Bloomreach, the platform fueling limitless e-commerce experiences, today announced a revolutionary conversational shopping product built for a new world of e-commerce. Powered by the latest advancements in generative AI and large language models (LLMs), Bloomreach Clarity™ engages with shoppers to deliver personalized, human-like product expertise straight from their favorite brands. Businesses connect these conversations directly to their product catalogs, and can seamlessly integrate individual conversations across every channel, including website, chat, SMS, and more. A first look at Bloomreach Clarity can be seen during the company’s Edge Summit, live streaming today at 9:00 AM PT.

Even as online shopping has grown in recent years, untapped potential remains — e-commerce only accounted for 21% of total retail sales in 2022. Yet unlocking that potential remains a challenge for businesses; a need for guidance often causes shoppers to delay or abandon purchases while they visit stores or conduct time-consuming online research. Generative AI has illuminated a new path forward, creating a way for businesses to give customers the clarity they need during their online shopping journey instantly and at scale.

“Until today, e-commerce technology has never been able to replicate human expertise within the shopping experience — and certainly not at scale. We’re changing that with Bloomreach Clarity, connecting a business’s best product expert with every customer, on demand,” said Raj De Datta, co-founder and CEO, Bloomreach. “Powered by a deep understanding of each individual shopper and every product in a business’s catalog, this is more than conversational shopping, it’s product expertise for every customer. Clarity is going to drive truly authentic, cross-channel conversations that turn every potential purchase into one made with confidence.”

Bloomreach Clarity is built upon a powerful real-time customer data engine and trained on more than a decade of commerce data. This gives it a unique understanding of how customers shop and how products perform — globally, based on Bloomreach’s rich data and smart AI, and at the individual level, based on a business’s real-time data. As a result, while Clarity is showing customers relevant information and products, it’s also prioritizing what it knows they’ll actually buy — helping businesses drive fast growth.

Clarity also offers control and optimizations for businesses as they introduce this conversational experience to customers, including:

• The ability for merchandisers to combine their instinct and expertise with the speed and scale of AI
• Real-time targeting that allows Clarity to prompt conversations based on a customer’s current journey or specific segment
• Personalized conversations, even for unknown visitors based on browsing behavior
• The ability to refine conversations using brand guidelines and tone of voice

Bloomreach Clarity is introducing customers to a new way of shopping and offering businesses limitless opportunities for growth. Sign up for the waitlist to join the conversation before it begins.

Leading revenue operations and intelligence company seeks continued growth with experienced financial leader

Revenue Grid, the go-to Revenue Operations and Intelligence solution for sales teams around the world, today announced Jim Mackey as the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mackey joins Revenue Grid with nearly 30 years of experience in the technology industry.

Mackey's contributions as a strategic advisor at Citigroup's Technology Investment Banking team have yielded valuable insights for clients, guiding some of the largest horizontal application companies in the tech industry. His journey has included serving at notable technology companies like SAP, Open Text and Blackberry. At BlackBerry, he adeptly managed his teams through periods of restructuring and successfully steered the company through economic and product challenges to create a growing software division. Later, while at SAP, he played a pivotal role contributing to 8 years of exceptional growth and impacting the company's trajectory.

"I am thrilled to welcome Jim Mackey to Revenue Grid as our new CFO. His extensive international management experience, coupled with a proven track record of delivering strategic insights and driving growth, aligns seamlessly with our company's vision," said Vlad Voskresensky, founder and CEO at Revenue Grid. "Jim's expertise will be instrumental in strengthening our financial foundation as we continue to evolve and enhance our offerings to support sales teams around the world in fighting against revenue leakage."

Mackey's leadership prowess extends beyond financial expertise, as he was a key participant in two of the most high-profile IPOs of 2019, and he has invested more than $20 billion via more than 50 acquisitions. Mackey has consistently championed organizational growth, delivering tangible results through increased revenues and operational enhancements.

"I am honored to join Vlad and his remarkable team at Revenue Grid. The company's commitment to providing cutting-edge revenue operations and intelligence solutions is impressive, and I look forward to contributing to its growth journey," expressed Mackey. "As we navigate an increasingly dynamic business landscape, I am excited to leverage my experience in international management, strategic advisory and financial leadership to drive operational excellence and support our mission of empowering sales teams globally."

