Codal, a leading website design and development consultancy, has been officially recognized as a Shopify Platinum Partner—the highest distinction in Shopify’s Partner Program. This places Codal among an elite group of just 15 agencies worldwide, and as the only Platinum-tier agency in Chicago.

A New Milestone in Shopify Excellence!

Codal’s Expertise in Enterprise Shopify Solutions

100+ Shopify builds across industries like automotive, FMCG, healthcare & manufacturing
Pioneering Shopify Plus solutions since 2016
Seamless migrations, operational efficiency, and scalable eCommerce growth

"Platinum status is reserved for the best of the best. We’re proud to be among only five agencies in the U.S. with this distinction." – Ryan Bloms, Director of Partnerships at Codal

Powering eCommerce Success for Leading Brands

Thermos: Migrated to Shopify Plus, improving UX, brand experience & conversions
CPAP: Developed custom AI-driven prescription verification & SEO migration
Jocko Fuel, OriginUSA, Lawson Products, trueCABLE & more: Enterprise-level Shopify innovation

What This Means for Clients

Exclusive Shopify Access: Early feature releases, dedicated support & roadmap insights.
Advanced B2B & D2C Capabilities: Frictionless wholesale & direct-to-consumer experiences.
Optimized Growth: Scalable Shopify solutions tailored to complex business needs.

Mirakl, the global leader in eCommerce software solutions, has appointed Scott Eckert as its new CEO of the Americas, effective immediately. With a strong track record in retail innovation, Eckert will spearhead Mirakl’s expansion across the Americas, further enhancing its marketplace and retail media services.

Enterprise clients include: Best Buy, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Saks, Urban Outfitters, 1-800 Flowers & more.

Scott Eckert’s Vision for Mirakl

"Mirakl is at the forefront of the eCommerce revolution. I look forward to driving our expansion and shaping the future of digital commerce." – Scott Eckert, CEO of the Americas, Mirakl

Retail Media Growth: Expanding Mirakl Ads as the go-to retail media solution
Marketplace Expansion: Strengthening Mirakl Connect to enable brands to scale across multiple marketplaces
Strategic Innovation: Leveraging his expertise in AI, robotics, and commerce transformation

Eckert’s Retail & Tech Expertise

Senior VP, Walmart (Next Generation Retail & Store No.8) – Led ventures in AI shopping, AR experiences & computer vision
CEO, Rethink Robotics – Pioneered AI-powered collaborative robotics
Co-founder, Motion Computing – Scaled revenue to $100M+ globally
Early eCommerce Leader, Dell

Mirakl’s Growth Trajectory

Adrien Nussenbaum, Co-CEO, Mirakl: "Scott’s leadership in retail innovation aligns perfectly with Mirakl’s vision. His expertise will drive our mission to empower retailers, brands, and sellers to thrive in the digital economy."

OpenWeb, a leading community engagement platform, has appointed Jim Daily as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2025. Daily, an experienced executive in adtech and digital platforms, will lead OpenWeb’s next phase of growth, focusing on scaling its publisher network, advancing its AI-driven moderation tools, and enhancing monetization strategies.

Jim Daily’s Experience and Leadership Background

• Previously served as North American CEO and Global President at Teads.
• Scaled Teads from $0 to $275 million in annual revenue.
• Developed strategic partnerships with ESPN, Condé Nast, and The Washington Post.
• Most recently, he was the Founding CEO of LinksDAO, turning a golf community initiative into an $11 million business in just 10 months.

Strategic Vision for OpenWeb

• Expanding Publisher Network:
  • OpenWeb currently partners with 5,000+ publishers, reaching 170 million monthly users.
  • Existing collaborations include CNN, The Arena Group, Fandom, and Mail Online.
• Enhancing Community Engagement Technology:
  • Launch of Aida, a proprietary LLM-based moderation tool for more accurate content moderation.
  • Introduction of In-Conversation Ads, designed to deliver seamless, high-visibility advertising within online discussions.
• Strengthening Monetization Strategies:
  • Establishing partnerships with major advertisers such as Ford, Virgin Atlantic, Adobe, and Porsche.
  • Leveraging AI to optimize engagement and revenue opportunities for publishers.

