New GPT Schema Translator for Astra Streaming Simplifies the Integration, Transformation, and Interoperability of Event Data for Use in Diverse, Real-time Applications

DataStax, the real-time AI company, today announced a new, GPT-based schema translator in its Astra Streaming cloud service that uses generative AI to efficiently and accurately transfer data between systems with different data structures within an enterprise. An industry first, the new Astra Streaming GPT Schema Translator automatically generates “schema mappings,” a traditionally difficult and time-consuming process when building and maintaining event streaming pipelines.

DataStax Astra Streaming is an advanced, fully-managed messaging and event streaming service built on Apache Pulsar™. It enables companies to stream real-time data at scale, delivering applications with massive throughput, low latency, and elastic scalability from any cloud, anywhere in the world. It is a core component of the DataStax real-time AI platform, enabling companies to mobilize all of their data-in-motion for use across applications and AI systems. This data helps businesses adapt to dynamic markets and make faster, more accurate decisions driven by the most relevant data, at the optimal time.

Schema mapping enables data integration and interoperability between multiple systems and data sources – a fundamental element of any streaming data pipeline. Data mappings must be done manually – a routine issue for data engineers – via a process that is complicated, tedious, and error-prone. With the new DataStax GPT Schema Translator, the hard work of mapping is shifted from the developer to the platform, providing time and space for developers to focus on the more impactful components of their projects.

“Organizations are still identifying the role that new AI technologies, like GPT, will play in their day-to-day business functions and we’re proud to be the first to integrate this new technology into our product to significantly reduce development time and support costs,” said Chris Latimer, general manager, streaming, DataStax. “At DataStax, we’re continually innovating to develop impactful integrations and features, like the new GPT Schema Translator, to support our users and maintain our competitive edge. We’re experimenting with new technologies to address known pain points, help make developers more productive, and make businesses more effective with the help of AI.”

The new GPT Translator is available immediately, for no additional cost, as part of DataStax Astra. Initially, this capability connects event data in Astra Streaming to Astra DB to simplify streaming pipelines and data integration processes, with further connections to come.

Advanced brand safety and suitability measurement now available in 30 total countries, giving TikTok advertisers global coverage

Integral Ad Science, a leading global media measurement and optimization platform, today announced a significant expansion with TikTok, bringing its industry-leading Total Media Quality brand safety and suitability measurement product to advertisers in 23 new markets.

This expansion further cements IAS's deep partnership with TikTok and adds to the seven countries where brand safety and suitability measurement went live in October 2022. IAS's comprehensive coverage reflects the ever-growing popularity of TikTok worldwide and the demand from marketers to have the most actionable data to deliver the biggest return on their advertising spend.

"TikTok is committed to building a safe environment where communities can express themselves and be entertained," states Chen-Lin Lee, Global Head of Measurement and Data Partnerships. "We are excited to expand our partnership with IAS and offer brands around the world best-in-class reporting to ensure video-level transparency in dozens of languages and countries. We look forward to continued collaboration in providing transparency and confidence in TikTok's ability to present brand messages in safe and suitable environments."

IAS's Total Media Quality for TikTok uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to provide unique insight into video content through frame-by-frame analysis of images, audio, and text, and can even interpret semantics. This granularity gives marketers the ability to effectively monitor the quality of their media buys on TikTok, providing confidence that their ads are appearing next to content that is brand safe and suitable.

"IAS's Total Media Quality for TikTok is powered by advanced AI-driven technology that analyzes video content with extraordinary depth, giving advertisers unmatched insights to run the most effective advertising campaigns," said Lisa Utzschneider, CEO, IAS. "This expanded partnership with TikTok is a strong vote of confidence that advertisers around the world rely on IAS to deliver powerful results."

IAS's innovative Total Media Quality brand safety and suitability measurement will now be available in: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.

