In a bold move set to reshape how brands show up in streaming content, Rembrand and Mirriad have announced a strategic joint venture that blends AI innovation with cinematic polish. The aim? To deliver faster, more scalable, and culturally relevant virtual product placements across the U.S. media landscape.

Mirriad, known for its Oscar-winning visual wizardry and stronghold in connected TV (CTV), brings an enviable portfolio of premium content partnerships and advanced publisher tools. Rembrand, meanwhile, injects its proprietary AI into the mix, offering lightning-fast execution of in-content placements without compromising on quality.

The result: a plug-and-play solution that promises to let brands virtually "exist" inside the content their audiences are already watching—no reshoots, no ad interruptions, just seamless integration.

In an age of fragmented attention and rampant ad skipping, traditional display and pre-roll ads are losing their punch. But what if a viewer’s favorite TV show subtly included a brand’s product, perfectly matched to the scene's tone and aesthetic? That’s the type of opportunity this new venture aims to scale.

“This collaboration with Mirriad marks a pivotal moment for the future of virtual placement,” said Omar Tawakol, CEO of Rembrand. “By integrating our AI-powered platform with Mirriad’s access to premium content, we are poised to deliver a truly transformative solution.”

With content saturation and privacy concerns making traditional targeting more difficult, product placement is enjoying a renaissance. Platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime have already hinted at or explored similar innovations, signaling a larger trend toward embedded brand experiences.

The Tech Advantage

Rembrand’s AI engine doesn’t just speed up placement—it optimizes it. Think programmatic ad buying, but for in-scene integrations. Instead of weeks of post-production, advertisers get near real-time campaign execution while keeping production teams focused on storytelling.

Mirriad’s role is equally critical. Its toolset allows rights holders and publishers to retain control over how and where placements appear, ensuring creative integrity and compliance. With relationships already forged across major CTV platforms, Mirriad unlocks distribution doors that most startups can’t reach.

What It Means for Brands and Publishers

The joint venture will manage all U.S. publisher and advertiser relationships, effectively becoming the go-to platform for virtual placements in the region. Notably, Mirriad’s current U.S. team stays intact under the new entity, which should mean zero service disruption for existing clients.

The partnership also positions the venture to go head-to-head with emerging players in the virtual ad space—such as Amazon’s product placement experiments and startups offering creator-driven branded content integrations on YouTube and TikTok.

It’s not just about slapping logos on screens. The combined platform will enable brands to appear inside, around, and beyond the content itself—whether that means a coffee cup in a character’s hand or signage in the background of a viral YouTube video.

This isn’t just a tech story—it’s a media evolution. As linear advertising models falter and younger audiences embrace ad-free subscriptions, virtual placements offer a rare win-win. Viewers aren’t interrupted. Creators retain authenticity. Brands stay relevant.

For marketers looking to break through the noise in 2025, this joint venture offers something uniquely powerful: context, creativity, and control at scale.

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In a digital landscape flooded with vanity metrics and superficial content, INSPIRED is betting big on something different: a social platform with a mission. Officially launched today, the platform connects innovators, investors, collaborators, and curious minds to accelerate the development of world-changing ideas—minus the noise.

Founded by Maximilian Werner, a former private equity researcher turned impact entrepreneur, INSPIRED aims to streamline the way meaningful ventures get discovered, funded, and supported. The platform provides a curated space for visionaries tackling global challenges—think sustainable food, clean energy, disaster recovery tech—to connect with like-minded investors and passionate collaborators.

Breaking the Bottleneck in Early-Stage Innovation

For anyone who's ever tried to fundraise in the early stages of a startup, Werner’s pain point will sound familiar: “It’s a slow, daunting process—cold emails, endless follow-ups, industry conferences, and little clarity on who’s actually interested.”

INSPIRED flips that model on its head. Rather than forcing innovators to wade through fragmented networks, the platform centralizes visibility and engagement in a mission-driven community that values impact over hype.

A Purpose-Built Social Engine

Part LinkedIn, part AngelList, and part think tank, INSPIRED is designed to be more than a digital Rolodex. Upon joining, users self-identify as one of four roles:

• Innovators: Entrepreneurs or creators seeking funding, strategic partners, or advice.

• Investors: Impact-minded VCs, angels, or institutions hunting for the next big breakthrough.

