GroupBy Inc., a SaaS-based eCommerce search and product discovery leader, is transforming year, make, and model search with the launch of its new AI-powered Fitment™ product. With this technology, GroupBy is expanding its ability to service online stores that sell automotive parts, tires, industrial and machinery supplies, electronics, and many others with vast product catalogs and databases that require exact specifications or fitments. For decades, this market has seen little to no search technology advancements, prompting GroupBy to develop the Fitment product, which utilizes the same powerful Google Cloud Discovery AI technology that powers its eCommerce Search and Product Discovery Platform.

Providing relevant product and part results from an extensive product inventory that includes year, make, and model has proven problematic for many online sellers. The reason for this, depending on the industry, is that a given part can fit tens of thousands of products. Additionally, unsophisticated UI tools complicate the buyer experience, prompting buyers to take upwards of more than 10 actions before finding the right product part or ultimately abandoning the search.

GroupBy’s AI-powered Fitment enables buyers to find specific product parts directly from a search bar query and carry that experience into browsing, navigation, and recommendations. Parts returned are guaranteed to fit the queried product, eliminating cumbersome drop-down menus and configurators. This drastically reduces friction in the buying process, ensuring customers get to the right products in the fewest steps possible.

Powered by Google Cloud Discovery AI, GroupBy’s Fitment solution optimizes the search experience for both buyers and internal merchandising teams. Built on a next-generation Google Cloud search engine and trained on vast global and industry-specific datasets, it provides users access to the most relevant search results that are guaranteed to fit every time. The AI can handle misspellings, calculate the viability of the result in real-time, and eliminate the need for business rule creation.

Additionally, GroupBy’s Fitment solution can identify intent and contextual meaning behind a search query to determine the difference between year and model or even short-form searches like ‘Chevy’ or ‘Stang,’ ensuring the accuracy and relevance of search results. GroupBy’s next-generation Fitment technology provides online retailers access to superior AI functionality that eliminates consumer product findability frustration with a focus on generating revenue gains.

“For years now, retailers with complex catalogs that sell cars, automotive parts, industrial manufacturing or machinery supplies have struggled to provide their customers with a seamless product findability experience,” says GroupBy CEO Roland Gossage. “The lack of search innovation in this market has forced customers to sift through numerous pages or utilize complex UI tools like drop downs, filters, or widgets creating long click journeys which range anywhere from eight to 30 clicks. With every click that customer has a 7% less chance of purchasing the product they intended to buy. Our AI-powered Fitment solution, which utilizes Google Cloud’s search engine, has been developed to eliminate the complexity and frustration from product part search delivering relevant and exact-fit results for conversational searches. Additionally, shoppers can perform product part searches for conversational terms like “Chevy”, ambiguous models like “91 911” (for a 1991 Porsche 911), or long-tail keywords, easily from within the search box to return exact fit parts. We are seeing an AI-tech revolution that is finally beginning to take place and those who leverage AI today, quickly and efficiently, will be winners in the eCommerce marketplace in the near future.”

GroupBy to Host Fitment Panel Discussion

To introduce its new Fitment™ product and discuss how next-generation technology drives revenue for B2B companies, GroupBy is hosting a panel discussion on Wednesday, January 31, at 1 p.m. EST, 10 a.m. PST. The webinar, “AI-Powered Year, Make, and Model Fitment Search: Guarantee the Right Product & Fit Every Time,” will demonstrate how AI-first Search and Product Discovery is modernizing eCommerce by solving complex search use cases like fitment, where customers must search by year, make, and model to find the correct parts.

During the panel, GroupBy CEO Roland Gossage will be joined by Master B2B co-founder and B2B expert Bryan Beck to discuss long-time pain points within B2B eCommerce, consumers’ evolving expectations, and how AI-first solutions can help solve challenges with existing fitment solutions. Attendees will discover how GroupBy’s new, AI-powered Fitment product can deliver results guaranteed to fit directly from the search bar, leading to revenue-generating shopping experiences that boost product findability, customer purchase confidence and online revenue.

GroupBy’s next-generation eCommerce Search and Product Discovery Platform powered by Google Cloud Discovery AI powers the world’s most relevant and highly converting B2B and B2C eCommerce sites. By leveraging the power of true AI, the platform delivers relevant, buyable and hyper-personalized search results optimized for revenue. This all-in-one platform includes all vital enterprise eCommerce product discovery functions, including data enrichment, search and browse, recommendations, merchandising, and analytics and reporting. By using AI to solve search issues at the root, GroupBy’s platform drastically reduces manual curation and intervention; customers routinely go from thousands of search rules to just one or two upon launch, freeing up merchandising teams to focus on revenue-generating activities and further improve the customer experience.