This builds on the existing markets where IAS and TikTok have already partnered for brand safety and suitability measurement: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Company secures $1 billion post-money valuation and adds new enterprise clients

Synthesia, the world’s leading AI video creation platform for enterprises, has raised $90 million in Series C funding to continue its work to make video production simple and intuitive without the need for cameras or studios. The round, which values the company at $1 billion, is led by Accel with investment from NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, and participation from existing investors Kleiner Perkins, GV, Firstmark Capital, Alex Wang, Olivier Pomel, and Amjad Masad.

With a year-over-year user growth rate of 456% and over 12 million videos generated on the platform to date, the company has consistently driven triple-digit growth while serving more than 50,000 businesses across the globe.

“We’ve made great strides toward our vision to make video easy for everyone, but there’s still a long way to go. I’m proud of our team for building Synthesia into a sustainable company that delivers real business utility, not just novelty, for our thousands of customers,” said Synthesia Co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli. “While we weren’t actively looking for new investment, Accel and NVIDIA share our vision for transforming traditional video production into a digital workflow that will enable creators to bring their ideas, from training videos to Hollywood films, to life with only a Synthesia account. I’m delighted to have them on board as we accelerate our AI research efforts.”

Synthesia’s platform allows any enterprise user, from HR managers to marketers, to easily create high-quality instructional videos featuring stock or custom AI avatars. Clients report up to 95% saved in production time, amounting to thousands of dollars in reduced costs and increased engagement from their employees and customers. The company has also announced the addition of Tiffany’s, IHG, Moody’s Analytics, and entities of the United Nations to its customer base, which already includes 35% of the Fortune 100.

"From our first meeting, Synthesia stood out as one of the few generative AI companies combining a differentiated technology, an exceptional founding team, and a very strong ROI for its enterprise customers," said Philippe Botteri, Partner at Accel. "By dramatically lowering the cost and production time of videos, Synthesia is opening a new range of use cases for corporate training, marketing, and communication videos. With their research team constantly pushing the limits of AI video generation, I could not be more excited about our investment in the company."

In addition to partnering with top-tier VCs and strategic investors, the new capital will allow Synthesia to accelerate its cutting-edge AI research. Since its founding in 2017, Synthesia has been solving some of the toughest challenges in AI, building its core technology in-house. The R&D team collaborates with TUM (Technical University of Munich) and UCL (University College London) and is behind several AI breakthroughs.

"The transformative power of generative AI is providing new capabilities to a broad range of industries," said Mohamed "Sid" Siddeek, Head of NVentures, NVIDIA. "Synthesia is doing breakthrough work bringing these tools to enterprise video production, helping to enable a future where anyone can generate studio-grade videos without the physical barriers of cameras or microphones."

Synthesia is a launch partner of the Partnership on AI (PAI) on Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media, the first industry wide framework for the ethical and responsible development, creation, and sharing of synthetic media.

TTEC Holdings, Inc. a leading global customer experience (CX) technology and services innovator for AI-enabled CX solutions, today announced Laura Butler as the company's chief people officer.

A market-facing executive, Butler is well-regarded for developing global, talent-led organizations with her expertise in crafting exceptional employee experiences. In this new role, she is responsible for leading people and culture programs for TTEC's 65,000 employees who speak more than 50 languages in 86 sites across six continents.

"TTEC is thrilled to welcome Laura Butler as our chief people officer," said Shelly Swanback, president, TTEC. "Passionate about innovation in technology and services businesses, her expertise in attracting, developing, retaining, and inspiring talent from front-line associates to system engineers is ideally suited for TTEC's next phase of growth."

Butler joins TTEC from Entrata, a fast-growing, privately held B2B software company, where she served as chief people officer. Prior to that she led the people function at Talkdesk, a cloud contact center platform, and Adobe Workfront among other market leaders. In addition, she currently serves as an independent director on the board of Workforce Software. 

"I am excited to join TTEC where we have the opportunity to further unlock the vast potential of a talented, global team while making a difference in the communities in which we operate," said Butler. "Leaning into innovative approaches to realize a modern employee experience creates value for our teammates and our clients."

TTEC is consistently recognized as a preferred employer across the globe. Recognized as one of America's Best Large Employers by Forbes, this year the company has also earned accolades in Canada, Mexico, Poland, and was named a top employer for remote work by multiple employment organizations.

