Verint®, The CX Automation Company™, has appointed Teresa Anania as Chief Customer Officer (CCO), signaling a renewed focus on delivering measurable business outcomes for its enterprise customers. Anania brings over 25 years of experience driving customer success across enterprise software, most recently serving as CCO at Sophos and previously at Zendesk and Autodesk.

“Teresa’s appointment reflects exactly where we are as a company,” said Dave Rhodes, CEO of Verint. “We’ve built one of the most powerful CX Automation platforms in the industry, delivering measurable AI business outcomes. Teresa’s experience with turning customer success into a competitive advantage will accelerate us to the next level.”

Turning Customer Success into Measurable Wins

Anania will oversee Verint’s global customer success, professional services, support, and renewals across both Verint and Calabrio customer bases. Her mandate: help customers achieve tangible results using the Verint CX Automation Platform, which combines AI, automation, and analytics to optimize customer experience.

“Verint is entering a new era,” Anania said. “My focus is turning our strengths into measurable wins for customers — because outcomes are the scoreboard.”

Anania’s appointment underscores a broader industry trend where post-sales engagement, retention, and measurable ROI are becoming central to enterprise software success. By aligning customer success with business outcomes, Verint aims to differentiate its CX Automation Platform and accelerate adoption across its enterprise and commercial segments.

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Follett Higher Education, the nation’s largest campus retail partner, is diving headfirst into fan-first eCommerce with the launch of College Nation, a digital storefront and collegiate sportswear hub built in partnership with Shopify Platinum agency P3 Media. Going live just in time for the NCAA Basketball Championship, the site debuts with official merchandise from fourteen powerhouse athletic programs, including Arizona, Alabama, LSU, Michigan, Syracuse, and Villanova.

But College Nation is more than just an online store—it’s designed as a destination for college sports enthusiasts. Fans, students, alumni, and families can now celebrate their teams, wear their colors, and connect with school traditions through officially licensed merchandise.

The rapid launch was a feat in itself: Follett and P3 Media took the project from concept to live site in under two months, one of the fastest Shopify Plus rollouts of this scale. P3 Media’s end-to-end eCommerce expertise handled everything from UX/UI and frontend/backend development to branding and marketing execution.

“Follett has always been at the forefront of connecting fans with their school spirit,” said Hejar Oncel, CIO at Follett. “With College Nation, our goal is to create a place where college sports enthusiasts can truly live their passion for their teams. P3 Media’s technical expertise was critical to creating a truly fanworthy eCommerce experience.”

AI-Powered Merchandising and Marketing

To meet its ambitious timeline, P3 Media leveraged advanced AI tools to generate over 1,000 launch-ready SKUs and digital assets for web, email, and paid media campaigns—tech that, according to co-founder David Wagoner, “didn’t even exist six months ago.” The combination of AI and tight collaboration between Follett and P3 Media allowed the site to launch at unprecedented speed.

“Most of the AI technologies and techniques we applied were cutting-edge,” Wagoner said. “But the project came together because of exceptional trust and collaboration between the Follett and P3 Media teams.”

Looking Ahead: A Platform Built for Growth

College Nation’s architecture is designed for future expansion, with the potential to bring additional brands, programs, and fan experiences online. For now, the focus is clear: deliver an engaging, seamless shopping experience that captures the energy, pride, and tradition of college athletics.

For the college sports eCommerce landscape, Follett’s move signals a shift toward hyper-focused, fan-centric digital experiences. By pairing Shopify Plus with AI-accelerated merchandising, the platform sets a new benchmark for how retailers can combine speed, scale, and personalization. Competitors in collegiate merchandise may need to play catch-up as fans increasingly expect both convenience and brand authenticity online.

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Marketing technology is stepping into a bold new phase. According to Rajesh Jain, Founder and MD of Netcore Cloud, the future isn’t just about automation—it’s about autonomous, agentic systems that continuously interpret customer behavior and make decisions to optimize revenue, retention, and lifetime value.

“For nearly two decades, martech has been paying a revenue tax for reacquiring the same customers,” Jain says. “At Netcore, our North Star is simple: Never lose customers. Never pay twice. Never pay fixed. Agentic marketing is built to deliver exactly that.”

