era of hybrid, distributed, and remote work. While there were clear benefits, like flexibility and more control over when and how to work, this shift also came with challenges as digital environments became more chaotic, and information overload and context switching consumed our time. As a result, knowledge workers struggle to find focus and be productive. Dropbox aims to address these challenges, and design distributed work 2.0.

According to a new Dropbox-sponsored study conducted by Economist Impact, 42% of people surveyed said they typically don’t spend more than an hour on productive work without interruption. The study also estimates the average knowledge worker loses more than five hundred hours to distraction each year, with 157 hours alone lost to unproductive messages from workplace chat apps—the biggest driver of lost focus overall.

At the same time, generative AI is opening up a world of possibilities to build products that enhance modern work. In fact, the study also showed that of people who report using automation tools—which are increasingly powered by AI—79% said they’re more productive, while nearly 70% said they’re more organized.

“Our digital environments were never designed to be our primary work spaces. People are experiencing information overload and disjointed workflows at unprecedented levels, leading to a waste of brain power on ‘work about work.’ AI has the potential to help people thrive by automating routine tasks, increasing productivity, and freeing up mental space so people can get back to doing the work that matters most,” said Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. “We combined the best of remote and in-person work with our Virtual First model and transformed Dropbox into a lab for distributed work 2.0 to design the tools to power this new era. The updates we’re launching today are just the first step on this journey.”

Search across tools, apps, and content with AI-powered Dropbox Dash

Dropbox Dash is now available to download in open beta and includes enhancements that improve search functionality and help customers get answers. Dash is AI-powered universal search that connects to people’s apps, tools, content in a single search bar to help them find their content. It also features Stacks, smart collections for links that offer a quick way to save, organize, and retrieve URLs, and a start page to access universal search, view Stacks, get shortcuts to recent work, and start meetings, making it easier for customers to navigate the work day.

Now that work spans hundreds of tabs and apps between the desktop and browser, it is painstaking for people to find what they need. Dropbox introduced Dash to solve this problem and help people spend more time on important work.

After iterating on feedback from customers over the past few months, Dash now supports search by keywords—so customers don’t have to remember long titles—and semantic search, which provides more contextually relevant search results. Customers can also ask Dash a question and it will use generative AI to gather and summarize relevant info from connected apps, files, and content to get people answers, fast.

A redesigned web experience to support all types of content and workflows

Dropbox is also introducing a redesigned web experience to support the way its customers are working today and ensure the experience is easier than ever for customers to get work done — without ever leaving Dropbox.

The new redesign offers a cleaner experience for customers to organize their content, collaborate with team members, and seamlessly complete their most critical tasks with features like:

• An updated left navigation streamlines the features customers need and includes an expandable folder tree to help them go directly to the content they need
• A new action bar sits across the browser page to let customers quickly record their screen, edit PDFs, upload files, create folders, get signatures, or send and track documents
• Redesigned file previews offer dynamic content previews, making it easier to edit images, videos, and PDFs

Dropbox AI offers summaries and answers from content across entire accounts

Dropbox AI initially launched in June with file previews to help customers summarize and get answers on large pieces of content, like long videos and audio files, contracts, and white papers. Now, customers can ask questions and summarize content across their entire Dropbox account. Simply ask a question in the Dropbox search bar, and in seconds, Dropbox AI will sift through content to pull up answers and relevant files, along with a brief summary of each file, so people can find what they need faster.

Additionally, Dropbox AI can use natural language to understand prompts like “show me photos from my photoshoot yesterday.” Customers can also now manage what AI features are enabled in account settings, giving them more control over their use of AI in Dropbox.

Own the video process from start to finish with Dropbox Studio

Over the last few years, video has emerged as one of the fastest-growing content types on Dropbox’s platform with over 1.5 billion videos uploaded to Dropbox every year. To address the growing demand, Dropbox introduced new tools like Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay to make it easier to record, edit, and get feedback on videos. But customers need more—a single place where they can take videos from start to finish. That’s why the company is introducing Dropbox Studio, a video collaboration tool that lets customers seamlessly create, edit, review, approve, and publish high-quality videos.

