HUMBL, announced today the launch of its new HeyBLUE! AI Chatbot that will allow verified HUMBL social users to interact with artificial intelligence (AI) in their everyday lives.

Using the HeyBLUE! AI Chatbot, HUMBL users can now perform a variety of tasks, such as: Chatbot interactions, document generation, text generation, text summarization, language translation, question answering and more.

HeyBLUE!’s integration into the HUMBL platform will offer enhanced user experiences through 24/7 customer support, instant responses, personalized interactions, easy navigation and feedback collection.

For consumers, verified HUMBL users can now use HeyBLUE! to simply generate “How-To” instructions, storytelling, fitness regimens, diet planning, essay writing, problem solving, equation solving, recipe creation and more.

For small and medium business (SMB) owners, HeyBLUE! can provide data analysis, industry trends and category insights, which can lead to more targeted ad campaigns, product listings, social media posts and ROI tracking metrics for business owners and sellers on the HUMBL platform.

“As one of the world’s first Web 3 platform companies, our goal is to provide accessibility for customers to new technologies such as Open AI, which has fairly vast applications,” said HUMBL CEO, Brian Foote. “Having an AI Chatbot integrated into our platform, will help HUMBL customers and business owners begin to benefit from using this new technology.”

HUMBL combines the use of verified profiles for consumers and merchants across its digital wallet, search engine and marketplace platform. Delivering a trusted architecture for digital payments, interactions, and transactions among its global users. The HUMBL platform is currently available in over 130 countries.

HeyBLUE! is currently available to verified HUMBL customers at no charge for a limited time, and will migrate into the HUMBL Pro subscription services offering as that product suite is launched into the market.

HeyBLUE! is named after the company mascot (“BLUE”) a Bored Ape NFT that is also owned by the company.

Cybersecurity Leader Adds Seasoned Public Company Executive

Rubrik, the Zero Trust Data Security™ Company, today announced the appointment of Andres Botero as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). In his role, he will drive Rubrik’s go-to-market strategies and growth initiatives, as the company continues its focus on cyber resilience and the rollout of cloud solutions that help organizations across the globe secure their business data.

New artificial intelligence (AI) technologies combined with an explosion of data in the move to the cloud open the door to an endless combination of ways to attack. This means that data security is becoming increasingly complex and the datasets that require securing are growing rapidly. The most recent Rubrik Zero Labs State of Data Security report revealed that 90% of external organizations reported malicious actors attempted to impact data backups during a cyberattack, and 73% were at least partially successful in these attempts.

“Cyberattacks have become an inevitable reality, and as a result, organizations now recognize that cyber resilience is the only option to secure their business,” said Bipul Sinha, Rubrik CEO and co-founder. “Andres’ experience creating and leading new categories, as well as building powerful go-to-market strategies will help fuel Rubrik’s growth as we continue to define the future of cybersecurity.”

Botero is an accomplished marketer and proven enterprise SaaS leader, bringing more than 20 years of experience at cloud enterprise software companies. He most recently served as the Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at BlackLine, a Nasdaq-listed SaaS modern accounting leader, where he was responsible for driving BlackLine’s strategy and global marketing. During his tenure, BlackLine more than doubled its ARR. Prior to BlackLine, Andres was the CMO of CallidusCloud (acquired by SAP) and Aria Systems. Previously, Botero held leadership roles at SAP and Siebel Systems (acquired by Oracle). He also sits on the Board of Advisors at Sendoso.

“Data security threats—especially ransomware—are some of the toughest challenges for which executive teams and cybersecurity leaders must prepare. Rubrik is leading the charge in cybersecurity by creating new categories of solutions and building partnerships that secure data and provide customers the confidence of cyber resilience,” said Botero. “I am grateful for the opportunity to join this successful leadership team and to work with the company to accelerate our market strategies and growth.”

Botero is the latest in a series of key Rubrik leadership appointments. Most recently, the company announced two board appointments: former Microsoft Chairman John W. Thompson as Lead Independent Director, and former Palo Alto Networks CEO Mark McLaughlin as a board member.

In April, the company also unveiled the first members of its Rubrik CISO Advisory Board, chaired by Chris Krebs, the first Director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and founding partner of the Krebs Stamos Group. The Rubrik CISO Advisory board includes cybersecurity experts and leaders from Albertsons, Booking.com, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Schneider Electric.