• Collaborators: Individuals who want to contribute expertise, ideas, or energy to emerging solutions.

• Enthusiasts: Anyone eager to follow the journey of bold innovations and engage with cutting-edge ideas.

Unlike traditional social media, there’s a filter in place: all innovators and companies undergo a vetting process to ensure they’re genuinely working to solve meaningful global problems. The platform doesn’t take a cut of any deals made—it’s built for connection, not commission.

Early Adopters: Innovation With Impact

Already, the platform features startups that sound like they’re ripped from a UN innovation summit:

• A Canadian company building land and amphibious rescue vehicles for post-disaster operations.

• A Swiss biosphere farming pioneer offering chemical-free, high-yield food cultivation.

• A Swedish energy startup harvesting clean electricity from ocean waves.

• A Chilean desalination venture providing potable water to remote communities.

And it’s not just innovators flocking to INSPIRED. On the investment side, names like HNW Family Office AG, AVINA Stiftung, and angel investor Anders Gustafsson have joined, demonstrating early traction among high-net-worth individuals and purpose-driven funds.

A Launchpad for the Mission-Driven Economy

With the global push toward ESG standards, climate tech, and social impact ventures, INSPIRED arrives at a timely intersection. It's not trying to replace pitch decks or investor meetings—it’s trying to fix what's broken before those steps even happen: discovery, alignment, and early engagement.

As Werner puts it: “There are so many world-changing ideas that never reach the people who can help bring them to life. We built INSPIRED to change that.”

And in a world where breakthrough ideas are as likely to emerge from a rural garage as from a Silicon Valley VC’s office, platforms like INSPIRED could be a crucial part of what makes innovation more inclusive, distributed, and driven by real human problems.

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Shakespeare.diy, an open-source website builder that merges AI with decentralization, officially launched Thursday at a Human Rights Foundation event—and it’s already shaking up the rules of the web-building game. Created by developer Alex Gleason, the tool gives users a new kind of control: censorship resistance, vendor freedom, and instant AI-driven web deployment—all without touching a corporate login screen.

Finally, AI Website Building Without the Corporate Chains

While AI website builders like Wix ADI and Squarespace’s AI tools promise convenience, they often come at a cost: proprietary lock-in, surveillance-heavy user models, and limited control over your own data and code. Shakespeare.diy flips the script.

Built entirely on Nostr, the decentralized social protocol best known for enabling censorship-resistant content, Shakespeare.diy offers a unique blend of user freedom, open-source transparency, and AI convenience. It lets you describe your dream site in plain English—and watch it come to life in real time through a friendly browser interface.

"No more excuses to stay trapped in centralized platforms," said Gleason. "With Nostr + AI, building websites is something anyone can do—without giving up control."

Built for Creators, Not Corporations

At its core, Shakespeare.diy is aimed at creators, developers, and activists who want to build without compromise. Key features include:

• Identity freedom: Login via Nostr keys—no email, no password, no surveillance.

• AI freedom: Choose your own Nostr Service Provider (NSP) offering AI models with transparent pricing.

• Instant results: Describe your site, iterate via chat, and deploy live with a click.

• Source code access: Download and own your entire website’s codebase.

• Zero vendor lock-in: Host wherever you want, edit however you like.

This makes Shakespeare particularly appealing to communities that prioritize privacy, autonomy, or digital resilience—like open-source developers, human rights groups, or anyone tired of being tethered to Big Tech’s evolving rules.

How It Works

The onboarding process is designed to be as simple—or advanced—as users need:

1. Login with Nostr: Use existing keys or generate new ones.

2. Pick Your AI: Choose from a marketplace of NSPs, each with its own capabilities and rates.

3. Describe Your Site: Use natural language to instruct the AI.

4. Refine in Real Time: Preview changes instantly through a live builder.

5. Deploy or Download: Publish it instantly or export the full code for self-hosting.

During beta, users can test Gemini Flash (a lightweight, real-time AI model) for free. Advanced users can also plug in GitHub or GitLab repositories to collaborate on existing projects—with help from AI assistants that work directly in the browser.

A New Era for AI-Powered Digital Ownership

While many platforms talk about “empowering creators,” Shakespeare.diy actually delivers on that promise by removing middlemen and giving builders direct access to the tools—and control over their output. With full code ownership, decentralized hosting, and AI flexibility, it reimagines what an AI builder can (and should) be.