Leadership Endorsements and Market Positioning

• Tim Harvey, Interim CEO and incoming Executive Chairman, praised Daily’s leadership qualities, emphasizing his ability to scale businesses.
• Jeff Horing, Managing Director at Insight Partners, highlighted Daily’s expertise in digital platform growth and innovation as a transformative advantage for OpenWeb.

Daily’s Vision for OpenWeb

Jim Daily expressed his enthusiasm for leading OpenWeb, citing the company’s mission to foster meaningful and healthier online conversations. He aims to:

• Champion thoughtful engagement by building trust and community interactions.
• Drive innovation in adtech and community moderation solutions.
• Scale OpenWeb’s impact by enhancing publisher partnerships and revenue opportunities.

With Jim Daily at the helm, OpenWeb is poised for significant expansion in digital engagement, AI-driven moderation, and publisher monetization. His leadership and industry expertise will drive the company’s next phase of innovation and market influence.

Qualtrics, the leader in experience management, has introduced new AI-powered innovations designed to help organizations improve customer relationships by leveraging omnichannel insights. These advancements in the XM for Customer Experience™ suite enable businesses to gather structured and unstructured feedback across digital, physical locations, and customer service interactions—allowing for proactive, data-driven decision-making.

Innovations in Customer Experience Management

• Location Experience Hub: Helps businesses analyze customer sentiment at individual store locations and provides AI-personalized responses to enhance engagement.
• Qualtrics Assist for CX: Uses AI to generate instant insights from structured and unstructured customer feedback, allowing teams to make informed, strategic decisions.
• Conversational Feedback: Adapts surveys in real-time using AI-powered prompts, leading to more detailed and actionable customer feedback.
• Digital Experience Analytics: Detects behavioral patterns like rage-clicking to identify friction points, helping businesses optimize digital experiences.
• Qualtrics Edge™ Instant Insights: Provides real-time access to competitor benchmarks, industry trends, and emerging customer behaviors to drive strategic decision-making.

The Role of AI in Customer Experience

• A recent Qualtrics report highlights that AI can help businesses overcome technology limitations in improving customer experiences.
• Companies leveraging AI-powered insights are projected to gain a share of the $860 billion in increased revenue expected from enhanced customer experience strategies.
• AI tools enable businesses to reduce churn, personalize interactions at scale, and drive higher customer lifetime value.

Enhancing Customer Feedback Collection

• AI-Powered Conversational Feedback:
  • Adjusts survey questions dynamically based on customer responses.
  • Doubles feedback collection rates, with 90% of users opting to answer follow-up prompts.
• Experience Agents™ (Coming Soon):
  • AI-driven agents will interact with customers during surveys to address concerns and close the feedback loop in real time.

Optimizing Digital Experiences with Behavioral Analytics

• Real-Time Issue Detection: Identifies frustration signals such as rage-clicking and navigation struggles.
• Heatmaps & Funnels: Helps digital teams visualize engagement drop-off points and optimize customer interactions.
• Frustration Interception: Enables immediate intervention to assist customers and prevent churn.

AI-Driven Insights for Competitive Advantage

• Instant Industry Benchmarks: Provides businesses with competitor insights without requiring independent research.
• Automated Recommendations: AI-powered analysis surfaces key themes from customer feedback, helping businesses take targeted actions to improve service quality.

With its latest AI-driven innovations, Qualtrics is transforming customer experience management by providing businesses with real-time, omnichannel insights. By leveraging AI-powered feedback analysis, digital experience optimization, and location-specific insights, organizations can build stronger customer relationships, reduce churn, and drive revenue growth in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Qualtrics, the leader in experience management, has announced a strategic partnership with LangChain, a leading platform for AI applications using large language models (LLMs). The collaboration aims to develop Qualtrics Experience Agents™ on LangChain’s LangGraph Platform, creating AI-driven customer and employee engagement solutions that enhance loyalty, trust, and personalization.