Inbenta, a conversational AI platform designed to optimize customer experience, today announced the appointment of Adam Rivera to Chief Legal Officer. As Chief Legal Officer, Rivera will be responsible for leading Inbenta's legal, compliance, and regulatory oversight.

Rivera joins Inbenta from DoorDash where he served as a senior privacy leader, heading a global privacy compliance team for the platform. Rivera also held the role of Head of Privacy, Americas at Refinitiv, later acquired by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Rivera has broad international legal experience, with a developed expertise in privacy, data governance, cyber security, employment law and M&A.

Rivera's responsibilities include helping Inbenta solidify its leadership position as a responsible provider of Conversational AI solutions, especially important as the AI industry navigates new challenges, rapid adoption and regulatory interest.

"We are excited to be joined by Adam Rivera as Chief Legal Officer," Melissa Solis, CEO at Inbenta. "Adam joins Inbenta at a time when efforts to expand Inbenta's Conversational AI platform and footprint are fast underway. Adam and his team will ensure that Inbenta's practices and services meet and exceed the evolving regulatory requirements of the AI and privacy landscape."

"Inbenta is a fast-growing business navigating a very dynamic market," said Adam Rivera, Chief Legal Officer at Inbenta. "As the market matures, security, compliance and privacy will become a top priority for companies looking to leverage AI solutions. It's important that AI firms, like Inbenta, take steps now to differentiate themselves in this area. I am thrilled to join Inbenta's leadership team as we embark on this mission."

BasisConnect+ Enables Highly Targeted Campaigns that Don’t Sacrifice Performance or Consumer Privacy; Combines First-Party Data Activation, Audience Optimization and Cookieless Media

Basis Technologies, a leading provider of cloud-based workflow automation and business intelligence software for marketing and advertising, today announced a solution suite for high-performance, privacy-compliant digital advertising. BasisConnect+ is available in the Basis media automation platform and provides marketers with first-party data activation, audience optimization and cookieless media buying. Marketers can use Basis to activate highly targeted campaigns without sacrificing performance or consumer privacy. Its newest capability enables a brand to use its CRM data for its agency to find its customers across the web, while staying in compliance with U.S. government regulations on the sharing of personally identifiable information (PII) of customers.

Identifying users through signals they generate on digital channels has been a core factor of effective digital advertising. However, as users become more educated and concerned about their privacy, technology developers and regulatory organizations have taken the responsibility of enforcing privacy for consumers. As a result, traditional methods of online personalization to fine-tune ad targeting and messages are meeting resistance. This has caused advertisers to deploy strategies appropriate for a privacy-centric digital ecosystem.

“Marketers are rightfully being pressured to change the tactics that were commonplace in digital advertising for two decades. The challenge now is to connect with customers, personalize user experiences, drive media efficiency and track conversions all without the use of third-party cookies and device IDs,” said Tyler Kelly, president, Basis Technologies. “BasisConnect+ combines a wide range of technology that agencies and brands need to move forward as responsible marketers respectful of user privacy.”

Earlier this year, Basis released an in-platform feature for uploading CRM data to target existing customers across any digital device. However, agencies using Basis to manage campaigns for brands may be restricted from receiving their clients’ customer data for conversion to person-based identifiers for digital advertising. Brands typically have to arrange separate deals with separate vendors to create identifiers for their customers and then pass that data to be used by their agency, which adds to the friction in the media workflow. To automate this process, Basis added new functionality enabling an agency’s client to access the CRM upload functionality through a unique and secure Web URL. This ensures that only the brand is managing its own customers’ PII while its agency partner receives first-party audience segments for programmatic ad targeting.

BasisConnect+ provides robust technology for driving ad performance. It is built on the pillars of first-party data, audience optimization and cookieless media. Featured tools are:

First-party data

• AI-driven look-alike modeling with TruAudience by Transunion to find people who look like a marketer’s typical valuable customer.
• First-party CRM data automated uploads with LiveRamp to find current customers across any digital channel.

Audience optimization

• Insights and profiling software provides a view of potential customers across seven data categories to give marketers deeper understanding of their audience and what may resonate with them.
• Cookieless conversion tracking, proprietary technology in Basis, measures click-throughs in cookieless environments.
• Machine-learning optimization analyzes campaign parameters sans cookies or mobile IDs to adjust media buying to meet campaign goals.