Dropbox Studio supports the entire video process with:

• A centralized page for users to conveniently access and kick off video projects
• Editing capabilities like trimming and splitting content or removing filler words like “um” and “ah” with one click
• AI-powered features that let customers edit videos by modifying their transcript
• A feature to easily remove filler words like “um” and “ah” with just one click
• Time-stamped comments to make it simpler to resolve feedback in one place
• A way to post videos directly to Facebook or Instagram

Introducing Dropbox Essentials, Business, and Business Plus

Dropbox is also launching new one-stop-shop subscription plans with all the tools customers need to find and use their content from a single place, so customers can focus on building and growing their business.

• Dropbox Essentials helps self-employed professionals save time, collaborate seamlessly, and build a business. It works with existing tools, so they can manage content from one place, whether they’re editing PDFs, collecting eSignatures, or tracking analytics on shared documents.
  • Dropbox Essentials plan is $22/month per user for monthly subscribers; $18/month per user for annual subscribers
• Dropbox Business is built for teams and includes everything in the Essentials plan along with branded signature requests, pooled storage among team members, external sharing controls and reporting, and an admin console to manage teams. Soon, teams will also have access to share and track team content features and aggregated visitor analytics.**
  • Dropbox Business plan is $24/month per user for monthly subscribers; $20/month per user for annual subscribers
• Dropbox Business Plus is for larger teams looking for more storage, easier ways to collaborate remotely, and enhanced security features. In addition to what’s included in the Business plan, Business Plus offers the ability to transfer up to 250GB, one year of version history and recovery, added security and notification features, and more.
  • Dropbox Business Plus is $32/month per user for monthly subscribers; $26/month per user for annual subscribers

Dropbox Ventures makes investments in Aug X Labs and LlamaIndex

Dropbox is also announcing Aug X Labs and LlamaIndex as the first partners of Dropbox Ventures, a $50 million initiative to invest in startups that are building the next generation of AI-powered apps and tools. With Aug X Labs’ video creation tool and LlamaIndex’s data framework, Dropbox is supporting startups that are shaping the modern work experience through the power of AI.

Partnership leverages Ansira's loyalty program design, implementation, and run-ops expertise with Annex Cloud's flexible platform to create solutions for customers; alliance will focus on the automotive sector to start

Ansira Partners, Inc.  ("Ansira"), an independent global marketing services and solutions company with proprietary channel, website, and advertising technology, today announced a strategic partnership with Annex Cloud, a technology platform that transforms customer loyalty experiences for global enterprises. Collaboration between the two companies will result in greater loyalty offerings for clients from enhanced tracking, rewarding, and profiling, to strategy and analytics, as well as a robust loyalty solution for the largely untapped automotive dealer sector.

"Ansira has deep expertise in designing loyalty programs and providing loyalty strategy for clients, and our partnership with Annex Cloud combines our experience with their loyalty technology platform to create solutions that can go to market at speed," said Ansira's EVP of Integrated Loyalty Sukumar Muthya. "Our collaboration enables Ansira to offer packaged solutions where our customers want flexibility, designed and managed as a turnkey solution."

Ansira's unique go-to-market approach provides marketing solutions through its own proprietary technology and services, but the team is also tech independent, allowing for them to work within a client's tech stack, or to partner with their strategic alliances to bring forth the best recommendation for a client's needs. The Annex Cloud partnership will allow for the creation of a "loyalty in a box" solution offering for the automotive industry where loyalty programs are designed and managed, providing flexibility and speed to market for the client. This packaged offering will also bring unique capabilities for analytics support to enterprises outside of their marketing organizations.

"Our customers are in the center of everything we do, and we are thrilled to announce this strategic partnership with Ansira to further support our customers and their loyalty goals," said Annex Cloud Chief Revenue Officer Erin Raese. "Beyond supporting our clients' loyalty programs, customer experience (CX), personalization, and 'show me you know me' capabilities, within the partnership with Ansira we'll have a services offering to support data collected through our social behavior tracking, rewarding influencers in unique ways, gamification, and progressive profiling tools."

