Strategic acquisition delivers advanced conversational AI testing capabilities for improved chatbot accuracy and performance

Cyara, the leading AI-powered Customer Experience (CX) Assurance Platform provider, today announced its acquisition of industry-leading conversational AI testing company QBox. This strategic move significantly expands Cyara’s conversational AI testing capabilities, solidifying its position as a global market leader in chatbot optimization.

The acquisition of QBox complements Cyara’s existing chatbot testing & training capabilities, enabling enterprises to optimize the development, delivery, and impact of their chatbot and conversational AI investments. By combining Cyara’s expertise in CX assurance, including the optimization of conversational AI, with QBox’s unique approach to testing conversational AI applications, organizations will be able to address the needs of the entire team working on chatbots and voicebots, throughout their development lifecycle – from conversational designers to developers to QA professionals to business analysts.

“As organizations accelerate their investments in chatbots, voicebots, and conversational AI, the need for optimization, testing and risk management becomes a critical success factor, to ensure flawless digital experiences are delivered at scale efficiently,” said Alok Kulkarni, CEO and Co-Founder of Cyara. “This acquisition marks a milestone in Cyara’s journey to provide a comprehensive solution for optimizing AI-driven chatbot and voicebot performance and underscores our commitment to ensuring our customers can deliver a seamless and elevated CX in today’s evolving AI landscape.”

QBox brings a powerful natural language processing (NLP)-driven platform that allows organizations to fully deploy, test, and continually improve conversational AI chatbots at scale. Designed to assess the quality of NLP training data and evaluate a chatbot's efficiency in serving customers, QBox provides crucial visibility into the impact of changes or additions to the training data model. This insight enables companies to make informed decisions on scaling their chatbots’ domain knowledge and understanding performance.

Cyara’s acquisition of QBox marks a pivotal step in the company’s ongoing strategy to empower organizations in transforming and enhancing their CX through insights, automation and AI. With this acquisition, Cyara enhances its solution set in two key ways:

• Business Approach to Natural Language Understanding (NLU)/ NLP Testing: Cyara recognizes the diverse needs of product owners, business analysts, and designers in the realm of NLU and NLP testing. The integration of QBox into Cyara’s portfolio streamlines the testing process, offering a business-oriented approach that aligns with the priorities of these stakeholders. This enhancement will enable a broader group of stakeholders within an organization to ensure the effectiveness of their conversational AI solutions with efficiency and precision.
• Live-interaction Monitoring: QBox monitors real customer interactions to identify where the bot is performing well, and where it is failing to meet customer needs. This complements Cyara’s approach to bot monitoring whereby we execute a test case to perform a health check and make sure the bot is responding appropriately to critical use cases.

“By joining forces with Cyara, we bring together our unique capabilities to solve more use cases for a broader customer base,” said Benoit Alvarez, CEO of QBox. “Together, we can accelerate the advancement of conversational AI testing solutions and provide organizations with the confidence they need in deploying and managing conversational AI-driven interactions effectively.”

“We are proud founders of QBox, taking it to market in 2019. Handing the baton to Cyara is an exciting new chapter in conversational AI testing and performance management. Congratulations to Alok and his Team,” said Chris Sykes, CEO, Volume Group.

Evolving B2B landscape to grow to over $25 trillion in digital sales by 2030

Merkle, dentsu's leading technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, has released its new report, B2B Futures: The View From 2030. Merkle's analysis highlights four seismic shifts it predicts will transform the B2B sector by 2030: the emergence of machine-to-machine commerce, the evolution of global supply chain traceability, the dominance of digital marketplace business models, and radically accelerated speed to market.

For machine-to-machine commerce, Merkle expects that over one-third of all B2B commerce will be totally automated – representing $8 trillion in total value. With rapid advances in AI and the proliferation of "Internet of things" (IoT) devices across the economy, low-complexity replenishment transactions can increasingly be handled on a machine-to-machine basis. This means buyer and supplier systems can interact and transact directly, with no need for active human involvement. This represents a step-change advance in the sophistication and efficiency of B2B commerce.