AI enables faster, easier ways to engage audiences, building trusted connections between brands and consumers

Jebbit, the provider of the world’s first zero-party data and customer experience platform, today announced the launch of its new AI-powered Experience Generator and Language Translation capabilities, accelerating the ability for businesses to build meaningful connections with audiences across all channels. The innovative features allow marketers to build Jebbit experiences - personalized interactive quizzes, trivia and surveys - in seconds, then translate them into multiple languages with the click of a button, enabling brands to quickly scale globally.

“Jebbit empowers brands to create meaningful connections with their customers and deliver personalized digital experiences that collect data willingly and intentionally shared by a consumer (zero-party data),” stated Tom Coburn, co-founder and CEO of Jebbit. “With our new AI capabilities, brands can now build and scale Jebbit experiences in seconds.”

Generative AI has dominated 2023, with Forrester reporting that the global artificial intelligence software market is expected to reach $126 billion by 2025. As with disruptive consumer data privacy regulations in the past, and industry-shifting technology like AI, Jebbit always strives to remain on the right side of marketing; that is, prioritizing consumer trust and experience. Jebbit’s new AI-powered experiences strategically balance intelligent technology with human judgment to edit, analyze and personalize data in a way that improves online experiences, while improving speed-to-market. In contrast, many companies leverage AI in data targeting small population sizes and then extrapolate that to the masses without deeper insights.

Jebbit’s AI-powered Experience Generator and Language Translation capabilities have been extensively beta-tested by customers and volunteers in order to provide real-world feedback and to inform future capabilities. One such future capability is AI-Assist, coming soon across the Jebbit platform, to equip users with AI-powered assistance in creating content such as informed product recommendations, question generation, guidance on rephrasing questions, and the ability to automatically leverage design elements from a website (text, colors, images).

Free People, a specialty women’s clothing brand, was one of the early testers of Jebbit AI. “At Free People, we're committed to delivering personalized and engaging experiences for our customers around the globe,” said Erin Malone, Director, Digital Marketing & Analytics at Free People. “Jebbit's new AI-built Experience Generator and Language Translation capabilities are exciting developments that will not only help us effectively reach a worldwide audience but also drive innovation and growth for our brand. We're thrilled to see how these new features will help us continue to innovate and grow our brand.”

Integration of ChatGPT Brings New Speed, Convenience and Intuition to Data Management and Analytics

Promethium, a leading innovator in data management and analytics, announced availability of its groundbreaking generative AI-powered data fabric, which leverages the power of ChatGPT to provide a significant leap forward in data management and analysis, promising to transform the way organizations harness and leverage their data assets.

With the rapid proliferation of data across industries, traditional data management approaches are increasingly inadequate for current tools that rely heavily on manual processes. Recognizing the critical need for a faster and more intuitive solution, Promethium has harnessed the state-of-the-art language modeling capabilities of ChatGPT to develop a data fabric unlike anything seen before. Try it for free.

By utilizing the unprecedented capabilities of ChatGPT, Promethium's generative AI-powered data fabric unlocks new possibilities for organizations with the ability to immediately and accurately transform raw data into actionable intelligence. The powerful combination of advanced machine learning and natural language processing allows users to:

• Effortlessly engage with the system through a natural language interface, eliminating the need for complex coding or querying languages
• Seamlessly integrate and consolidate data from diverse sources
• Intuitively explore and interact with data, saving valuable time and resources on data exploration, trend analysis, or generating custom reports

"Promethium's Generative AI-powered data fabric is a game-changer for data management," said Kaycee Lai, Founder and CEO at Promethium. "By incorporating Generative AI, we're further enabling organizations to unlock the true potential of their data, empowering all of their employees to make data-driven decisions with confidence and speed."

