The new executives position Nexxen to elevate brand recognition and accelerate revenue growth, following the company’s rebrand earlier this year

Nexxen, a global, unified advertising technology platform with deep expertise in video and Connected TV ("CTV"), today announced the appointment of two key executives to its leadership team. A reflection of the company’s ongoing commitment to growing its brand and customer base, Nexxen has hired Ben Kaplan as Chief Marketing Officer and Ariel Deitz as Vice President, Enterprise Sales.

Kaplan joins with wide-ranging credentials in both brand and product marketing, having led teams across the digital advertising supply chain for more than 14 years at major media and technology companies including Meredith Corporation, X (formerly known as Twitter) and, most recently, sell-side platform PubMatic. With extensive experience liaising between product, marketing and commercial groups, Kaplan will play a pivotal role in shaping and elevating Nexxen’s brand presence and narrative, evangelizing its products and services on a global scale.

“Our industry has been striving to bridge the gap and increase the connection between consumers and brands for years now – especially through CTV and video – and Nexxen is really at the epicenter of that shift,” said Kaplan. “I’m looking forward to telling that story in market, advancing and complementing the work we’ve already been doing and boosting our brand recognition, particularly on the heels of the company’s rebrand this summer.”

Nexxen also recently welcomed Deitz to its commercial leadership team. Deitz comes from Amazon Ads and brings 18 years of experience in sales, having consistently delivered strong results for her clients across the ecosystem. With a focus on enterprise customer relationships and tactical sales initiatives, Deitz is actively working to identify new ways in which Nexxen’s end-to-end technology stack can be applied to clients’ broader advertising strategies, ultimately driving price efficiencies and improving the end user’s ad experience.

“It takes many years, and a lot of manpower, to accomplish what Nexxen has and create an end-to-end technology offering of this caliber,” said Deitz. “Coming in, I was immediately struck by how seamlessly and intelligently our platforms work together. Now, as part of the team, I’m excited to be partnering with enterprise-level companies that are power users of this technology. They need sophisticated tools to fuel the future of their businesses and make meaningful connections with their customers – that is what we are here to provide.”

Nexxen’s Chief Executive Officer, Ofer Druker, commented on these strategic appointments, saying, “Ben Kaplan and Ariel Deitz’s impressive backgrounds align perfectly with our mission to deliver a robust horizontal platform that empowers advertisers and publishers to utilize CTV and video in the most meaningful ways, and their expertise will be instrumental as we continue to expand our already significant footprint, from both a brand and business standpoint.”

Company also launches capabilities to further secure data and ensure privacy in the evolving AI landscape

Zendesk, Inc. today announced market-leading customer experience (CX) generative AI advancements that allow companies to realize immediate business value through improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs and increased customer loyalty.

• Zendesk AI: As part of the Zendesk AI solution, companies can now deploy generative AI-powered bots that quickly and seamlessly supply answers to customers. Additionally, agents, admins and managers now have more AI tools to customize and enhance their CX solutions.
  • AI for Voice: As part of this next wave of Zendesk AI innovation, agents now have the option to receive AI-generated conversation summaries and transcripts that capture customer sentiment, which increases productivity and reduces costs.
• Advanced Data Privacy and Protection: Available today, businesses now have access to advanced safeguards and controls to manage customer data and ensure that generative AI is safely and securely deployed.

"Constant AI innovation is the new reality for CX leaders. While this promising technology unlocks incredible opportunities, it also adds pressure to deploy rapidly evolving capabilities in a timely manner and deliver meaningful business value," said Tom Eggemeier, CEO, Zendesk. "Zendesk is the best partner for businesses during this transformative time. We bring a powerful combination of deep CX and AI experience to provide capabilities that allow CX teams to be more efficient and empathetic. This improves customer and employee satisfaction and delivers cost efficiencies and revenue growth."

New generative AI capabilities create authentic conversations
According to the 2023 Zendesk CX Trends Report, nearly 70% of consumers expect most companies will use generative AI to improve their experiences. The new Zendesk generative AI capabilities enable bots to summarize key information from multiple help center articles for more natural conversations with customers. With these Zendesk AI enhancements, agents can resolve requests faster and more consistently with contextually similar tickets. Additionally, admins can review AI-provided intent suggestions that address gaps in answers as well as adjust bot tone to be more casual or professional to stay consistent with brand persona.