What Are Qualtrics Experience Agents?

Experience Agents are highly specialized AI-powered assistants that:

• Interact proactively with customers and employees in brand-aligned ways.
• Provide seamless omnichannel support across all touchpoints.
• Continuously analyze feedback (structured and unstructured) to drive actionable insights.
• Operate at scale to close feedback loops efficiently and enhance customer experience.

Benefits of the Qualtrics-LangChain Partnership

• AI Workflow Optimization:
  • Qualtrics will leverage LangGraph to design, deploy, and manage complex AI agent workflows with ease.
  • The platform enables no-code agent modifications and provides APIs for debugging and refining interactions.
• Interoperability with Other AI Agents:
  • The partnership aims to establish a standard open-source framework for AI agent development.
  • This ensures seamless integration with existing enterprise AI tools and transactional systems.
• Enhanced Business Impact:
  • Companies can maximize their AI investments by integrating Experience Agents with their current technology stack.
  • AI-driven automation enhances efficiency while maintaining personalized customer interactions.

The Future of AI-Powered Experience Management

• Gurdeep Singh Pall, President of AI Strategy at Qualtrics, emphasized that Experience Agents will revolutionize customer and employee interactions, elevating engagement across all channels.
• Harrison Chase, CEO & Co-founder of LangChain, highlighted that LangGraph empowers Qualtrics to develop AI agents that foster deeper business-consumer relationships.

The Qualtrics-LangChain partnership marks a significant step in AI-driven experience management. By leveraging LangGraph’s capabilities, Qualtrics is set to deliver more intelligent, adaptable, and integrated AI agents, enabling organizations to improve engagement, trust, and business outcomes at scale.

Qualtrics, the pioneer in experience management (XM), has launched Qualtrics Edge™, a next-generation market intelligence platform that integrates AI, synthetic insights, and expert research to help organizations make data-driven decisions faster. By leveraging Edge Audiences™ and Edge Instant Insights™, businesses can gain real-time market trends, consumer behaviors, and competitive benchmarks—all at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional research methods.

Features of Qualtrics Edge™

1. AI-Driven Synthetic Insights for Faster Research

• Edge Audiences™ leverages AI to generate synthetic respondents, reducing research time from weeks to minutes.
• Uses publicly available data and industry-specific experience data for predictive analytics.
• Enables market researchers to understand consumer behavior and preferences in hard-to-reach segments.
• Reduces costs by up to 70% while providing trustworthy, actionable insights.

2. Instant Market and Competitive Intelligence

• Edge Instant Insights™ provides immediate access to real-time competitor data, market trends, and industry benchmarks.
• AI-powered insights help businesses make strategic decisions based on experience data in their sector.
• Industry-specific insights include:
  • Restaurants: Market trends and competitive positioning for quick-service, fast casual, and casual dining.
  • Hospitality: Competitive intelligence for hotels, resorts, and cruise lines.
  • US Insurance & Banking (US & UK): Customer experience benchmarks using unbiased competitor and customer feedback.

3. AI-Powered Data Analysis & Actionable Insights

• Qualtrics Conversational Feedback™: AI-driven surveys that dynamically adapt follow-up questions based on responses, improving data accuracy.
• Qualtrics Insights Explorer™: AI-powered text analytics tool that extracts meaningful insights from structured and unstructured feedback, such as call logs and online reviews.
• Helps businesses identify emerging issues, customer pain points, and revenue-driving opportunities.

Industry Impact & Competitive Advantage

• Accelerates decision-making with AI-generated insights at scale.
• Enhances customer experience strategies by identifying trends and improving engagement.
• Optimizes research investment with reduced costs and improved accuracy.
• Strengthens competitive positioning by providing real-time industry benchmarks.

Qualtrics Edge™ revolutionizes market intelligence by integrating AI, synthetic insights, and extensive research data. By enabling businesses to conduct faster, cost-effective, and data-driven market research, Qualtrics Edge empowers organizations to stay ahead of evolving customer expectations, industry trends, and competitive landscapes.