Beyond Automation: The Rise of Autonomous Agents

Traditional martech systems largely focus on automation: scaling workflows, improving targeting, managing segmentation, running A/B tests, and orchestrating channels. Humans still defined the rules; the systems executed them at scale.

Agentic marketing flips this model. An agentic system evaluates context in real time, interprets behavioral signals, and makes autonomous decisions—all within guardrails set by the business. It closes the loop between insight and execution, optimizing outcomes without waiting for human intervention.

“The difference between AI-enabled and agentic is authority,” Jain notes. “Many systems today provide recommendations. An agentic system has the authority to act. It moves marketing from programmed execution to autonomous optimization.”

Economic Intelligence at the Customer Level

One of the biggest impacts of agentic systems is economic efficiency. Traditional digital marketing prioritized scale over precision, leaning heavily on paid acquisition while retention and loyalty were under-optimized.

Agentic Marketing introduces economic intelligence at each interaction, evaluating:

• When and how to intervene

• Which channel to use

• What incentive to offer

• How much budget to allocate

By making these decisions in real time, brands can reduce acquisition costs, increase lifetime value, and optimize discounting to protect margins. “When customer relationships compound over time, the value created is measurable in incremental revenue, higher contribution margins, and reduced reacquisition spend,” Jain says.

Redesigning Marketing, Not Just Adding Tools

The shift is not merely technological—it’s organizational. Campaigns evolve from episodic initiatives to continuous decision systems aligned with business outcomes. Predictive AI alone isn’t enough if humans still interpret insights, coordinate teams, and deploy changes.

“Intelligence without authority to act does not create a compounding advantage,” Jain emphasizes. “Agentic Marketing integrates prediction and execution within a governed system. The same intelligence that detects opportunity can initiate action immediately.”

Autonomy operates within guardrails: CMOs define outcomes, strategic intent, risk tolerance, and brand constraints. Agents handle micro-decisions at scale—timing, sequencing, offer calibration, and channel selection—while humans remain accountable for strategy and compliance.

From Campaign-Centric to Continuous Optimization

Campaign-centric marketing assumes bursts of engagement, but customer behavior is dynamic. Agentic systems monitor behavioral signals, purchase cycles, and engagement decay, allowing brands to intervene before churn occurs and reduce reliance on paid channels.

This shift also redefines the role of the CMO. The next-generation CMO will be a systems designer and AI orchestrator, accountable for profit, retention, contribution margins, and lifetime value—not clicks or campaign metrics. “The next-generation CMO is not just a marketer. They are a profit leader turning marketing from a cost center into a true growth engine,” Jain concludes.

As marketing technology moves from automation to autonomy, agentic systems promise real-time, data-driven decision-making, transforming how companies acquire, retain, and grow their customers—without paying twice.

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Ansira Partners, Inc. (“Ansira”), a leading platform for brand-to-local marketing ecosystems, hosted its sixth annual client summit, The Channel Effect, February 23–25, 2026. The event brought together senior marketing leaders from industries spanning automotive, finance, hospitality, healthcare, technology, and retail to explore the evolving landscape of partner and channel marketing.

“The Channel Effect continues to demonstrate the power of bringing our clients together,” said Paul Tibbitt, CEO of Ansira. “When marketing leaders from different industries share experiences, challenges, and successes, it sparks ideas that influence initiatives and innovation long after the event.”

Industry Leaders Spotlight AI and Human Intelligence

Keynote speaker Omar Johnson, former CMO of Beats by Dre and former VP of Marketing at Apple, emphasized the enduring value of human intelligence in marketing. While AI can automate and optimize, Johnson noted that judgment, domain expertise, and cultural insight—built through experience—remain areas machines can’t fully replicate.

“Brands that understand context, behavior, language, and nuance have a unique opportunity to forge authentic consumer connections,” Johnson said.

Nikhil Lai, Principal Analyst at Forrester, addressed how AI is reshaping media strategy for brands and local partners. Ansira experts highlighted practical applications, demonstrating AI-driven enhancements in organic search, media buying, and strategic planning across brand-to-local programs.