Cookieless media

• Basis automates buying on media without third-party cookies, such as publisher-direct, CTV audiences (through BasisTV+), private marketplace deals and programmatic guaranteed.
• Contextual targeting with 2000 segments from leading data partners, including Peer39.

Younger generations were more likely to distinguish between AI and human elements.

Nexcess, the premium hosting provider optimized for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento, today released a study on AI's efficacy and humans' ability to detect it in content and visuals. The study found that on average respondents could identify the AI-generated content only about 55% of the time.

How the study was conducted

One thousand individuals claiming to be moderately familiar with AI were provided with side-by-side sets of images and copy. For each set, they were asked to identify which was AI-generated and which was created by humans.

Participants correctly identified AI-generated copy 57% of the time, while the detection of AI-generated images had only a 53% success rate.

Success rates varied by participants' ages. Younger generations tended to be more successful at detecting AI. Participants in the 18-24 age bracket answered correctly 61% of the time, compared to 51% of 45-54 year olds.

Read the full study here, complete with an interactive quiz, to see how your AI detection skills stack up.

AI usage and its effects in business

Tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Copy.ai have exploded in popularity. Usage of AI technology has piqued the interest of the public and businesses alike.

With promises of optimizing workflows and improving performance, it's easy to see why businesses are interested. However, the business sector remains unclear on its effects on sales, user experience, and customer retention.

Nexcess conducted the study in order to assess how businesses can utilize AI technology to optimize and improve the performance of ecommerce stores.

The study found that participants were somewhat successful in correctly identifying AI-generated copy and imagery. Overall, participants were more likely to detect AI-generated copy over AI-generated visuals.

Given the success rates of AI detection, business owners should proceed with caution — utilizing AI as a tool to increase efficiency, while also keeping a close eye on output. If used properly, AI tools can be instrumental in optimizing production and improving the performance of your ecommerce store

"It is intriguing to see the ways humans can identify AI — and the ways they cannot," says Terry Trout, SVP of Marketing.

"We're hoping that our AI study guides business owners in utilizing these tools, and understanding how AI is received by consumers. At Nexcess, we're all about transformation and our goal is to help online business owners dream big and do more online," adds Trout.

With an array of offerings spanning enterprise level to SMBs to starter markets, Nexcess supports sites and stores around the world with fully managed hosting for WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, and more.

"At Nexcess, we pride ourselves on helping organizations of all sizes start, manage, and expand their online businesses — and we've been doing it for 23 years," adds Trout.

New domain filtering feature allows advertisers to identify media partners that do not meet their sustainability targets, significantly reducing environmental impact of their online ads

Purpose-led ad platform Good-Loop today launched a new tool that enables advertisers to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the online ads by filtering out carbon-intensive publishers.

Part of Good-Loop’s industry-leading carbon measurement solution, the Green Ad Tag, the new feature allows advertisers to filter out media partners that do not meet their sustainability targets, significantly reducing the environmental impact of their online ads and helping them to deliver better ad campaigns.

The new solution enables brands and agencies to set their own targets based on the amount of CO2e each media owner generates per ad impression – and identify any publishers that fall short. Using the easy-to-use slider functionality, users select the emissions savings they want to achieve and then export the sites to their block and allow lists accordingly. It also lets advertisers know how many emissions would be saved based on the threshold that’s been set, helping advertisers to continuously make changes mid-campaign to reduce their impact.

Good-Loop created the new feature to help advertisers reduce the environmental impact of their online ads. The average online ad campaign emits 5.4 tonnes of CO2e (source: Good-Loop) – half what an average UK consumer and a third of what a US consumer produces in a year.

Where an ad is displayed can contribute significantly to a digital campaign’s overall carbon footprint, with the number of emissions generated varying dramatically from website to website. So by filtering out publishers that are more carbon-intensive, advertisers can drastically reduce the emissions generated by their online campaigns without making trade-offs in performance.

Brand Advance SSP, the leading diversity media ad tech platform, is currently working to cut its emissions by 18% – just by working with 10 domains highlighted by the tool.

Christopher Kenna, CEO North America and founder of Brand Advance Group, said: “Any tool that can help our global teams to ensure our clients' advertising is delivered in a sustainable manner is fantastic. Our partnership with Good-Loop grows with every new Green Ad Tag feature, and this new tool allows us to understand and take action on domains that are increasing our emissions. It helped us to find that 18% of our emissions were coming from just 10 domains, which is massive considering the Brand Advance SSP has over 1,500 publishers in our network.