With the proliferation of deepfake AI technology able to create believable videos, realistic-looking photos that deceive viewers, and documents that appear legitimate but aren’t, digital media authenticity leader Attestiv has updated its online platform to help organizations battle deceptive media. Simple to use, Attestiv’s enhanced detection tools are among the fastest and most reliable solutions to evaluate the legitimacy of digital materials.

According to the World Economic Forum, deepfake online content facilitated by generative AI has increased exponentially. “In 2022, 66% of cybersecurity professionals experienced deepfake attacks within their respective organizations,” and experts predict that “as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026.”

These are serious threats to industries such as banking, insurance, real estate, news & media and healthcare, all sectors that demand the highest levels of integrity, security and compliance.

Launched in March 2020, Attestiv utilizes patent-pending, AI-based analysis and tamper-proofing of digital media, enabling organizations to discern what is real, altered or fake. New generative AI detection guards against photos created through popular text-to-photo frameworks.

Through its updated online dashboard or via APIs that easily integrate into existing applications, Attestiv rapidly analyzes digital assets from any source, making it the ideal solution to protect organizations against fraud, loss and reputational damage. Attestiv’s cloud framework operates at scale, enabling customers to validate the authenticity of digital media either through discrete analysis or integrated and automated into their existing systems.

To thwart the growing threat of fraud and AI-generated deepfakes, Cabrella, a company specializing in providing integrated insurance solutions to high value parcel shippers, recently started using Attestiv. “The authenticity of documents, photos and supporting materials is a growing and critical concern for high-value parcel shippers. Bad actors are using these new technologies to better deceive business shippers, causing significant harm to their bottom line. The growing threat of GenAI led us to proactively engage Attestiv’s solution to battle digital fraud to protect our customers.” said Benjamin Meskin, CEO of Cabrella.

“With the explosion and commoditization of generative AI deepfakes, it is hard for most of us to fathom what 2024 has in store in terms of digital fraud and misinformation,” said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO of Attestiv. “Whereas deepfakes began by infiltrating social media, the time is now for businesses to take action so they do not become the next victim of this new breed of fraud. Attestiv’s flexible solutions make us the go-to validation partner in this era of digital manipulation.”

The Nashville-based company, whose software is used to manage in-person events like concerts and corporate conferences, has hired execs in five key areas while adding project management, logistics and inventory capabilities to its platform

LASSO, the software platform for managing live events, announces the appointment of five veteran software industry executives to leadership positions within the company: Julie Edwards (Vice President of Customer Success); Christy Petrosso (Sr. Vice President of Product and Data); Danielle Porter-Condon (Vice President of Marketing); Kevin Wilson (Vice President of Technical Operations); and Anthony Zhang (Vice President of Sales).

The appointments continue a pattern of momentum for LASSO, which grew 450% over the past three years while expanding its product suite and catching the attention of industry watchers. In 2023, LASSO added project management, logistics and inventory capabilities to its platform, which already included tools for event scheduling, onboarding, time tracking, travel, payroll management, and a Crew Marketplace. It also launched a mobile app, was named a top workplace by BuiltIn and included on the Deloitte Fast 500 and Inc 5000 lists.

LASSO’s success is being driven by an increase in consumer spending on live events. “Anything live, anything experiential is just going through the roof,” said Jessica Reif Ehrlich, a Bank of America analyst who labeled the dynamic as “funflation” in a September research note. According to Emergen Research, the worldwide event management software market reached a value of $7.43 billion in 2022. Emergen projects that the market will experience a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 12.8% through 2032, when it will be valued at $24.45 billion.

The new executives hired by LASSO come from a handful of successful startups based in the Southeastern United States. Edwards and Wilson were at BoomTown in Charleston; Petrosso was at Vizbii in Charleston; Porter-Condon was at Built Technologies in Nashville; and Zhang from a number of successful SaaS companies, including SalesLoft in Atlanta. The majority of LASSO’s team is based in the Southeast. The company also boasts a 45% female team, well above the technology industry average.

“We’re excited to add Julie, Christy, Danielle, Kevin and Anthony to our leadership team,” said Clay Sifford, CEO of LASSO. “They are proven software industry leaders with long track records of growth and company success. Over the past year we’ve worked incredibly hard to expand our platform to include the tools our customers need. The response thus far has been very positive, and we look forward to building on this momentum in 2024.”