"We've experienced so much change in the past few years – it can be hard to predict what the world will look like by the end of the decade," said Holden Bale, global head of Experience & Commerce at Merkle. "But our analysis points to a pace and scale of change that surprised even us."

In supply chain traceability, Merkle analysis charts how the world continues to respond to demand shocks and disruptions to the global supply chain in the wake of the pandemic. The report explores how growing consumer demand for improved visibility into the social, environmental, and geopolitical impact of their purchases is putting pressure on B2B companies. It also investigates how B2B executives and boards are requiring greater transparency into global supply chains to drive improved business decisioning. These forces contribute to Merkle's prediction that for many buying decisions, supply chain traceability will displace price or quality as a top two buying driver by 2030.

Bale adds, "For B2B leaders looking to future-proof their businesses, our report outlines the significant shifts already underway in the marketplace and what it will mean to win in B2B – now and in the future. Today's society is on the verge of a new era in how we develop products and services leveraging AI, synthetic biology, and novel forms of manufacturing. Merkle's data-backed forecasts show hockey-stick growth in digital B2B marketplaces. In a nutshell, the world is going to look very different – very soon."

This report combines six months of analysis across diverse global sources and proprietary data from thousands of B2B business leaders. It includes data from Merkle's B2B Superpowers Index, an annual global survey of B2B buyers in different industries – including technology, financial services, manufacturing, and professional services – and across key markets around the world.

New report underscores urgent need for improved bot protection measures in the US

DataDome, a leading provider of AI-powered online fraud and bot mitigation, unveiled insights from its US Bot Security Report, which found that a staggering 68% of US websites are unprotected against simple bot attacks, highlighting how vulnerable US businesses are to automated online threats. Findings show not only the significant risk websites face - especially as Americans head into the busy holiday shopping season - but also that traditional CAPTCHAs are no longer an effective tool in preventing automated attacks.

Bad bots are plaguing the internet and today make up over 30% of all internet traffic, which cybercriminals use to target online businesses with fraud and other attacks. Bots disrupt digital business operations, putting data security and the customer experience at risk, with severe consequences including financial losses and reputational damage. During the largest sales events, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, e-commerce platforms typically face at least five times — and sometimes up to 30 times — more bot attacks than on normal days.

"Bots are becoming more sophisticated by the day, and US businesses are clearly not prepared for the financial and reputational damage these silent assassins can cause," said Antoine Vastel, Head of Research, DataDome. "From ticket scalping and inventory hoarding, to account fraud, bad bots wreak chaos on consumers and businesses alike. Businesses which do not deal adeptly with bad bots risk significant reputational damage, as well as exposing their customers to unnecessary risk. They must act now to protect themselves against this growing threat."

To understand more about how US businesses defend themselves against these malicious bots, DataDome tested over 9,500 of the largest US-based websites across a range of industries, from banking and ticketing to e-commerce and gambling. The company's findings shed light on the prevailing state of bot protection across different industries and varying business sizes, and highlighted variations in the performance of different bot detection systems as well as the effectiveness of traditional CAPTCHAs as a defense mechanism.

More specifically, the research found that a significant majority of US-based digital businesses are not adequately protected against simple bot attacks. It showed that:

More than 68% of US websites tested are unprotected against simple bot attacks.

• Only 10.2% successfully blocked all our bot requests.
• 21.6% detected and blocked some of our bots, but not all.
• A staggering 68.2%—more than 2 out of 3 targets—let through all nine different types of bots (combinations of attack vector and geographic origin).

E-commerce and classified ads websites are particularly exposed.

• 72.3% of e-commerce websites and 65.2% of classified ads websites failed all bot tests.
• Gambling sites are the best-defended, with 31% blocking all the test bots.

CAPTCHA proves ineffective.

• Of the 2,587 websites equipped with only a CAPTCHA tool, less than 5% detected and blocked all bots.
• In 77.2% of the websites, the CAPTCHA tools failed to stop even a single bot.