"Our team is very focused on operational efficiency and with Zendesk AI, we implemented AI immediately – without any developer support – while maintaining high-quality, personalized service for our customer base of more than 1.2 million online shoppers," said Aashley Malsbury, Sr. Operations Manager, Grove Collaborative. "As we implement Zendesk AI across our CX portfolio, there is massive potential to eliminate manual work for agents which allows them to focus on more important tasks that are key to maintaining our 95% CSAT score."

As part of this release, Zendesk AI is expanding intent detection to additional industries and use cases including Insurance, Travel/Tourism and more. Companies in these industries can now take common intents and edit them for their specific needs such as detecting frequently asked questions by travelers, and escalating to agents who are specially equipped to handle these issues.

Additionally, Zendesk announced AI for Voice which further reduces manual work for agents working on the phone by summarizing the conversation, providing a transcript and identifying customer sentiment. This saves time and allows agents to focus on customer resolutions.

Advanced security and privacy safeguards businesses
As the demand for AI-driven and personalized experiences grows, companies are finding it increasingly important to secure data across the customer journey. As part of Zendesk's commitment to trust and security, the company provides auditability, encryption, and business resilience as well as a variety of certifications including FedRAMP and ISO certifications, and compliance controls to meet HIPAA and GDPR requirements.

To build on these offerings, Zendesk today launched an Advanced Data Privacy & Protection package. This provides companies with greater control and flexibility over customer data to:

• Safeguard their business with stronger and targeted encryption
• Elevate privacy by specifying what data is shown and kept
• Strengthen security and visibility by logging who accessed and searched for data

These capabilities will help businesses manage rapidly evolving data requirements accelerated by advances in AI. As the industry continues to evolve, Zendesk is committed to guiding companies through changing regulations and ensuring control and flexibility over how customer data is managed.

"There is a lot of value and power that generative AI and LLMs promise for businesses. However, we must set an example on building CX responsibly and guide our customers to reduce risk," said Cristina Fonseca, Head of AI, Zendesk. "In line with our security principles and privacy framework, we have built in safeguards and control for companies to set limits for bots. For example, when sensitive information (such as medical history) comes up, an agent must be brought into the customer conversation."

With these enhancements, Zendesk continues to help businesses unlock the power of their customer interactions. Looking ahead, the company is committed to leading the CX industry and accelerating innovation, especially in AI.

To help customers capitalize on the wave of innovation in Artificial Intelligence, HG has launched GenAI Navigator™, a solution to help customers understand a company’s AI maturity, interest, and cloud-centricity

HG Insights, the provider of go-to-market Technology Intelligence to 90% of tech companies in the Fortune 100, today announced the launch of the GenAI Navigator, a solution that helps customers understand a business’ AI maturity, cloud centricity, and generative AI interest. To enhance go-to-market outcomes, GenAI Navigator is available as an early adopter incentive to current customers during the initial launch period.

Across nearly every industry, generative AI will rapidly and progressively innovate how we work and communicate. Its impact on B2B tech is poised to grow as enterprises continue to discover more applications for generative AI to help them develop products faster, enhance customer experience, and improve employee productivity.

HG Insights’ GenAI Navigator helps customers identify businesses whose technology stack indicates they’re ready to take the leap into generative AI.

“Generative AI contributes to business value with new opportunities to increase revenue, reduce costs, better manage risk, and enhance productivity. It is set to be the differentiator between competing companies and will ultimately deliver a competitive advantage,” said Rob Fox, CTO, HG Insights. “HG Insights’ GenAI Navigator identifies those businesses ready to take the next step with generative AI and provides value to our customers by uncovering massive go-to-market opportunities.”