“This insight allows us to work with our publishers closely to help them reduce their carbon footprints. We don’t want to use this tool to remove a publisher, but more to work with diverse and minority media owners to help them understand and fix where possible, or find solutions that work for everyone. We all must do our bit towards creating a more sustainable ad ecosystem.”

The tool was also recently used to help reduce the carbon emissions of a global car brand’s digital campaign by an average of 41%.

Ryan Cochrane, COO of Good-Loop, said: “It can sometimes feel a little daunting looking at the scale of digital advertising's oversized carbon footprint and its impact on the environment. But despite the size of the task, advertisers can make a real difference right now by making simple changes to the way they run their campaigns. Our new domain filtering feature is the perfect tool to make that happen, making it easier than ever for brands to take action against high carbon inventory on a campaign by campaign basis.

“It provides a simple solution to a complex, pressing issue and makes carbon reduction an essential campaign consideration without advertisers having to choose between planet and performance. Our new tool empowers advertisers by giving them all the data and insights they need to drive down emissions, giving them the flexibility to forge their own path to net zero and ultimately help create an ad landscape that's good for the planet.”

Good-Loop is a Certified B Corp on a mission to develop solutions that move the industry towards positive, sustainable advertising. To help, the company has developed a range of solutions to enable advertisers to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of their digital ad campaign, including its open source Carbon Calculator.

The new solution can be accessed through Good-Loop’s Green Ad Tag, which enables advertisers to track the carbon emissions generated by their online ads in real time through a customised dashboard.

The Green Ad Tag was designed to serve as an educational tool to help digital advertising become more energy-efficient in future campaigns. It can measure the weight of files, and assess the publisher mix, buying strategies, failed bids and the full data transmission required to get a campaign from A (the ad server) to B (the user device) to determine how each element has a negative impact on the environment.

vFairs reports earning 58 new badges across 7 event technology categories in G2’s newest quarterly reports.

All-in-one event technology platform, vFairs, today announced it has been named a leader, high performer, or best-in-class with 58 badges across markets by G2, a peer-to-peer business software review website which leverages customer feedback to rank the best business software and services.

vFairs has been named a Leader in the following categories:

• Virtual Event Platforms
• Mobile Event Apps
• Event Management Platforms
• Event Marketing
• Event Networking & Matchmaking
• Event Registration & Ticketing

Amongst these accolades, vFairs has also earned the “Users Love Us” badge in the Virtual Career Fair Platforms category, and a variety of other badges including “Best Usability”, “Best Relationship”, and “Highest Estimated ROI” across a variety of the above listed categories.

“We are thrilled to be recognized as a best-in-class solution across categories and organizations worldwide through the G2 Spring 2022 reports,” says Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs. “This is our best quarter for accolades yet, and we are committed to improving our product further to help businesses worldwide host amazing events.”

This quarters’ reports marks an important milestone for vFairs, as they have emerged as a Leader in new markets. This includes recognition as a key player in Event Management Platforms and onsite events through Mobile Event Apps, Event Marketing, and Event Registration & Ticketing.

vFairs has consistently been recognized as a Leader in the Virtual Event Platforms category quarter-over-quarter since 2020.

Speakers include leaders from adidas, HelloFresh, PwC and Total Wine & More

Forter, the Trust Platform for digital commerce, today announced its industry conference IMPACT 2023 will take place on Wednesday, October 11 in New York City, featuring speakers from adidas, HelloFresh, PwC, Total Wine & More and others.

Now in its second year, IMPACT 2023 creates the space digital commerce leaders have been asking for — a forum to connect, share best practices and hear how peers build great experiences across the customer journey.

"I've spent the last few years transforming how we think about and approach digital commerce. One of the biggest challenges is that change is constant," said Brian Davis, global senior director digital product operations, adidas. "At IMPACT 2023, I'm really looking forward to hearing about other leaders' successes, lessons learned and ideas for what's to come."

The full-day event will feature a series of master classes, breakouts and networking sessions designed with the future of digital commerce in mind. Topics include artificial intelligence, customer experience's role in driving profitability and the critical metrics merchants should be measuring.

"Digital commerce is experiencing a ton of disruption right now. IMPACT is all about turning that disruption into opportunities for innovation by connecting with and learning from the best in the industry," said Scott Buchanan, chief marketing officer, Forter. "We're excited that the IMPACT conference and community continue to grow."