Market leader acquires conversational AI innovator – providing organizations a comprehensive customer engagement platform that automates customer service, reduces call center workload, and improves customer experience

Engageware, the market leader in cloud-based customer engagement software, today announced the acquisition of Aivo, a globally recognized leader and innovator in conversational and generative AI technology. The acquisition extends Engageware’s platform capabilities to help financial institutions, wealth and asset management firms, insurance brokers and other enterprises automate customer service, reduce call center workload, increase sales and improve operational efficiencies. Engageware’s platform provides significant ROI to its clients by helping to solve customers’ needs in the first interaction. The acquisition of Aivo reinforces Engageware’s commitment to innovation and to delivering exceptional solutions to organizations seeking to meet their customers anywhere in their customer journey and improving customer satisfaction leading to increased sales and higher retention.

"We are thrilled to welcome Aivo to the Engageware family," said Nina Vellayan, Chief Executive Officer at Engageware. "It is essential that organizations leverage technology to improve customer experiences, drive operational efficiency, automate customer service, and reduce workload for call center employees. In a world where consumers have become accustomed to fast-paced, on-demand services, they expect immediate access to pertinent information and instant responses to their inquiries. By integrating Aivo’s products into Engageware’s customer engagement platform, we help organizations deliver accurate and instantaneous information to their customers, no matter the channel.”

Engageware is the only purpose-built customer engagement SaaS platform offering a comprehensive suite of self-serve and employee knowledge management solutions, intelligent appointment scheduling, and analytics, including client satisfaction tracking, all powered by conversational AI. Engageware’s platform enables companies to build stronger connections, increase conversions and foster long-lasting relationships. With a 20-year history of providing exceptional support and consultation to financial institutions, the company possesses an acute understanding of the stringent regulatory demands governing customer and employee knowledge management data. The effectiveness of conversational and generative AI resides in the data's quality. Engageware’s knowledge management solutions ensure data is meticulously managed, thereby ensuring accurate and up-to-date responses to customers via any channel.

Aivo was founded in 2012 in Argentina as an innovator in artificial intelligence-driven solutions for enterprise customer engagement. It has deep customer relationships across fintech and banking, telecom and retail. Aivo has been recognized in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI, and the company is a Meta Business Partner.

Together with Aivo, Engageware will serve more than 700 enterprise customers with its customer engagement suite. It is the leading comprehensive SaaS platform for customer engagement for its target customers.

With more than 300 third party integrations, as well as the capability to enable bespoke integrations, companies are enabled to use Engageware’s comprehensive customer engagement platform to resolve customer needs in the first interaction through any channel, including SMS, website content, Meta’s social media products including WhatsApp, mobile, IVR, video banking, and in-person or online appointments – placing consumers in the driver’s seat of their own customer journeys.

“I’m thrilled to have Aivo join forces with the leader in U.S. customer engagement in Engageware. Aivo has already helped hundreds of companies automate their customer interactions with artificial intelligence,” said Martin Frascaroli, CEO & Founder of Aivo. “Now, with Engageware’s reach and strength in the U.S. market, we are able to provide that to thousands more. Customers want personalized experiences and instant resolution. We are confident that joining Engageware will further our combined mission of revolutionizing how organizations help their customers address their needs globally.”

Engageware’s end-to-end platform enables its clients with a holistic view of their customers’ journey, synchronizes seamless channel handoffs (for example, conversational chat to live agent transfer to appointment scheduling) and provides data and analytics to inform strategic business decisions.

“Clearhaven Partners is pleased to continue to support Engageware through its acquisition of Aivo. Aivo’s AI driven software is a strong match for Engageware’s strategic product priorities, and Aivo’s solutions fit perfectly within Engageware’s customer engagement software suite to drive even greater value for customers,” commented Michelle Noon, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clearhaven Partners, Engageware’s private equity sponsor. “Engageware has long been a leader in customer engagement software. The acquisition of Aivo signifies Engageware’s continued commitment to delivering leading innovative solutions for customers.”

Quadient (Euronext Paris: QDT), a leader in helping businesses create meaningful customer connections through digital and physical channels, announces the integration of its Intelligent Communication Automation (ICA) platform with Microsoft Azure AI, a portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI) services designed for developers and data scientists backed by a secure environment and responsible AI principles. The integration of generative AI into Quadient’s cloud platform will further contribute to transforming the way organizations engage with their customers.

As an established leader in the areas of customer experience management and financial automation, Quadient has been recognized by independent industry analysts, including Gartner, for its use of advanced AI integrated into its ICA solutions for several years. Quadient now reaffirms its commitment to innovation with another strategic enhancement to its software solutions. Leveraging Microsoft Azure AI, including Azure OpenAI Service, Quadient software solutions will empower customers with enhanced features that range from measuring content readability, similarity and sentiment, to generating contextual content summaries and streamlining content creation and communication management in a secure environment with privacy controls.