Opportunities For Vendors

Generative AI is already a crucial part of a business’ digital transformation. It is seeing heavy investment from almost all industries — from pharmaceutical to manufacturing, media, electronics, energy, and more — as companies seek a competitive advantage through AI models. Generative AI has increasingly become a bigger priority than cloud migration and sustainability for global businesses.¹

HG Insights’ GenAI Navigator unlocks a breadth of opportunities for vendors. Using new patent-pending, machine-learning algorithms based on HG Insights’ Functional Area Intelligence™, we detect the footprint of departments and roles within a company (such as data science, data engineering, and data analysts) and understand how they are changing over time. We determine what data science-related technologies are used, where, and on what infrastructure. This role detection includes the overall weighted strength of data science within engineering — relative to the company, team distribution by location, and AI technology adoption occurring by role. Then, by layering our Contextual Intent™ solution, we can learn what generative AI-related technologies a company is currently researching and evaluating.

The GenAI Navigator solution includes:

• Firmographic delivery with new data points of AI Maturity Score and Trend, Cloud Centricity, and GenAI Interest in any market
• HG mentions related to AI to support market insights for decision-makers

These insights are based on HG’s patent-pending AI Maturity Index™, which includes insights from AI product adoption by a company, the locations where adoption is detected, the strength of these detections, and the application of an Ideal Customer Profile to data-related product detections.

“The generative AI marketplace is moving quickly. Global technology vendors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars and massive computing power to build the foundational models on which services like ChatGPT and other AI models depend,” said Elizabeth Cholawsky, CEO, HG Insights. “Beyond these big technology vendors, there are many specialty providers funded by venture capital and new waves of innovation happening every day. The GenAI Navigator, validated by top HG customers, will unlock selling and buying opportunities for all companies in this fast-changing landscape.”

As private and public sector organizations develop generative AI strategies tailored to their business needs, they are actively looking for third-party providers to help support their generative AI initiatives. Third-party providers incorporating generative AI capabilities into their own products and services will take priority over vendors who do not, and HG Insights’ GenAI Navigator delivers a game-changing solution to aid in this evaluation for companies who wish to leverage generative AI to gain a bigger share of their markets.

AI Technology Will Help Ensure Content Consistently Aligns with Journalism Standards

Seekr, a revolutionary artificial intelligence company specializing in transparent content evaluation, announced today it has entered into a strategic partnership with The Messenger, a newly launched media platform founded to champion balanced, objective, nonpartisan journalism. The partnership makes The Messenger among the first media publishing companies to leverage AI to ensure editorial content consistently aligns with journalism standards

"This partnership is built on a shared ethos that fact-based journalism standards are foundational to reliable news, and that's especially important now, as consumers are being inundated by torrents of information – much of it misleading, incomplete, or false," said Rob Clark, President, and Chief Technology Officer at Seekr.

Seekr's groundbreaking AI evaluates and rates content critically by applying the same standards of journalism universally accepted by the responsible free press. The technology – which currently powers Seekr's consumer-facing platform at Seekr.com – spots instances of clickbait, title exaggeration, subjectivity, and personal attacks, among other departures from the standards; it can detect the absence of a byline, inferior sourcing and attribution, and whether website ownership information is transparent and credible.

"We've seen how impactful Seekr's content evaluation capabilities are on the consumer side both as a resource that helps readers become better informed and as a mechanism for accelerating news literacy," added Clark. "We believe that in the hands of publishers, our technology will be an extraordinarily effective quality control tool. The technology is accurate, reliable, and extremely fast, and it can help ensure that published content consistently adheres to basic standards."

The Messenger's adoption of the technology comes at a critical inflection point in journalism, as research shows many readers struggle to differentiate between news and opinion, and public trust in the news media is at or near record lows. 

"Studies show that journalists acknowledge that the quality, reliability, and objectivity of reporting varies across stories, outlets, and reporters. As a result, opinion, bias, and subjectivity are bleeding into news and have caused many readers to lose trust in the media," said Richard Beckman, President of The Messenger. "Our mandate is to deliver the news – not shape it. We're doubling down on our commitment to fact-based journalism standards, and we believe Seekr's responsible AI technology will help hold our newsroom accountable to our core mission."