Relatable, a fast-growing entertainment and consumer products company known for transforming social media trends into engaging games, toys, and wellness products, has appointed Casey Collins as its Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). Collins, a seasoned executive with deep expertise in Global Toys, Digital Gaming, Licensing, and Entertainment, will drive Relatable’s next phase of strategic growth, global expansion, and new market ventures.

Leadership Goals for Casey Collins

1. Expanding Relatable’s Global Footprint

• Strengthening Relatable’s presence in international markets.
• Driving strategic mergers and acquisitions to expand product offerings.
• Forging new licensing and partnership deals to enhance global reach.

2. Scaling Digital Gaming & Interactive Entertainment

• Spearheading Relatable’s entry into digital gaming to engage Gen Z and millennial audiences.
• Developing interactive and immersive experiences that align with evolving entertainment trends.
• Expanding Relatable’s ecosystem beyond physical games into tech-enabled play and digital experiences.

3. Strengthening Product Innovation & Category Growth

• Continuing the brand’s expansion into toys, games, and wellness products.
• Leveraging social media-driven insights to create trend-forward consumer products.
• Enhancing existing product lines, including family games, party games, and lifestyle offerings.

A Force in the Entertainment Industry

With annual revenue exceeding $100 million, Relatable has solidified itself as a leader in innovative, high-quality consumer products. The addition of Collins, known for his strategic leadership in the toy and gaming industries, marks a pivotal step in scaling Relatable’s impact and influence.

Ben Kaplan, Co-Founder and Partner at Relatable, emphasized:
"Casey brings an incredible network and a wealth of experience in toys, games, and entertainment. We’re thrilled to have him lead the next phase of Relatable’s journey and supercharge our growth."

Collins’ appointment signals an exciting new chapter for Relatable, as it continues to evolve from a viral party game brand into a global entertainment powerhouse. With a focus on digital gaming, international expansion, and strategic partnerships, Relatable is set to redefine modern entertainment for Gen Z, millennials, and families worldwide.

Michaels, the leading destination for creative supplies, has partnered with Creative Fabrica, a top provider of digital crafting assets, to launch Michaels Digital Downloads. This new subscription-based platform offers U.S. creators unlimited access to over 150,000 premium digital assets, including fonts, illustrations, 3D paper crafts, laser cutting files, knitting and embroidery patterns, and more.

This initiative is part of Michaels’ omnichannel transformation strategy, reinforcing its commitment to providing seamless, end-to-end creative solutions for makers of all skill levels.

Features of Michaels Digital Downloads

1. Expansive Digital Asset Library

• Over 150,000 high-quality digital assets at launch, with plans to scale to millions.
• Categories include graphics, fonts, crafting patterns, illustrations, embroidery designs, and more.
• Designed for use in paper crafting, laser cutting, knitting, and embroidery projects.

2. Affordable Subscription Model

• Monthly Plan: $9.99 per month.
• Annual Plan: $83.88 upfront (30% savings vs. monthly).
• Free 30-day trial with up to 10 free downloads for new users.

3. Seamless Integration for Creators

• Provides creators with instant access to high-quality design assets for their projects.
• Supports a wide range of creative software and cutting machines.
• Ensures a one-stop shopping experience, allowing customers to source both physical supplies and digital designs from Michaels.

Driving the Future of Creative Innovation

Michaels’ investment in digital assets aligns with insights from its creator community:
"70% of our most passionate creators expressed a desire for a digital platform from Michaels," said Heather Bennett, President at Michaels. “This partnership is a major step forward in delivering a seamless digital experience that inspires creativity.”

Creative Fabrica CEO Roemie Hillenaar added:
"By partnering with Michaels, we are bringing our extensive design library to an even broader audience of crafters. This collaboration empowers makers with an endless supply of creative resources at their fingertips."

With Michaels Digital Downloads, creators now have a comprehensive, all-in-one creative solution—combining premium digital assets with physical crafting supplies. As Michaels continues to expand its digital offerings, the platform is set to grow exponentially, providing millions of digital resources to support creative innovation.