Real-World Brand-to-Local Insights

The three-day summit also offered actionable guidance for navigating complex partner ecosystems. Sessions covered:

• Driving revenue through platform-driven strategies

• Creating regional and local marketing synergy

• Empowering partners with eLearning and enablement content

• Leveraging flexible technology platforms in brand-to-local ecosystems

• Engaging long-tail partners effectively

• Improving end-user engagement

• Harnessing data and analytics across marketing actions

• Applying AI to real-world campaigns

Attendees gained insights not just from thought leaders but also from peers representing top brands including American Family Insurance, Dell Technologies, Harley-Davidson, Hyundai, Microsoft, Moet Hennessy, Nissan, ServiceNow, Splunk, Tempur Sealy, and dozens more.

The AI-Human Balance in Modern Marketing

A recurring theme at The Channel Effect was the synergy between AI and human expertise. While AI enables faster decision-making and predictive analytics, human judgment ensures campaigns remain culturally relevant, nuanced, and aligned with strategic intent. This balance is particularly critical in brand-to-local ecosystems, where regional and partner-specific adaptations can make or break campaign success.

Ansira’s approach demonstrates how data-driven, AI-enhanced platforms can coexist with human insight to improve partner performance, engagement, and ROI. As brands continue to navigate increasingly complex ecosystems, events like The Channel Effect provide a blueprint for harmonizing technology, strategy, and creativity.

On-demand insights and content from the event are available on Ansira’s website for marketing professionals looking to implement these strategies.

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Apply Digital is making a calculated bet on AI—and it’s putting seasoned leadership behind it.

The global digital transformation firm has appointed Ali Alkhafaji as its new Chief Executive Officer, replacing founder Gautam Lohia, who steps into the role of Chairman after a decade of steady expansion. The move underscores a broader shift across the professional services sector, where AI is quickly becoming the centerpiece of growth strategies rather than a supporting capability.

A Leadership Shift Timed for an AI Inflection Point

Apply Digital isn’t coming into this transition from a position of weakness. Under Lohia’s leadership, the company posted an average 35% year-over-year growth over ten years—an impressive run in a crowded transformation market dominated by consultancies, agencies, and cloud integrators.

But the timing of this CEO change is telling.

Alkhafaji arrives with a mandate to accelerate the company’s AI ambitions at a moment when enterprises are demanding more than just digital transformation—they want measurable, AI-driven outcomes. His recent role as Chief AI and Technology Officer at Omnicom Precision Marketing positions him squarely in that evolution. There, he led the development of Omni AI, a platform aimed at embedding intelligence across marketing and customer experience workflows.

In other words, he’s not just an operator—he’s an architect of AI-first business models.

Why This Move Matters

Professional services firms—from Accenture to Deloitte to smaller boutique consultancies—are racing to redefine their value in an AI-native world. Traditional delivery models built on billable hours and large teams are being challenged by automation, generative AI, and outcome-based pricing.

Apply Digital’s pitch is different: combine the speed of a boutique with the scale of a global consultancy.

That positioning could resonate, especially as enterprises grow frustrated with slow, expensive transformation projects that fail to deliver ROI. Alkhafaji’s comments hint at a more aggressive approach—one that aims to “rewrite the blueprint” for professional services by embedding AI deeply into both strategy and execution.

AI as the Growth Engine

Apply Digital has already been investing in AI across industries like retail, food and beverage, sports, and entertainment. The company claims these early bets are producing measurable client outcomes, though specifics remain under wraps.

Still, the direction is clear: AI isn’t a feature—it’s the product.

Alkhafaji’s track record supports that vision. Before his Omnicom role, he served as CEO of TA Digital, scaling it into a global player before its acquisition in 2022. His inclusion in AI Magazine’s Top 100 AI Leaders of 2026 adds further credibility, though rankings aside, execution will be the real test.

Growth, Clients, and Competitive Pressure

The leadership change comes amid a string of new business wins for Apply Digital, including partnerships with a major sports league, an entertainment company, and a U.S.-based airline. These sectors are increasingly leaning on AI to personalize experiences, optimize operations, and unlock new revenue streams.

But competition is intensifying.