The most 'successful' bots (from an attacker's POV) are fake Chrome bots.

• 85% of DataDome's fake Chrome bots were undetected.
• 83% of simple Curl command bots were undetected.
• Nearly 3 in 4 fake Googlebots were undetected.

The DataDome BotTester tool is available to access here: https://datadome.co/bot-tester/

Today's news comes on the heels of several recent announcements, including DataDome's rank to the 2023 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, its leader position in the Fall 2023 G2 Grid® Report for Bot Detection and Mitigation, the company's inclusion in the 2023 Inc. 5000, its channel partner program expansion, as well as closing $42M in Series C funding. DataDome has received widespread recognition in the past year for its market-leading detection and mitigation capabilities, including Best Use of Machine Learning/AI in the 2023 SC Europe Awards, the 2023 Fortress Cybersecurity Award for Application Security, the 2023 Global Infosec Award for Most Innovative Bot Mitigation, and more.    

Yoast, a pioneering plugin and the global leader in search engine optimization (SEO) for WordPress, owned by Newfold Digital, today announced AI-powered enhancements to its renowned WordPress SEO plugin. These enhancements help users write engaging and SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions for webpages. Using advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques, it generates creative and appealing titles and meta descriptions, captivating audiences while meeting search engine standards.

Writing optimal content for website titles and meta descriptions can be challenging and time-consuming, but it doesn't have to be. Now, Yoast SEO Premium can generate these crucial elements of effective SEO strategies with just a single click.

Yoast, the world's largest SEO plugin, leveraged its in-house SEO expertise to develop intelligent prompts to deliver optimal results for users. Yoast's AI title and meta description generator removes the hassle of manually crafting unique, high-quality titles and meta descriptions for each page. This saves users time, attracts more website traffic and increases click-through rates.

Writing engaging meta descriptions for the product pages of an online store is even more important. Product pages often contain general information, which should not appear in the search results pages. Yoast WooCommerce SEO, the eCommerce add-on to the Yoast SEO Premium plugin, now adds the power of AI to product pages, allowing users to generate the perfect title and meta description with just a single click of a button.

Yoast is taking its commitment to customer excellence to the next level through enhancements of its existing Premium product. Yoast's AI-powered capabilities are automatically included for Premium users, making unlocking the power of AI-generated SEO components as easy as a plugin update. When many SEO tools are implementing pay-as-you-go pricing models for AI usage, Yoast stands out. The latest update offers its Premium users unparalleled access to these AI enhancements, without complex activations or additional fees, charges or hidden costs.

"The digital landscape is ever evolving, necessitating continuous innovation. Yoast stands out as an exemplar in its commitment to ensuring that every website owner can access elite SEO tools that are easy to use," said Kimberley Cole, General Manager Europe at Newfold Digital, parent company of Yoast. "By deepening AI integration and extending it to e-commerce, Yoast is providing its users with the tools needed to excel in this dynamic digital domain."

With this launch of its first AI-integrated feature, Yoast, a trailblazer in innovation, signals the beginning of a series of advancements and reinforces its position as the SEO solution of choice for more than 13 million WordPress sites worldwide.

Hirings reflect Captify’s commitment to global growth and building upon its leading market position delivering relevant audiences powered by search intent

Captify, the leading Search Intelligence Platform for the open web, today announced the appointments of James Jones as Chief Marketing Officer and John Piontkowski as President, North America, to the company’s executive leadership team. Based in London, Jones will report directly to Mike Welch, CEO, while Piontkowski will be based in New York and report directly to Jack Bamberger, Chief Revenue Officer.

“We’ve seen tremendous momentum for our programmatic offering this year, scaling the number of campaigns running with our consumer intent data across all forms of digital media,” said Welch. “As we look forward to 2024, and say goodbye to third-party cookies, the expertise and experience James and John bring to Captify will be critical to driving continued growth of our cookieless, contextual solutions.”