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Dynamsoft, best known for its enterprise-grade document imaging SDKs, has rolled out Document Viewer SDK version 3.0—and it’s not just a minor update. The new release introduces three game-changing capabilities that elevate how web apps handle PDFs and scanned docs: text selection, inline annotations, and full-text search.

For industries knee-deep in paperwork—think legal, healthcare, government, or education—this update offers a smarter, faster, and more collaborative way to interact with documents directly in the browser.

Until now, browser-based document viewing was more passive than productive. Sure, you could display a PDF, maybe zoom and scroll—but trying to extract content, leave notes, or search long files was clunky at best.

Dynamsoft 3.0 shifts that dynamic. With this release, documents become interactive workspaces where users can select, annotate, and search with the precision of desktop software—without ever leaving the web app.

What’s New in Version 3.0

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Users can now highlight and copy text directly from documents—perfect for extracting key clauses, data, or quotes. Better yet, selected text can serve as the foundation for annotations, making reviews far more targeted.

????️ Text-Based Annotations
Reviewing gets a major upgrade with new markup tools: highlight, strikeout, and underline. These aren’t just overlaid graphics; they’re context-aware annotations embedded into layered PDFs, easily saved and shared across teams.

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No more endless scrolling. The new search panel lets users instantly locate keywords or references within lengthy contracts, reports, or academic papers. It’s a small UI addition with massive time-saving potential.

“With version 3.0, we're bringing a new level of interactivity to document viewing,” said Amy Gu, CEO of Dynamsoft. “Text selection, annotation, and search capabilities empower users across industries to work faster, collaborate more effectively, and gain deeper insights from their documents.”

Built for Developers, Too

This isn’t just a user-facing refresh—it’s a backend-friendly update, too. Document Viewer SDK 3.0 integrates cleanly into modern web stacks, with:

• Rich APIs and UI components for drag-and-drop deployment

• Support for large documents with performance enhancements

• Customizable layouts for enterprise branding or workflow needs

• Compatibility with Dynamic Web TWAIN, enabling scanning-to-viewing pipelines

Whether you're building a contract management portal or a digital student records system, the SDK’s modular design makes it easy to plug in, customize, and scale.

Available Now with 30-Day Free Trial

Dynamsoft’s Document Viewer SDK 3.0 is available today, and developers can grab a 30-day fully functional trial directly from Dynamsoft’s website. Purchase includes access to a seasoned support team via email, chat, phone, and web sessions.

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Natterbox Adds Firepower to the Contact Center with AI Agents and Assistants

Natterbox, the AI-powered contact center platform, has rolled out two new additions to its AI lineup—AI Assistants and AI Agents—in a move that’s set to transform how companies handle customer support. Fully integrated into Salesforce (the world’s leading CRM), these tools promise to eliminate call queues, cut operational costs, and give human agents the freedom to handle more complex, high-value tasks.

The pitch is simple: let AI deal with the drudgery, so humans can deliver the magic.

What’s New and Why It Matters

While chatbots have long handled FAQs on websites, Natterbox’s new AI agents go several steps further. AI Assistants manage up to 70% of common customer interactions—like tracking orders or resetting passwords—while AI Agents tackle end-to-end transactions including refunds, cancellations, and appointment scheduling. All of this happens across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp—without needing a human on standby.

This leap in automation means businesses can scale support operations without hiring more staff, delivering what every customer wants: faster answers with fewer hoops.

“Human agents shouldn’t be wasting time resetting passwords,” said Neil Hammerton, CEO and Co-Founder of Natterbox. “It’s expensive, demoralizing, and bad for business.”

Smarter Handoffs, Not Just Smarter Bots

What sets Natterbox apart is its focus on intelligent escalation. The system detects frustration, keywords, or emotional tone in a customer’s voice and knows when to escalate to a human agent. And when it does, the human gets a summarized context of the interaction—so customers don’t have to repeat themselves.

It’s a small touch, but one that tackles a pain point nearly every customer has felt.

Fast Setup, No Data Scientist Required

Rather than requiring a full-scale data science team or complex integrations, companies can train Natterbox’s AI using simple inputs like a website URL or PDF. Its drag-and-drop setup integrates directly into existing call routing flows—no deep-code reconfigurations needed.