Holding companies, cloud providers, and even niche AI startups are encroaching on traditional transformation territory. Firms like Accenture are investing billions into generative AI, while marketing giants like Omnicom are embedding AI into their core offerings.

Apply Digital’s challenge—and opportunity—is to stay nimble while scaling its capabilities.

The Bigger Picture

This CEO transition reflects a broader industry reality: AI leadership is becoming CEO-level responsibility, not just a technical function.

By elevating an AI specialist to the top role, Apply Digital is signaling that the future of transformation isn’t just digital—it’s intelligent, automated, and deeply integrated into business strategy.

Whether that vision translates into sustained growth will depend on execution. But one thing is clear: the race to define AI-powered professional services is heating up, and Apply Digital just made a bold move to stay in it.

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Marketing has more data than ever—but less understanding.

Brandwatch (a Cision company)'s new report, "The Marketer of 2026," reveals an uncomfortable truth: only 25% of marketers say they understand their audiences "very well." This is happening at a time when data, tools, and AI are more available than ever.

The report is based on a survey of 1,028 marketing professionals and an analysis of 750,000 online conversations—and its key conclusion is clear: marketing’s real crisis isn’t a lack of data, but a lack of insight.

Lots of data, but I don't understand the "why"

Today's marketers know what people are doing—clicks, views, engagement—but understanding "why" they're doing it is still difficult.

According to the report, the biggest challenges are:

• Anticipating future behavior (60%)

• Understanding changing behavior (48%)

• Turning data into actionable insights (46%)

• Understanding the “why” behind decisions (40%)

• Combining data from disparate sources (40%)

This “insight gap” has become the biggest problem of today's marketing.

This problem isn’t new, but AI and multi-channel customer journeys have made it more complex.

The customer journey is no longer linear

The customer journey used to be straightforward—ad → website → purchase. Now it's a complex network:
social media, search engines, AI-driven discovery tools, and even conversational interfaces.

This fragmentation means that customer signals are scattered all over the place—and connecting them is the real challenge.

This is why there's a growing demand for unified consumer intelligence platforms. These platforms combine data from different channels to identify patterns and derive strategic insights.

AI is necessary—but not sufficient

AI has now become a core part of marketing:

• AI and automation are the most important skills according to 84% of marketers

• 81% consider it the most essential technology

• 79% are now spending more time managing AI workflows

But there's an important twist here.

AI speeds up work—not thinking.

According to Amy Jones , “AI will not replace marketers, but will expose those who are operating without strategy.”

That is, AI optimizes execution—but differentiation will still come from human judgment, creativity, and cultural awareness.

Shift from Campaign to Strategy

The biggest takeaway from the report is that the role of the marketer is changing.

Success will no longer be measured by how many campaigns you launch, but by how many deep insights you extract—and their business impact.

Reasons for this change:

• Marketers are spending less time on traditional tasks like advertising and email.

• 79% of the time is going to AI workflows

• 51% are focused on data analysis

This change makes it clear that the “execution-heavy marketer” is being replaced by the “insight-driven strategist.”

Industry Context: Everyone is in the race for “signal decoding”

This trend isn't limited to Brandwatch.

Companies like Salesforce , Adobe , and Google are also transforming their platforms into “customer intelligence engines”—where the focus shifts from data collection to insight generation.

This means that in the future, competition will be on interpretation, not on tools.

What will the marketer of 2026 be like?

The report also provides a clear roadmap:

• Junior marketers: Focus on “audience literacy”

• Mid-level: Develop cross-channel interpretation skills

• Leaders: Invest in tools and processes that promote insight generation

This hierarchy makes one thing clear – the demand for “thinking” is increasing at every level.

Bottom Line

The next era of marketing will be insight-driven, not data-driven.

Everyone has the data. What matters is who understands it—and how quickly they act on it.

Brandwatch's report is both a warning and an opportunity:
In this age of AI and data, victory will rest with those who can turn signals into stories and stories into strategies.

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At NVIDIA GTC 2026, IBM and NVIDIA unveiled an expanded partnership aimed squarely at one of enterprise tech’s biggest bottlenecks: turning AI pilots into production-grade systems.