“The integration with Microsoft Azure AI marks a significant milestone in Quadient's strategy, allowing us to experiment, evolve and create interactive experiences that set the stage for the future of customer interactions and communications,” said Chris Hartigan, chief solution officer, Intelligent Communication Automation, Quadient. “Extending beyond technology integration, we empower organizations to deliver personalized and contextually relevant messages more efficiently. Building on our deep expertise and proven history of delivering world-class communication and process automation solutions, we aim to continue driving innovation in the market. Combining our cloud-based platform with Microsoft Azure AI's advanced technologies and security will revolutionize how businesses engage with customers.”

By integrating AI and machine learning into its Intelligent Communication Automation solutions for several years now, Quadient has been empowering users to create highly accurate, relevant, and personalized communications, leading to improved customer experiences. Quadient's software customer base stands to benefit greatly from this new evolution. Integrating Microsoft’s generative AI and content intelligence technology further elevates the platform performance, allowing users to efficiently analyze, summarize and prioritize data, run content similarity scenarios to consolidate and organize documents such as forms, policies or contracts, or securely generate customer-facing content in a trusted environment. Quadient's commitment to data protection is enforced by Microsoft Azure AI's infrastructure, ensuring privacy and confidentiality for customers and partners. 

“With generative AI technologies, we are unlocking new efficiencies for businesses across industries, profoundly changing how work is done. Integrating new technologies is essential to helping enterprises accelerate their AI journey,” said Lenka Nováková, Enterprise Commercial Lead CZ/SK Microsoft. “We’re thrilled to see Quadient, a leader in business communication automation and customer experience management, adopting our AI services within their portfolio and help them take their AI-powered business communication solutions to the next level in a trusted, secure environment for its customers.”

Users of Quadient Accounts Receivable and Customer Experience Management solutions will be the first to benefit from new generative AI capabilities, available in the coming months. For further details on how Quadient solutions help create exceptional customer experiences, please visit www.quadient.com.

Aily Labs GmbH, pioneer of an AI-powered decision intelligence app for global enterprises, announced today that it has raised €19M in a Series A round led by global software investor Insight Partners. Self-funded to date, this funding will be used to scale operations and expand the company's presence in the United States while accelerating innovation in digital solutions and applied GenAI.

Aily is a mobile-first AI decision intelligence app revolutionizing the way performance is tracked and commercial decisions are made within global business. With a 360° integrated view of enterprise data and advanced AI/ML techniques, the easy-to-use app gives users at all levels the rich, real-time insights they need to make better-informed, instant decisions.

"AI is about innovation at lightning speed and is at the heart of our product. The speed to integrate our app can be as fast as one day, giving instant data transparency across the entire business," says Bianca Anghelina, Aily Labs' founder and CEO. "Putting AI in the hands of business users is transforming operating models, delivering greater efficiencies, and accelerating outcomes. We're thrilled to be supported by Insight Partners to boost our next growth phase to become the no.1 AI decision intelligence platform."

"Aily Labs is the future of how decision-making happens; by creating a single source of truth for cross-enterprise data, Aily ensures that individuals from analysts to executives have real-time, AI-driven insights and 'what-if' scenarios to make better-informed business decisions," said Hilary Gosher, Managing Director at Insight Partners. "Existing customers have seen significant ROI through unprecedented visibility and access to insights - we see huge demand in the market for an AI-driven solution like Aily. We're excited to join Bianca and the Aily Labs team as they expand globally and across industry sectors."

Aily Labs has already seen tremendous momentum, with quick adoption and incredible support from some leading global brands. In June, global healthcare company Sanofi announced the roll-out of the Aily app at scale (branded plai internally), their industry-leading app, which gives a holistic view across all Sanofi business activities enabling their company-wide digital transformation. By harnessing the power of AI, Aily is helping thousands of Sanofi decision-makers (from the senior executives to on-the-ground operators) make informed decisions to accelerate drug discovery, enhance clinical trial design, and improve manufacturing and supply.

ListenFirst, the premier enterprise social analytics solution, today announced significant changes to its leadership team, including the appointment of a new CEO and the promotion of key individuals to critical leadership roles. These changes reflect the company's commitment to its core values and strategic growth.

ListenFirst, the premier enterprise social analytics solution, today announced significant changes to its leadership team, including the appointment of a new CEO and the promotion of key individuals to critical leadership roles. These changes reflect the company's commitment to its core values and strategic growth.

Today, ListenFirst officially announces the appointment of Miranda McWeeney as the company's Chief Executive Officer. This formal recognition underscores her outstanding contributions and exemplifies the company's dedication to nurturing talent from within its ranks.