This user-friendly approach is what helped early adopters like We Buy Any Home quickly realize results.

“With AI Agents, we’re handling 1,000 more calls a month,” said a company rep. “We’ve cut our overflow answering service entirely, saving money while improving service.”

The Bigger Picture: AI at the Core of CX

AI Assistants and Agents join AI Advisor, Natterbox’s existing tool that generates post-call summaries, updates CRM records, and even offers live coaching insights for agents.

Together, they represent Natterbox’s broader vision: a fully AI-powered contact center stack that enhances—not replaces—human workers.

In a market crowded with support automation solutions, Natterbox’s deep Salesforce integration, real-time voice capabilities, and no-fuss deployment offer a meaningful edge.

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ImageKit’s New AI Image Editing Suite Aims to Kill Reshoots and Cut Creative Costs

In the ever-accelerating world of digital content, ImageKit is giving creative teams something they desperately need: time back.

The unified image and video API platform, known for its real-time media optimization, has unveiled a robust upgrade to its AI-powered editing suite, introducing a range of tools aimed at slashing production costs and eliminating repetitive design work. From generative fill to natural shadow rendering and prompt-based editing, ImageKit’s new features target a fundamental industry challenge—scaling high-quality visual content without ballooning budgets or timelines.

“This is about creative freedom at scale,” said Manu Chaudhary, ImageKit’s co-founder & CTO. “We’re cutting out the need for reshoots, manual edits, or clunky design tools.”

Creative Bottlenecks, Meet Automation

At the heart of this rollout is AI Generative Fill, which lets users intelligently extend image dimensions—say, stretching a tight vertical shot into a hero banner—by contextually filling in missing pixels. The fill can even be controlled via simple parameters, offering a designer’s precision without the Photoshop headache.

Why it matters: This kind of intelligent automation eliminates the need for additional photography, speeding up time-to-market for campaigns and cutting back on the cost of creative iterations.

Backgrounds, Shadows, and Variants—Automated

Other standout features include:

• AI Background Change: Drop in any setting behind a subject—instantly and photo-realistically. Say goodbye to re-shoots for seasonal campaigns or region-specific backdrops.

• AI Background Removal with Realistic Shadows: Isolate subjects and add dynamic, natural-looking shadows—perfect for e-commerce images that usually require studio lighting and manual retouching.

• Prompt-Based Image Editing: Describe the change (“add strawberries to cake”) and let the AI render it. Natural language meets natural aesthetics.

• AI Image Upscaling: Turn pixelated legacy assets into high-resolution visuals, rescuing old content from the archive and repurposing it across modern displays.

• Smart Cropping: Use object-aware algorithms to frame key visual elements—products, faces, or over 80 other detectable items—with precision, all via simple URL parameters like fo-auto.

These tools are not just clever—they’re developer-friendly. The AI features are accessible through ImageKit’s URL-based API, requiring no new infrastructure or steep learning curves. Teams can integrate them with existing cloud storage solutions like S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob in minutes.

Competitive Edge in a Crowded MarTech Landscape

ImageKit’s enhancements arrive at a time when content velocity has become a competitive differentiator in e-commerce, digital marketing, and media production. While traditional DAM and creative suites often rely on human-heavy workflows, ImageKit positions itself as the middleware for automated creative execution.

The combination of developer-first architecture and creative-friendly features puts ImageKit in the same conversation as players like Cloudinary and Adobe Firefly—but with a sharper focus on automation, scale, and plug-and-play AI.

Early adopters are expected to be brands looking to streamline localization, speed up campaign production, and maintain visual consistency across global markets—without ballooning creative teams or budgets.

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Live Story Raises €2.7M to Reimagine Visual Content Creation in Digital Commerce

Live Story, the visual content management startup founded by Stefano Mocellini, just closed a €2.7 million seed round to accelerate its AI-driven digital experience platform. The round was led by Vertis, one of Italy’s top early-growth venture capital firms, and includes a group of seasoned business angels. The company now sets its sights on international expansion and hitting €10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by 2027.

“We invested in Live Story because it solves a critical inefficiency in digital commerce: the painfully slow, rigid way visual content is managed,” said Alessandro Pontari, Partner at Vertis SGR.