Despite billions in AI investment, most enterprises are still stuck in experimentation mode. The two companies are betting that the fix isn’t better models—but better data pipelines, infrastructure, and orchestration layers to support them.

The Real AI Problem: It’s Not the Models

For all the hype around large language models, enterprise AI adoption has lagged. The reasons are familiar: fragmented data, legacy infrastructure, regulatory constraints, and a shortage of implementation expertise.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna framed it bluntly: the next wave of AI will be defined not by models, but by how well companies integrate data and infrastructure to run them at scale.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang echoed that view, emphasizing data as the “ground truth” that gives AI meaning—while positioning GPUs as the engine that turns that data into real-time intelligence.

In short, this isn’t about building smarter AI. It’s about making AI actually usable.

GPU-Native Data Analytics: Turning Bottlenecks Into Engines

One of the headline announcements is deeper integration between IBM’s watsonx.data platform and NVIDIA’s GPU stack.

By accelerating the Presto SQL engine with NVIDIA’s cuDF libraries, the companies claim significant performance gains for large-scale analytics workloads—long a pain point for enterprises dealing with massive datasets.

A real-world test case with Nestlé offers a glimpse of what that looks like in practice. Its global order-to-cash data system—spanning 186 countries and terabytes of data—saw query times drop from 15 minutes to just three minutes.

The result:

• 83% cost savings

• 30x price-performance improvement

That’s not just incremental optimization—it’s the kind of leap that could make real-time decisioning viable in complex global operations.

From Unstructured Chaos to AI-Ready Data

If structured data is one challenge, unstructured data is an even bigger one.

Enterprise knowledge—buried in documents, PDFs, CMS platforms, and internal systems—remains largely inaccessible to AI systems. IBM and NVIDIA are tackling this with a combination of IBM’s Docling and NVIDIA’s Nemotron models.

The goal: convert messy, multi-modal content into structured, AI-ready data with traceability.

This is a critical piece of the puzzle. As generative AI use cases expand, the ability to ingest and trust enterprise data—rather than public web data—will determine whether deployments deliver real business value or just flashy demos.

Infrastructure for the Real World (Not Just the Cloud)

While hyperscalers dominate AI headlines, many enterprises—especially in regulated industries—can’t rely solely on public cloud.

That’s where this partnership gets more pragmatic.

NVIDIA has selected IBM’s Storage Scale System 6000 to support high-performance, GPU-native workloads, including deployments on NVIDIA DGX systems. The setup is designed to handle massive data volumes while maintaining speed and accessibility.

More notably, the companies are exploring integrations between IBM’s Sovereign Core and NVIDIA infrastructure to support region-specific AI deployments. That means organizations could run GPU-intensive workloads within strict geographic and regulatory boundaries—a must-have for sectors like finance, healthcare, and government.

Cloud, Red Hat, and the Full AI Stack

The collaboration extends beyond hardware and data into cloud and services.

IBM plans to bring NVIDIA’s Blackwell Ultra GPUs to IBM Cloud in 2026, targeting high-performance training, inference, and AI reasoning workloads. These capabilities will also feed into Red Hat AI Factory offerings, which aim to standardize how enterprises build and deploy AI.

On the services side, IBM Consulting is packaging these capabilities into its AI platform to help clients move faster from experimentation to deployment—addressing the persistent skills gap that has slowed adoption.

Industry Context: The Shift to “Operational AI”

This announcement reflects a broader industry shift.

Competitors like Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services are all racing to build end-to-end AI stacks. But many still focus heavily on model access and developer tools.

IBM and NVIDIA are taking a slightly different angle: operationalizing AI across the full stack—from data ingestion to infrastructure to governance.

It’s a less flashy approach, but arguably more aligned with enterprise reality.

Why This Matters Now

The AI hype cycle is entering a more pragmatic phase.

Enterprises are no longer asking, “What can AI do?” They’re asking, “How do we make it work—securely, reliably, and at scale?”

That shift favors vendors who can integrate across layers rather than specialize in just one.

By tightening their partnership, IBM and NVIDIA are positioning themselves as that integrator—offering not just tools, but a blueprint for production-grade AI.

Bottom Line

AI’s biggest challenge isn’t intelligence—it’s implementation.