Part of the strategic alliance between Ansira and Annex Cloud is focused on engaging the essentially untapped market of auto dealers. Ansira's deep concentration in the auto vertical from the OEM to the hyper-local dealer level provides a market perspective, coupled with Annex Cloud's flexible platform, that gives dealers with single or multiple dealerships a significant advantage when creating a customer loyalty program given the data challenges across automotive tiers.

"Ansira works across multiple industries from retail and QSR to tech and financial services – and we have a major concentration in automotive, from the enterprise OEM to the dealers' doors. From our experience we have identified a significant pain point from auto dealers in their need to create loyalty programs specific to their local level and customers," Muthya said. "Dealers are not seeing their customers on a weekly or monthly basis, so they can't engage with a simple rewards program. Rather, they need to incent customers to use the dealer service lane and they need to keep them engaged over a longer stretch of time at the community level. Ansira's partnership with Annex Cloud is the ideal solution for dealers with one or multiple dealerships to gain entry into creating a loyalty program through a turnkey solution on a flexible platform backed by expertise in loyalty strategy, analytics, and knowledge of the operating models of an auto dealership."

Ansira is backed by Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, with deep expertise in the business and financial services sector.

Blackpoint Further Expands Cloud Security with Identity Response for Azure AD, Creating a Groundbreaking Product for Single Sign-On

Blackpoint Cyber, a SaaS-based MDR solution provider, has announced the launch of a brand-new Cloud Response feature, Identity Response for Azure AD. This new offering is the first of its kind, cloud Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Single Sign-On (SSO).

In light of the surge in identity-based attacks, where threat actors exploit victims' login credentials from compromised services or successful phishing campaigns, Blackpoint Cyber is taking a proactive approach to counter these threats. They have built a groundbreaking feature within Cloud Response: Identity Response for Azure AD. This feature amplifies the security of Microsoft environments and extends protection to third-party applications interconnected via Azure SSO authentication.

"Since the launch of Cloud Response last year, we were the first to monitor Microsoft 365 environments and provide true response on alerts. With Identity Response for Azure AD, we're blazing another trail, as the only company to contextualize SSO logins to Azure and put them in front of the SOC for response," said Xavier Salinas, chief technology officer at Blackpoint. "In an era dominated by cloud operations, it's undeniable that while it revolutionizes operations and boosts businesses, it also widens the scope for threats."

Identity Response for Azure AD empowers the Blackpoint SOC to:

• Identify unauthorized access and discern if the login originated from Microsoft or an associated third-party service
• Recognize and take swift action against suspicious logins through Azure SSO
• Protects against attacks that deceive users into green-lighting malicious enterprise applications, inadvertently granting attackers access to an organization's Microsoft assets

Identity Response for Azure AD provides Blackpoint partners with:

• Further visibility into vulnerabilities within their attack surface
• Increased knowledge of potential data exposure, allowing for faster remediation
• Added context for audit procedures and damage assessment endeavors

Salinas continued with an example of how this new product can protect users and companies, "In the recent sophisticated attack on MGM, the alleged compromise of a user's SSO account allowed the adversary to access critical infrastructure, resulting in a reported revenue loss of around $2B. By applying protection to SSO, it becomes possible to identify and respond to sophisticated attack chains utilized by threat actors whether technological or, in the alleged case of MGM, psychological. Therefore, we will continue to forge the path for SSO protection, as this unmonitored attack surface continues to grow. Our partners can depend on our unwavering commitment to innovate, shielding, detecting, and counteracting threats in this evolving landscape."

Identity Response for Azure AD is available through Cloud Response within their product bundle, Blackpoint Response. This suite of security products is aligned to proven security frameworks such as NIST. With this product bundle, businesses can employ a unified defense strategy against the myriad of cyberthreats across attack surfaces.