New on-premises solutions help drive generative AI efforts with more intelligent data collection, multicloud access and professional services

News summary

• Dell Validated Design for Generative AI with NVIDIA for Model Customization helps customers more quickly and securely extract intelligence from their data
• Dell Professional Services streamline GenAI strategy development, data preparation, platform development and increase operational efficiencies
• Dell Technologies and Starburst offer an open, modern data lakehouse solution to tap multicloud data for AI efforts

Full story

Dell Technologies expands its Dell Generative AI Solutions portfolio, helping businesses transform how they work along every step of their generative AI (GenAI) journeys.

"To maximize AI efforts and support workloads across public clouds, on-premises environments and at the edge, companies need a robust data foundation with the right infrastructure, software and services," said Jeff Boudreau, chief AI officer, Dell Technologies. "That's what we are building with our expanded validated designs, professional services, modern data lakehouse and the world's broadest GenAI solutions portfolio."

Customizing GenAI models to maximize proprietary data

The Dell Validated Design for Generative AI with NVIDIA for Model Customization offers pre-trained models that extract intelligence from data without building models from scratch. 

This solution provides best practices for customizing and fine-tuning GenAI models based on desired outcomes while helping keep information secure and on-premises. With a scalable blueprint for customization, organizations now have multiple ways to tailor GenAI models to accomplish specific tasks with their proprietary data. Its modular and flexible design supports a wide range of computational requirements and use cases, spanning training diffusion, transfer learning and prompt tuning.

Dell Validated Designs for Generative AI now support both model tuning and inferencing, allowing users to more quickly deploy GenAI models with proven infrastructure including the Dell PowerEdge XE9680, the industry's best performing AI server,¹ or the Dell PowerEdge XE8640, with a choice of NVIDIA® Tensor Core GPUs and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, which offers frameworks, pre-trained models and development tools, such as the NVIDIA NeMo™ framework, and Dell software. By combining compute power with storage options, such as Dell PowerScale and Dell ObjectScale, customers can rapidly feed models with multiple storage data types with the validated design. The infrastructure is also available as a subscription via Dell APEX.

"We're implementing Dell PowerEdge XE9680 servers with NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs into the high performance computing cluster at Princeton for large language modeling to help drive new levels of discovery," said Sanjeev Arora, the Charles C. Fitzmorris Professor in Computer Science, Princeton. "This system gives researchers in natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities the opportunity to apply powerful AI models to their work in areas such as visualization, modeling and quantum computing."

Preparing data, people and processes for GenAI

Dell is applying its process and expertise to help customers generate better, faster business results with expanded GenAI professional services capabilities:

• Data Preparation Services provide customers with a clean, accurate data set in the right format enabling AI projects to move smoothly while simplifying data integration and delivering quality data output.
• Dell Implementation Services establish an operational GenAI platform for inferencing and model customization, accelerating time to value. Paired with Dell Managed Services, Dell can operate the full NVIDIA-based GenAI solution, improving operational efficiency and allowing customers to focus on building their proprietary GenAI use cases.
• Education Services help customers gain the critical skills to close the GenAI capabilities gap.

"Our recent study on Generative AI use in the enterprise made it clear organizations are adamant about being able to use their own data to customize key foundation models, but also they need assistance in helping prep their data for that work," said Bob O'Donnell, president and chief analyst, TECHnalysis Research. "Dell's latest Generative AI solutions and partnerships offer a broad set of capabilities that help companies capitalize on this potential, bridging knowledge gaps and ensuring data drives discernible, impactful business results."

Modernizing data infrastructure for AI and analytics

Dell and Starburst are strengthening their relationship to help customers accelerate AI and analytics efforts. This will culminate with an open, modern data lakehouse solution.

The solution will integrate Starburst's analytics software with Dell's PowerEdge compute platform, combined with Dell industry-leading storage,² helping customers extract insights from data wherever it resides. Built with open software principles, customers will gain easy and more secure access to multicloud data to get the most value for analytics and AI-driven workflows and deployments.

"Our customers have made it clear they need a robust data platform for accessing distributed data across multicloud environments to drive and operationalize AI efforts," said Justin Borgman, CEO, Starburst. "By integrating our deep analytics capabilities with Dell's leading infrastructure and global enterprise services, we can offer customers an open, multicloud data lakehouse solution that quickly and easily makes data available to AI workflows anywhere."