IBM and NVIDIA’s expanded alliance is a clear signal that the next phase of AI competition will be won not by who builds the best models, but by who makes them usable at scale.

For enterprises still stuck in pilot mode, that could be the difference between experimentation and transformation.

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As enterprises scale AI, identity is quickly becoming the new control layer—and most companies aren’t ready.

New research from Ping Identity, conducted by International Data Corporation, reveals that organizations adopting continuous, contextual identity verification—what the report calls “verified trust”—are significantly outperforming their peers across key business metrics.

The catch? Very few have actually implemented it at scale.

The Performance Gap Is Real—and Measurable

Based on a global survey of 794 organizations, the IDC study shows a clear correlation between identity maturity and business outcomes. Companies classified as “verified trust leaders” report:

• 51% higher customer registration conversion

• 44% stronger compliance readiness

• 43% lower fraud losses

• 47% faster workforce onboarding

These aren’t marginal gains. They point to identity infrastructure as a direct driver of revenue, efficiency, and risk reduction—especially as AI-driven interactions multiply.

Identity Is No Longer a Login—It’s a System

The report reframes identity from a one-time authentication event to a continuous process.

IDC defines “verified trust” as ongoing assurance that every interaction—whether human or AI agent—is tied to a verified identity and remains trustworthy over time. That includes real-time signals like biometrics, device posture, behavioral data, and AI-driven risk analysis.

In practice, this shifts identity from a front-door security check to a full-time control plane governing every access and authorization decision.

That’s a big leap from traditional IAM (identity and access management) systems, which were designed for static, perimeter-based environments—not dynamic, AI-mediated ecosystems.

The Maturity Gap: Confidence vs. Reality

Perhaps the most striking finding is the disconnect between perception and execution.

• 51% of organizations believe they lead in digital trust

• Only 9% actually meet IDC’s criteria for “verified trust” maturity

That gap shows up across multiple dimensions:

• Verification coverage: 69% of leaders verify most trust flows vs. under 20% for early adopters

• Scale: 94% of leaders operate enterprise-wide; others remain stuck in pilot mode

• Passwordless adoption: 80%+ among leaders vs. below 30% for laggards

In other words, many companies think they’re secure—but aren’t operating at the level required for AI-scale environments.

Why AI Is Raising the Stakes

This shift is being accelerated by AI.

As enterprises deploy autonomous agents, copilots, and machine-to-machine interactions, the number of identity-sensitive events is exploding. Each one requires validation—not just at login, but continuously.

That’s forcing a rethink of identity architecture.

According to the report, identity is becoming the backbone for accountability, governance, and trust in AI systems. Without it, organizations risk increased fraud, compliance failures, and operational friction.

Industry Context: Identity Becomes Strategic Infrastructure

The findings align with a broader trend across cybersecurity and enterprise IT.

Vendors like Okta, Microsoft, and Cisco are all pushing toward passwordless, continuous authentication models. Meanwhile, zero-trust architectures are gaining traction as organizations abandon perimeter-based security.

Ping Identity’s positioning of “verified trust” fits squarely into this evolution—but adds a layer of real-time intelligence tailored for AI-driven environments.

From Security Cost Center to Business Driver

One of the more notable implications of the report is how identity is being repositioned internally.

Traditionally seen as a compliance or security function, identity is now directly tied to growth metrics like conversion rates and customer experience.

Faster onboarding, fewer friction points, and better fraud prevention all translate into measurable business impact.

That’s a compelling argument for CIOs and CMOs alike—especially as digital experiences become more complex and competitive.

Closing the Trust Gap

The report ultimately frames “verified trust” as a prerequisite, not a differentiator.

Organizations that operationalize continuous identity verification early can scale AI faster, with less risk. Those that don’t may face increasing costs, regulatory pressure, and degraded user experiences.

The message is clear: in an AI-first world, trust isn’t assumed—it’s continuously verified.

Bottom Line

As AI reshapes enterprise interactions, identity is emerging as the new foundation layer.

Ping Identity’s research suggests that companies treating identity as dynamic infrastructure—not a static checkpoint—are already pulling ahead.

The rest of the market has work to do.

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