2024 State of Identity Fraud Report highlights Synthetic Identities, Biometric Spoofing and Counterfeit ID fraud incidents are on the rise

Nearly half of businesses reported a growth in synthetic identity fraud, while biometric spoofs and counterfeit ID fraud attempts also increased, according to the 2024 State of Identity Fraud Report, released today by AuthenticID, a global leader in identity proofing and fraud prevention solutions. With identity fraud skyrocketing across multiple industries globally, the report offers a pulse check for business and consumer identity fraud. It delves into identity verification challenges and the cutting-edge technology that can fight the sophisticated fraud facing both consumers and businesses. 

The report, created in partnership with PEAK IDV, delves into the most prevalent fraud tactics observed in 2023 and emerging tactics that may shape 2024. The report uses internal proprietary data anonymized and analyzed from AuthenticID’s ID verification, biometric authentication, and watchlist technologies. In addition, this proprietary data is paired with insights from AuthenticID’s annual fraud surveys conducted in Q4 2023, surveying both fraud and technology professionals as well as consumers in North America.

The increases in identity-based fraud demonstrate the continued threats and preferred threat vectors of fraudsters. Among the noteworthy increases included in the report:

• 50 percent of businesses reported growth in synthetic fraud
• Biometric spoof fraud attempts tripled from 2022 to 2023
• Counterfeit ID fraud attempts are on the rise, specifically in the telecom and wireless industry: AuthenticID’s platform detected over 927,000 fraudulent IDs in 2023, an 80% increase from 2022.

Over 30% of businesses reported a growth in data and security breaches from 2022 and 2023, with the impact of synthetic fraud reaching beyond traditionally-impacted financial sector, to ecommerce, gaming, and more.

“In 2023, identity crime led to record levels of both breaches and business attacks,” said Blair Cohen, AuthenticID Founder & President. “These attacks and identity fraud crimes can lead to high economic losses and a loss of customer trust. Businesses need to do more than just stay vigilant; they must stay ahead of bad actors who now employ incredibly sophisticated technology with relative ease.”

Consumers also reported heightened levels of identity-focused attacks, with most consumers reporting being approached by bad actors at least six times per year via email, phone calls, texts, or social media.

“Protecting identity isn’t just good business, it’s crucial for individual identity security,” said Chris Borkenhagen, Chief Digital Officer/Information Security Officer at AuthenticID. “Bad actors continuously shift strategies to find and exploit any new opportunities, maximizing the data and money they can pull from their victims. Being aware of these trends, and how to stay agile enough to minimize the damage, is crucial for a business’ identity proofing strategy.”

AuthenticID will continue to drive innovation forward in its technology to ensure companies can stay ahead of changing fraud techniques and regulatory requirements while delivering best-in-class customer experience.

Liferay, the developer of an enterprise level, cloud-powered digital experience platform (DXP), today announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace, empowering organizations with flexibility to build crafted, powerful solutions for customers, employees, suppliers, and partners.

“The ability to offer our DXP solution through the partnership with Google Cloud is a natural consequence of our decision to use Google Cloud’s world-class infrastructure and technology,” said Brian Chan, CEO of Liferay. "Our joint customers will be able to build digital experience solutions that meet the unique needs of their entire business on one platform, backed by the most reliable and innovative cloud provider."

Liferay’s DXP combines content management, commerce, and workflow automation to enable the creation of sites that span both digital purchase and customer service experiences. With low code capabilities and scalable architecture, Liferay DXP ensures that businesses can further create experiences to digitize and automate their operations on reliable infrastructure. Across customer and supplier portals, intranets, and public websites, Liferay DXP provides AI-powered personalization, digital transformation tools, and user data and analytics to assist organizations to modernize their digital landscape and to act on user insights.

“Liferay DXP is the core of a business’s digital strategy to deliver personalized and powerful user experiences,” highlighted Igor Arouca, Chief Technology Officer at Liferay. “Deploying it in the cloud brings additional cost savings with lower long-term total cost of ownership, faster time to market, continuous innovation, ease of scaling, and a solid computing infrastructure required for emerging technologies.”

“Bringing Liferay to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow its DXP solution on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," said Dai Vu, Managing Director, Marketplace & ISV GTM Programs at Google Cloud. “Liferay can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys.”

Google Cloud Marketplace lets users quickly deploy functional software packages that run on Google Cloud, allowing customers to easily start up a familiar software package with services like Compute Engine or Cloud Storage, with no manual configuration required.