Availability

• Dell Validated Design for Generative AI: Model Customization is available globally through traditional channels and Dell APEX starting late October.
• Dell Professional Services for Generative AI are available in select countries starting late October.
• The Dell open, modern data lakehouse solution with Starburst has planned global availability in the first half of 2024.

New search experience brings over 1,000,000 data points on global venues and vendors together with live insights from The Vendry's community of high-profile corporate event pros 

The Vendry, a platform where corporate event planners discover venues and vendors, announced the launch of their innovative new search engine. 

This sweeping improvement to the venue and vendor search experience means that planners can, for the first time, run one search to return the richest, most informative set of results from across the web. These results are driven by The Vendry's search algorithm, which scans over 1,000,000 data points and signals from the platform's database and community of professional event planners to display the most relevant venues and vendors.

"We wanted to reimagine a search experience that could bring every high-quality source of information together into a single, comprehensive set of results that's easy for planners to digest," said Daphne Hoppenot, CEO of The Vendry. "Up until now, searching for venues and vendors has been a mess. For example, when a planner needs a venue, they'll search on Google, sift through websites hunting for capacity charts, dig through press articles to see if the location is trendy and on-brand, and message teammates and industry peers in hope of getting a recommendation." 

Now, when a planner searches on The Vendry, they can easily deep dive into the relevant options from a variety of perspectives: 

• Business Directory to browse information on over 130,000 spaces and services in 87 cities around the world
• Community Discussions to read previous conversations that mention pertinent venues or vendors, with the ability to jump in and ask follow up questions
• Team Knowledgebase to access private lists, notes, and files shared by others in their organization 
• News to read recent, applicable press from over 500 publishers, powered by The Vendry's IndustryIQ technology 
• Lists to browse curated collections of businesses created by top publications and industry members
• Galleries to see over 92,000 photos of real events those businesses helped bring to life

Business users, regardless of technical skill level, can build applications quickly and easily that solve problems and deliver insight, all within the Quickbase platform

Quickbase, the dynamic work management platform, today announced Quickbase AI. The new suite of AI-powered capabilities, embedded into the Quickbase platform, gives business users – regardless of technical ability – the power to build applications quickly and easily that connect data and uncover insights that drive down costs and accelerate revenue growth. These AI capabilities are now available on a limited basis across the Quickbase platform, both for existing and prospective customers; already, over 1,000 applications have been built using Quickbase AI.

“Introducing AI into our platform levels the playing field, empowering everyone in the business to solve problems at the scale and speed of their business,” said Ed Jennings, CEO of Quickbase. “The average worker is looking for solutions that help them get work done, faster. We put AI into the hands of the people who can benefit most from it so that workers can use it to get work done. Unlike other solutions, Quickbase AI lets users, regardless of technical skill, quickly and easily build applications and solutions to solve their most complex workflow challenges – in minutes, all in one easy-to-use and sophisticated platform that is light years ahead of anything else available today. It’s a game-changer for business users and enterprises alike looking to eliminate the wasted time and resources that slow down work and delay projects and profitability.”

Gray Work, the lost time the average employee spends searching for information, dilutes productivity and impacts collaboration and timely decision-making. For enterprises, all this wasted time and siloed information has a profound effect on overall costs. The full suite of Quickbase AI delivers capabilities to get at this Gray Work challenge, removing obstacles to get work done, understanding data and adjusting project and revenue goals, so that you can run your business. In accelerating the adoption of a no-code tool and the onboarding to enable full use of a dynamic work management platform, Quickbase AI also helps enterprises advance their journey to modernize their technology stack with AI-powered capabilities that drive growth.

Chief among the new capabilities in Quickbase AI is Smart Builder, a generative AI app builder that lets users, regardless of technical experience, quickly, easily, and safely build fully functional applications in minutes for their specific use case. Using user-defined descriptions (leveraging natural language processing) of those business problems (project delays, supply chain breakdowns, etc.), Smart Builder helps business users eliminate the current gray work slowing down their projects.