Over the past 11 years at ListenFirst, Miranda has demonstrated exceptional leadership with her customer-centric DNA. Her leadership has been a critical component of ListenFirst's success.

"As ListenFirst enters this exciting phase of its journey, we are thrilled to announce Miranda's appointment as CEO and recognize the dedication of our talented team members. Miranda has been a key leader within ListenFirst for many years. This appointment recognizes her accomplishments over those years and our excitement about what lies ahead under her leadership," said Jason Klein, Co-Founder of ListenFirst.

Miranda's elevation to CEO signifies a new chapter for ListenFirst as she continues to lead the company on its path of growth, innovation, and excellence. Her visionary leadership, combined with the expertise of the newly appointed leaders, ensures that ListenFirst remains at the forefront of the Social Analytics market.

"I'm honored and excited to take on the CEO role at ListenFirst. This journey has been about prioritizing our customers, building a best-in-class team, and fostering a culture of innovation in the ever-changing social space. I am grateful for the unwavering support of our team and customers over the years. I look forward to leading ListenFirst into a new era of growth, collaboration, and success," said Miranda McWeeney, CEO of ListenFirst.

In addition to the CEO appointment, ListenFirst is pleased to recognize Jonathan Farb, who has been instrumental in shaping the company's operations from the outset. He will assume the title of Chief Operating Officer in addition to his current Chief Product Officer responsibilities.

ListenFirst remains more dedicated than ever to delivering superior services and solutions to its clients. These leadership changes reinforce the company's ongoing commitment to excellence.

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced that Gary Dickerson, President and CEO, will participate in a fireside chat at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Sept. 6 beginning at 8:50 a.m. PT / 11:50 a.m. ET.

A live audio webcast of the session will be available on the Applied Materials website at https://ir.appliedmaterials.com with a replay available the same day.

Cribl Stream boosts routing capabilities for security teams using Castra, enables in-depth SIEM implementations, and reduces overhead costs.

Castra is proud to announce a new partnership with Cribl, the data company for IT and security. Castra customers can add Cribl Stream to Castra's managed detection and response solution, enhancing data-driven decision-making and reducing data storage costs in complex enterprise environments.

Cribl Stream gives teams additional control over telemetry data and the flexibility to observe, route, enrich, and process data at every stage of the security lifecycle. With Cribl Stream, enterprises can quickly ingest data and seamlessly integrate it at scale, optimizing log volumes, increasing visibility, and improving downstream performance.

"Cribl is quite literally the platform I've wanted for over fifteen years," said Tony Simone, Castra co-founder. "We are all inundated with data going in a hundred different directions. Being able to bring it all together, route the right data to the right places, transform it, and archive it in a cost-effective way makes this system incredibly powerful – and that's just scratching the surface of what it can do."

As a Castra partner, Cribl will help enterprise security teams manage vast volumes of data more efficiently. Cloud-native SIEM solutions offer rapid data ingestion and query performance, but they are not the most cost-effective solution for storing log, trace, and metric data. Cribl Stream lets enterprises keep high volume data in low-cost storage and replay that data on-demand.

The result is a fast, cost-effective system for managing the flow of data throughout the enterprise. Castra and Cribl are actively working together to address the challenges of routing, filtering, and enriching data in transit to improve security outcomes while reducing inefficiencies and overhead costs.

"For most of my career, moving the same data to multiple locations and editing data in flight was the norm," added Grant Leonard, Castra co-founder. "This was largely accomplished with scripting hacks on subpar platforms, which was almost always a temporary solution. Cribl changes everything, giving Castra the ability to collect, transform and route to multiple locations at enterprise volumes. We couldn't be more excited about the potentials we have now."

Castra's dedication to radical transparency and unlimited visibility makes it an ideal partner for Cribl's industry-leading observability platform. With Cribl Stream, enterprise security teams gain the ability to observe and route data more effectively, making it easier to detect and respond to emerging threats quickly while ensuring regulatory compliance at every stage in the process.

"As more enterprises tap managed security services providers to bolster their security operations, MSSPs are faced with the challenge of working with many organizations at once, each with their own unique set of tools," said Zac Kilpatrick, Vice President, Global Channels & Alliances at Cribl. "To be successful, MSSPs like Castra need security solutions that are interoperable, vendor-agnostic, and can work across any environment and every toolset. We're proud to be partnering with Castra to help them increase their reach and value delivery to customers, who will benefit from observability as a service, a supercharged SOC, and reduced overhead."