As Chief Marketing Officer, Jones will be focused on expanding Captify’s position as the largest independent processor of search data outside of the walled gardens, powering full-funnel, programmatic media, and providing real-time insights for superior marketing performance. Jones is a leader with nearly 20 years of experience in B2B technology marketing across multiple sectors, including close to a decade in adtech. He has served in a number of marketing leadership roles at IMPACT+ and Xandr where he helped shape the businesses’ strategies and supported expansions into international markets. Throughout his career, Jones has worked at various companies--both small and large-- helping build their brands and drive global growth.

"I couldn’t be more excited to join Captify and lead such a talented team of marketers as the company enters the next stage of its evolution,” said Jones. “I've long been familiar with the Captify business as a partner and always loved the differentiated way the company has taken the brand to market. Captify has a great culture of innovation, and I’m looking forward to working with the team as the business and our industry continue to evolve."

Bringing over 30 years of experience in sales, sales management and executive leadership in the technology and digital media space, as President of North America, Piontkowski will lead North American business growth across top clients and prospects, from strategy to activation. Before Captify, he served as Chief Revenue Officer at Edgecast, a subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc., where he was responsible for leading a global sales, channel partnerships, and solutions engineering team. Piontkowski was part of the executive team that assisted Apollo with the sale of the division to Limelight Networks. At the newly formed company, Edgio, he was the General Manager for the global streaming platform business. For over 6 years, Piontkowski held various leadership roles at Yahoo! Inc., Oath, and Verizon Media running advertising teams. Prior to this, he spent almost 14 years at Microsoft where he began in their enterprise software business and moved into their advertising organization where he was the General Manager for the East Region sales and service organization.

“As the largest curator of search data outside of the walled gardens, Captify is well-positioned to help marketers succeed with audience targeting in the coming post-cookie ad landscape,” said Piontkowski. “I’m excited to be joining the company at such a pivotal time for the industry and look forward to leading our North American team to capitalize on this moment.”

Jon Addison and Kerry Ok solidify Okta’s go-to-market leadership team

Okta, Inc., the leading independent identity partner, today announced two new executive appointments. Jon Addison has been named Okta’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), and Kerry Ok has been named Okta’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Jon will report to Okta’s CEO and co-founder, Todd McKinnon, and Kerry will report to Okta’s Chief Customer Officer, Eric Kelleher.

Jon was named Interim CRO in February 2023, while continuing to serve as General Manager of EMEA, a role he held since joining Okta two years ago. As CRO, he will lead the team responsible for helping customers solve their identity challenges using Okta’s Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds. He has helped build a team that is expert at understanding customers’ business needs and identifying solutions that will protect them for a future where identity is a growing priority.

Kerry has been with Okta and Auth0 for over seven years, having joined Okta through its acquisition of Auth0 in 2021. As CMO, she will lead efforts to connect Okta customers with the company’s brand, products, solutions and mission and drive growth in an $80 billion market. She will oversee the teams responsible for demand generation, product marketing, brand direction, strategic events, digital and overall marketing strategy.

“Okta is mission critical infrastructure to organizations worldwide,” said Todd McKinnon, Okta’s CEO and co-founder. “Jon and Kerry bring the right vision, leadership, and results-oriented culture to their teams that will drive customers to choose and trust Okta as their identity provider. Okta has an impressive bench of internal leadership talent, and I’m confident in Jon and Kerry’s ability to capture the large opportunity ahead of us.”

“Our customers are looking to address the threat landscape by leveraging AI, building seamless customer experiences and implementing Zero Trust security,” said Jon Addison. “I’m honored to serve as Chief Revenue Officer and to help address this mission-critical need, backed by an industry-leading team skilled at driving innovation. It’s an incredibly exciting time to focus on AI and identity, and Okta is well-positioned to expand its leadership position.”

“There’s never been a more complex landscape for security professionals, IT admins, developers and marketers than today, and Okta is uniquely positioned at the center of each of these worlds,” said Kerry Ok. “We have a huge opportunity to educate and engage our customers about the power of identity in this pivotal moment, and I’m thrilled with the opportunity to help lead our team.”