In addition, Quickbase AI includes:

• Data Analyzer: A virtual “data scientist in a box” that helps identify and predict key outcomes by identifying unseen patterns across data, regardless of where that data is stored (hybrid, relational or graph databases), creating an integrated and simplified data user experience to discover opportunities (or threats) impacting optimal business performance and outcomes.
• Data Scanner: Enables proactive data governance and protection using machine learning, scanning for patterns and outputs across silos and applications for easier and faster classification, removal and/or protection, ideal for managing large data sets across disparate systems and applications.

With Quickbase AI, business users can drive productivity continuously across every project, reducing the manual processes that drive up cost and complexity and uncovering trends and patterns in their data that fuel smarter decision-making and resource allocation – from active inventory and materials management to product/service demand forecasting and predicting maintenance/replacement needs on equipment – that are indicators of potential delays. All with the confidence that their data is secure and not shared anywhere outside of the Quickbase platform.

• New global study assesses the opinion of 10,000 consumers on finding the balance between regulation and innovation of GenAI

• There is interest in GenAI across the globe with 72% of consumers surveyed having some excitement around GenAI

• While 68% said it is essential regulation does not discourage business innovation, GenAI transparency is a must

Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering, today released findings from a new global study that reveals there is consumer appetite for businesses using generative AI (GenAI) in the innovation of products and services, yet only where businesses are transparent and proactively communicate how they are using it. The research examines what consumers expect from businesses to maintain their GenAI social license to innovate with emerging regulations.

Among the key findings:

• There are equal amounts of fear and excitement about GenAI
  • While 30% are mostly excited about GenAI, there are 42% that are part excited, part nervous.
  • There is hope from 83% of consumers that businesses can use GenAI to be more innovative and to serve them better. Those more likely to buy from businesses using GenAI would do so for greater innovation (59%), to give them a better customer experience through faster support (51%) and a more personalized experience (50%).
  • But there is an expectation that businesses should use technology ethically while they innovate (87%).
• Majority agree that regulation is necessary for responsible use of GenAI
  • People recognize the need for GenAI regulation, with governments playing a vital role in its design, development and deployment. The vast majority (90%) agree government regulations are necessary to hold businesses accountable for how they use GenAI.
  • If a business fails to incorporate responsible and ethical thinking when using GenAI, 93% of surveyed consumers say they risk facing detrimental impacts, such as legal and regulatory issues (65%) and reputational damage (65%).
  • Businesses need to be transparent about their use of GenAI, otherwise they risk losing current and prospective customers. The greater part of consumers (85%) prefer businesses that stand for transparency and equity in their use of GenAI.
• Businesses have a social license to operate GenAI
  • Of those surveyed, 68% believe businesses must continue their rapid pace of GenAI innovation while effective government regulation is developed.
  • In order for businesses to use GenAI appropriately, consumers believe regulations should have businesses clearly outline how data is used (68%), ensure there is no illegal content generated (63%) and disclose when content is generated by GenAI (62%).

Speaking on the report’s findings, Mike Mason, chief AI officer, Thoughtworks, said, “In a world where trust is paramount, businesses must understand that gaining the public’s confidence through ethical AI is not just a regulatory obligation, it's a strategic advantage. For decades, Thoughtworks has advised our clients on how to tap into the full advantage of the latest emerging technology while also building responsible governance into business processes to protect customers’ trust.”

Vanson Bourne’s principal research manager, Lauren Woodley said, “Thoughtworks took a unique perspective to the fast-paced topic of GenAI, exploring how consumers feel when interacting with businesses that use it. The findings are alarming, with consumers stating many concerns surrounding how businesses use their GenAI-related data. This emphasizes the social responsibility businesses have in building trust and reassuring consumers. If businesses are able to tackle the concerns through being proactive and transparent, the future of GenAI looks positive – from more innovative products / services, to an improved customer experience, the results do indicate feelings of excitement among consumers. But the overshadowing cloud of fear must be lifted first.”

Mason continued, “GenAI offers endless possibilities. We’re helping our clients experiment to prove out new capabilities that survey respondents are excited about, such as idea generation for more innovative products, faster support and more personalized experiences and then productionizing those experiments as enterprise-grade software.”