Accomplished Executives LeAnne Hester and April Oman Join Resilinc’s Leadership Team to Advance Brand Awareness and Overall Customer Experience

Resilinc, a leading supply chain mapping, disruption sensing, and resiliency analytics company, today announced the appointment of LeAnne Hester as CMO and April Oman as CCO. These two new executive hires are the latest addition to Resilinc’s C-Suite as the company continues to scale in order to meet market demand for more resilient supply chains. These functions will play an essential role in new customer acquisition, retention, and overall customer experience.  

“We are excited to welcome LeAnne and April to our leadership team.  Both LeAnne and April have a solid track record helping companies scale successfully, adopting industry best practices to expand our value proposition for customers,” said CEO, Bindiya Vakil. “Resilinc is poised for exponential growth in the coming years, and we are excited to have their capable leadership, empathy and passion to help us achieve our mission to make global supply chains resilient, sustainable, fair and secure.” 

With over 25 years of experience, LeAnne Hester is an accomplished insights-driven marketing executive with a successful record of delivering enterprise value to private and publicly traded companies ranging from start-ups to multi-billion-dollar organizations. LeAnne excels at driving bold marketing strategies that deliver results and cater to the needs and aspirations of all stakeholders, from prospects seeking innovative solutions and shareholders looking for sustainable growth to employees seeking to be part of a thriving, purpose-driven organization. During her time spent in the healthcare industry, LeAnne witnessed first-hand the importance of having proper supply chain risk management and why it’s essential not only to business continuity but also to patients’ well-being. As CMO, LeAnne looks forward to advancing Resilinc's mission and making a meaningful impact for potential customers and valued clients. 

Previously, LeAnne served in leadership roles including Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for TRIMEDX, Chief Commercial Officer for Perahealth, acquired by Spacelabs, and SVP, Strategic Initiatives for Leidos. 

April Oman comes to Resilinc as an accomplished customer success executive with 20 years of experience. She is known for driving results and revenue and transforming organizations to be customer-centric in a wide variety of industries and company sizes pre-and post-IPO. April is committed to generating value for customers, leading teams, and collaborating cross-functionally to facilitate go-to-market success. As CCO, April is eager to partner with customers to propel their supply chain risk management objectives forward while providing expert guidance on their path toward resiliency.  

Prior to Resilinc, April served as Chief Customer Officer at Sift. She was frequently a featured speaker at industry events as well as an advisor to several startup organizations. April has also held Customer Success leadership roles at D2L, Salesforce, Zuora, and Cornerstone OnDemand.  

LoyaltyLoop is excited to announce the launch of a groundbreaking integration with PlanProphet, bringing enhanced capabilities to companies using their CRM and marketing automation platform. Officially announced last week during the PlanProphet Champion Summit in Miami FL, this integration allows printers and graphics companies to leverage LoyaltyLoop customer feedback within PlanProphet.

Print and graphic companies can now optimize their operations with the LoyaltyLoop - PlanProphet Integration, creating a more cohesive customer experience. The integration seamlessly transfers LoyaltyLoop customer feedback results and associated data into PlanProphet, enriching the CRM records with valuable insights. PlanProphet users can now easily discern the status of their customers, including the timing of their last feedback submission and whether the experience was positive or negative. Furthermore, feedback results requiring immediate attention are prominently featured in the PlanProphet's Alerts. As LoyaltyLoop generates Leads and Referrals, PlanProphet users have the option to engage additional capabilities, facilitating automated follow-up campaigns to expedite the conversion of opportunities into closed deals. Setting up the integration takes only seconds and is available to any business running PlanProphet. There is no additional cost from LoyaltyLoop to use add-on.

John DiPippo, President of LoyaltyLoop, expressed enthusiasm about the partnership: "For printers running PlanProphet and LoyaltyLoop, our collaboration enables users to extract even greater value from our respective platforms. Printers will now possess a more comprehensive understanding of their customer base, empowering them to make informed decisions by seamlessly integrating customer feedback results into their CRM of choice. Closing business faster is a shared objective, and the capability to initiate automated follow-up campaigns based on customer feedback makes excellent business sense."

Lemay Sanchez, CEO of PlanProphet, echoed these sentiments: "Continuously seeking opportunities to boost operational and sales efficiency to PlanProphet's customers is our top priority. Our collaboration with LoyaltyLoop adds immediate value, offering deeper insights into customer relationship data that can drive additional business. LoyaltyLoop shares our vision of helping printers be more efficient, informed, and profitable, and this partnership is a testament to that commitment."