Hololight announces new funding to accelerate its vision to stream any XR application on Hololight Hub, the industry’s first XR streaming platform

Hololight, the leading specialist in AR and VR solutions for the enterprise market, today announced it has secured a further $12 million in funding to accelerate the development of its XR streaming platform, Hololight Hub. As the only proven enterprise streaming platform on the market for immersive applications including virtual and augmented reality (XR), Hololight has set the benchmark in XR streaming, having pioneered the technology since 2015.

The funding has been led by European growth equity investor Flatz Hoffmann, with other key contributors including existing investors EnBW New Ventures, Bayern Kapital, and Future Energy Ventures. Following on from the company’s Series A investment in December 2021, the new $12m investment brings the company’s total investment funding to $27m.

The Need for Streaming in the Era of Spatial Computing and Industrial XR

XR streaming solves major challenges surrounding industrial applications and addresses the unique computing, data and security challenges of these environments. By streaming entire AR or VR applications across local servers and the cloud, Hololight Hub revolutionizes the XR experience by amplifying quality, access, and security of immersive content while simplifying management and deployment.

Building on 800% Customer Growth to Over 150 Customers in Three Years

Hololight currently serves more than 150 customers, including major accounts such as BMW, Nokia, and Engie, as well as a number of leading global aerospace and defense clients. Hololight is also a trusted partner to key industry players such as Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Verizon.

According to Hololight CEO Florian Haspinger, the investment will also see further global expansion, helping to fast-track further US growth after the opening of the company’s new US office in 2022, in Durham’s Triangle technology hub:

"It is our vision to stream any XR app on Hololight Hub to help enterprises break down the barriers to capitalizing on immersive technologies. The addition of Flatz Hoffmann as a visionary investor to the board underscores the expansion of our trajectory, and the steadfast support of our existing investors demonstrates their confidence in the progress they’ve seen at Hololight and the future of enterprise XR."

Bloomreach, the platform fueling limitless e-commerce experiences, today announced three features from Bloomreach Discovery that will unlock the next generation in search experiences and bring a new level of personalization. With algorithm weight customization, LLM-based precision, and visual search, businesses can drive even greater search relevance while maintaining control and flexibility to customize their e-commerce experience for the unique needs of their buyers.

Bloomreach’s advanced, AI-powered search and merchandising solution allows businesses to ensure every search connects customers with the products they need. The launch of its three new features will offer even greater flexibility, control, and customization as e-commerce teams build these relevant experiences for customers. Bloomreach Discovery’s newly launched features include:

• Algorithm weight customization: E-commerce teams will have the ability to gain greater control over the ranking algorithms powering their business’s search and category pages. Businesses can now adjust the weights of specific signals that are important to their business. When customers successfully find products that align with their needs, they are more likely to make purchases and build trust in that brand.
• LLM-based precision mode: E-commerce teams will be able to utilize the latest in machine-learning technology to generate search recall sets that are more relevant and precise.
• Visual search: Bloomreach Discovery is offering brands the option to allow users to search with an image instead of just text. After the image is searched, Discovery’s algorithm will recommend relevant products from the online shop’s catalog. This both shortens the customer’s path to purchase and drives greater product discoverability, especially for hard-to-describe products. Giving shoppers this level of flexibility within their journey, allows for a new and more personalized way for brands to engage with their customers.

“With Discovery’s three newest features, merchandisers and e-commerce developers are able to take their brand’s search capabilities to the next level,” said Jordan Roper, General Manager and Head of Product for Bloomreach Discovery. “Bloomreach understands how important providing a connected, relevant, and enjoyable search experience is to our customers and we’re excited to offer ecommerce teams more control over the site experience their customers prefer.”

Hundreds of leading brands use Bloomreach Discovery to drive more relevant product discovery for their customers, driving increases in revenue per visitor, add-to-cart rates, and more.