Promethium's generative AI-powered data fabric has already garnered significant attention from industry leaders. Companies across a wide range of sectors, including finance, healthcare, and retail, have partnered with Promethium to transform their data management and analysis processes, gaining a competitive edge in their respective markets with:

• Fast data discovery through the most intuitive search functionality available
• Instant data verification, with the ability to preview or sample data without moving it
• Automated data assembly through a system that automatically recommends relationships across siloed data, and writes the query
• Inbuilt visualization, removing the need to wait for charts to be created in complex BI tools

As Promethium continues to push the boundaries of AI and data management, the introduction of the company’s Generative AI-powered data fabric reaffirms Promethium’s commitment to revolutionizing the industry and empowering organizations to extract maximum value from their data assets.

Organizations that use Echoworx to secure their communications now have the added security of passkeys, a passwordless login option that utilizes FIDO2-compliant authenticators.

Echoworx, a leading provider of email encryption solutions, is proud to announce that passkeys have been added to their authentication options. This versatile, advanced authentication method adds to their existing suite of security offerings and provides organizations with another layer of assurance that their data is safe.

Organizations that use Echoworx for their secure communications now have the added security of passkeys. Customers can take advantage of passwordless login by utilizing passkeys or other FIDO2-compliant authenticators, empowering users with a seamless and secure login process.

As security threats continue to evolve, it's becoming increasingly clear that traditional password-based authentication methods are no longer sufficient to protect sensitive data. This is where passkeys come in. Passkeys are unique cryptographic keys that are used to authenticate users and ensure that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information. They're quickly gaining popularity among security professionals as a more secure alternative to traditional passwords.

"As the digital landscape evolves, it's crucial that security measures keep pace. The growing popularity of Passkeys reflects a paradigm shift in authentication solutions, moving away from vulnerable password-based systems," said Echoworx CEO Michael Ginsberg. "At Echoworx, we are proud to champion the adoption of Passkeys, which not only enhance user experience but also provide a robust, secure foundation for protecting our customers' privacy."

This new feature reflects the company's unwavering dedication to delivering unparalleled security solutions and ensuring clients' digital assets remain secure. As a leader in its industry, Echoworx is at the forefront of the emerging trend of passkeys, and the company looks forward to continuing to innovate and provide cutting-edge solutions to clients worldwide.

STELLA Automotive AI, the leading provider of high-end conversational AI technology in the automotive industry, is delighted to announce the appointment of Rich Sands as the new Chief Executive Officer of STELLA Automotive AI. With over 25 years of product and business leadership within the global automotive industry, Rich brings a wealth of experience from executive roles at Ford, J.D. Power, and Microsoft. 

STELLA delivers breakthrough AI technology to the automotive retail industry, driving quantifiable improvements to dealership operations and customer satisfaction," says Rich Sands, the newly appointed CEO. "I'm honored and excited to lead this talented team as we define the AI space and deliver game-changing technology specifically engineered for our industry."

Josselyn Boudett, Founder and Chairman of STELLA, expresses confidence in Rich's capabilities, stating "STELLA is in a hyper growth cycle, and Rich is the ideal person to lead our team. His big data expertise and experience with dealership operations are perfectly aligned to drive the STELLA roadmap. We are confident Rich will drive the AI narrative for STELLA and bring even more world-class conversational AI products to the market."

With a strong background in the automotive sector, Rich Sands founded True North Enterprises and served on the boards of Urban Science, Pursuit Alert, and Autometrics. He is also a Strategic Advisor to The Presidio Group, a prominent independent merchant banking firm in the automotive retail and consumer mobility sectors. Rich holds a Master of Business Administration from Florida Metropolitan University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Central Michigan University.

Mike Maroone, CEO of Maroone USA and investor in STELLA Automotive AI applauds this leadership decision, recognizing Rich's deep automotive and technology skills.  Mike says, "Rich is the right leader for STELLA. His knowledge and proven experience will drive innovative AI solutions that strengthen customer satisfaction and deliver measurable operating results for automotive retailers."

Geoffrey Pohanka, Chairman of the Pohanka Automotive Group and investor in STELLA Automotive AI notes, "STELLA offers an automotive AI engine that is transforming the automotive retail marketplace. Rich Sands brings the necessary expertise to guide the STELLA team and ensure that the technology continues to enhance the interaction between consumers and dealerships."