The LoyaltyLoop service automatically engages customers after a transaction and offers integrations with popular print management systems like Corebridge, EMPS, PrintSmith Vision, Printer's Plan, PressWise, and more. LoyaltyLoop tailors feedback services for each printer, encourages customers to post reviews on Google, enhances online visibility, and identifies new sales opportunities. Additionally, LoyaltyLoop monitors crucial customer experience metrics, including Net Promoter Score (NPS).

The Fifth Annual Report Reveals a Transformative Shift: Moving Beyond Convenience-Driven Purchases to Embrace the Gen Z-Led Era of The Multi-Channel Brand Experience 

In an era marked by content overload, the 5WPR 2024 Consumer Culture Report underscores the critical role of brand consistency as consumers navigate a dynamic shopping landscape that mirrors an evolving shopper mindset. 

The report reveals an increase across all categories in the percentages of consumers who intend to splurge this year, with some categories seeing an almost 10% increase. In 2023, 43% of consumers reported splurging on health & wellness products, rising to over half (52%) this year. Similarly, last year, 36% of consumers reported splurging on clothing & fashion, which has increased to 42% in 2024. 

However, the factors convincing them to spend, and the channels being used to drive purchase, are increasingly diverse and difficult to pinpoint. For marketers, this means that brand recognition across channels, and clear channel-specific value-add messaging, is stronger than any singular sales tactic. 

In terms of factors influencing purchase decisions, for most shoppers (46%), what ultimately drove them to spend was word of mouth, widely defined as recommendations from IRL friends and/or family members (71%). However, for consumers under the age of 55, word of mouth also extends to user-generated content across social media channels with 67% of Gen Z shoppers choosing being informed by social media user generated content as their top definition for what they associate as word-of-mouth marketing. Friends and family, and online customer reviews and testimonials followed closely while celebrity endorsements wield the least influence across all ages, with fewer than half of respondents considering them for word-of-mouth referrals.

Consistent messaging on every channel is also key in optimizing the consumer shopping experience. In a shift from recent years and diverging from other generations, nearly 50% of Gen Z (16-24) now note a preference for browsing in-store. The survey results indicate a pendulum shift away from the convenience-forward online shopping experience of years past, and towards a hands-on personal experience with their favorite brands.

"Unclear messaging around brand and product value leads to the disparities we see between trends in appetite to spend and ultimately the spending that's reported," said 5WPR Co-CEO, Dara A. Busch. "Consumers want to invest in themselves, so it makes sense they are spending generously in categories like health and wellness. Though excitement to spend on travel and experiences is high, the further the value proposition of the spend on personal wellbeing, the less likely they end up feeling inclined to make that purchase. For brands to convert consumer spending desires to actual purchases, it all falls to how they message the value proposition of that trip or experience on personal well-being. This is a key area for travel and experience brands, and brands in other categories, to explore in their messaging this year and beyond."   

Health and wellness rank in the top three categories for splurging, while consumers also express a desire to spend more on travel and excursions, with 41% of survey respondents making it the top category for predicted spending this year. Without persuasive messaging across every channel, however, marketers within these categories could miss their moment to convert. Our report reveals that consumers tend to overestimate the amount they will spend in this category. In 2023, 33% of consumers estimated spending in these categories, specifically, while only 30% actually made a purchase for that year. 

"What we're hearing from consumers in this year's report is that they are being served brand messaging in every channel and at every turn," added Busch. "This, combined with the fact that the number one channel they're relying on to purchase is word of mouth, followed by customer reviews and testimonials reinforces the need for crystal-clear brand positioning and storytelling across all channels – ensuring that as messaging is filtered across mediums and into the hands of consumers themselves, the value proposition remains clear to the end purchaser. Further, with Gen Z driving a return to stores, the same messaging and value proposition need to be reflected in the experience of brick-and-mortar shopping and the added value offered through that experience. It's a channel that cannot be overlooked."  

Other key findings from the 2024 Consumer Culture Report includes:  

• Younger consumers value the opinions of micro-influencers over those of macro influencers and celebrities.
   
• Consumers aged 15-44 are more likely to splurge than save when spending across their top categories. 
   
• While some consumers still prefer to browse for items online, a growing portion of younger consumers say they prefer an in-store experience. 
   
• Consumers prefer shopping in-store at department stores that stock multiple brands (49%) over shopping from singular brand retailers.