Content Bottlenecks, Meet No-Code CMS

Originally launched in the U.S. to make social media content instantly shoppable, Live Story has matured into a fully-fledged visual CMS designed for omnichannel content creation. Its core pitch? Empower marketing, design, and digital teams to build rich, interactive experiences without waiting on developers—or sacrificing brand consistency.

By slashing development time by up to 80%, Live Story claims to give brands a serious leg up in today's speed-to-market arms race.

Unlike traditional CMS tools that require technical hand-holding, Live Story’s platform plays nice with any tech stack, allowing teams to drag, drop, and launch content across web, mobile, and even in-store experiences without breaking a sweat—or the backend.

Already Trusted by Italy’s Elite Brands

Live Story isn’t just promising potential—it’s delivering results. The platform already powers content for over 100 top-tier Italian brands, including Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, Max Mara Fashion Group, Bottega Veneta, Illy, and Gruppo OVS.

Now, the company is eyeing vertical expansion beyond fashion and luxury into finance, pharma, insurance, and food, where UX and personalization are quickly becoming make-or-break differentiators.

AI at the Heart of the Roadmap

Future developments center on integrating generative and predictive AI to enable dynamic, personalized, and conversion-optimized digital experiences. That includes tailoring content in real time and optimizing user flows for Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)—a key battleground for modern digital marketing teams.

“This investment lets us double down on innovation where creativity meets UX and AI,” said Mocellini. “Our goal is to become the go-to platform for bold, high-impact digital experiences.”

In a digital economy increasingly defined by agility, automation, and aesthetics, Live Story is placing a bold bet on where content—and conversions—are headed.

As brands scramble to adapt to ever-changing consumer expectations and omnichannel demands, Live Story offers a modern solution: a visual CMS that reduces friction, accelerates deployment, and future-proofs content with AI-powered capabilities. With fresh capital in hand and momentum in the luxury sector, Live Story looks poised to challenge traditional CMS platforms and define the next era of digital storytelling.

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Takedeals by Takeads Aims to Reinvent Affiliate Commerce with AI-Driven Coupon Feeds

Affiliate marketing just got a major upgrade. Takeads, the next-gen affiliate platform boasting offers from more than 40,000 advertisers, has launched Takedeals, a standalone AI-powered coupon feed designed to eliminate the chaos of traditional promo code management and transform how publishers and developers monetize their content.

In an increasingly fragmented affiliate space, Takedeals promises simplicity, scale, and personalization—delivered via a plug-and-play feed.

“Takedeals represents our vision for the next era of affiliate commerce,” said Pawel Mazurek, CEO of Takeads. “We’re enabling truly personalized shopping journeys—whether embedded in articles, chatbots, or browser extensions.”

From Messy Links to Intelligent Monetization

Managing affiliate offers has long been a digital headache: broken links, outdated codes, irrelevant promos, and a patchwork of incompatible formats. Takedeals takes aim at these pain points with a streamlined feed of coupons and deals pulled from over 80 affiliate networks and content providers.

Using AI, it ingests and standardizes formats—from CSV and XML to SDKs and APIs—into a clean, enriched stream of offers.

This means no more manual sorting, patchwork integrations, or missing out on high-performing deals.

AI-Powered Personalization at Scale

What sets Takedeals apart is how it personalizes and localizes content in real time. Advanced AI models generate multilingual descriptions, match offers to on-page context, and tailor promotions based on user behavior and geography.

The result? Dynamic, relevant, and conversion-ready content across every touchpoint—from browser extensions and search engines to Q-commerce apps and loyalty platforms.

Already, publishers like DontPayFull, Coupert, Bing, and others have tapped into Takeads’ legacy coupon feeds. But Takedeals is aiming much wider, targeting:

• Cashback and loyalty platforms

• AI agents and chatbots

• Browser extensions and OEMs

• High-volume mobile apps

• Search engines and embedded content publishers

With over 60,000 verified coupons across 170 countries, Takedeals offers both breadth and precision—a rare combo in the affiliate space.

For publishers and developers, affiliate monetization has often required custom integrations and tedious content management. Takedeals eliminates that overhead, offering a turnkey affiliate revenue stream that scales without complexity.

It also comes at a time when contextual commerce is rapidly evolving, with AI agents, embedded shopping, and real-time personalization changing how users engage with promotional content.

In other words, Takedeals is built not just for today’s publishers—but for tomorrow’s AI-driven consumer journeys.

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