New solution enables gaming operators and platforms to cover the whole player lifecycle in full compliance

Sumsub, a full-cycle verification platform, today announces the first integrated solution for user verification, anti-fraud and compliance in gaming enabling both platforms and operators to seamlessly cover the entire player lifecycle and maximize revenue while staying compliant with all regulations and guidelines.

With this launch, Sumsub is the first vendor to provide a holistic verification solution covering player onboarding, gaming-specific fraud prevention, and compliance. The solution's four pillars to ensure full-cycle verification include:

1. Fast and secure Player Onboarding in full compliance with 220+ jurisdictions worldwide. It allows gaming platforms to onboard users in less than 30 seconds leveraging KYC/AML, age verification, and proof of address (PoA) checks. Additionally, Sumsub's Non-Doc Verification provides swift onboarding in selected countries enabling users to only need to enter an ID card number, without scanning any documents.
2. Fraud Prevention to fight scams such as bonus abuse, affiliate fraud, and account takeover in real-time based on specific rules preventing fraudsters and all suspicious users from making deceitful action, thus reducing reputation risks and fraud-related losses.
3. Player Risk Profiling and Analytics module, aimed at catching at-risk behavior fast with dynamic scores that flag suspicious activities through "play and spend" behavioral patterns (like deposit frequency or average bet amount) and customizable rules.
4. Responsible Gaming (RG) Compliance, a first-in-the-market automated solution based on Sumsub's Transaction Monitoring system and global compliance expertise, offers a set of rules to help gaming operations detect potential addictions and stay compliant with RG requirements.

"Gaming operators are overwhelmed with the need for separate solutions such as verification, bonus abuse prevention and player risk analysis. Often verification and anti-fraud vendors offer solutions initially developed for other industries like fintech. But they do not correspond to gaming companies' specific needs as they are not tailored to the user profile which is completely different in gaming. So platforms are left with no choice but to develop these solutions in-house," comments Jacob Sever, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Sumsub. "Now Sumsub launches the first full-cycle verification platform for gaming, providing sets of rules that are fully customized to the industry, player geographies and user profiles in gaming. Player Risk Profiling and Analytics module is incorporated into the solution, further reinforcing our support for gaming operators' and platforms' needs in reducing risk. Previously, we launched our automated Responsible Gaming solution to help gaming companies stay fully compliant with RG regulations."

Sumsub customers' success stories prove the claimed efficiency of the company's solutions for the gaming industry: Kaizen Gaming significantly boosted onboarding automation – from 15% to 70%, and increased its overall verification performance by 350%; Yolo Group grew users' pass rates by 142%; and CopyBet decreased players' time to value from 24 hours to less than 10 minutes.

Sixth annual Future of Video highlights the business of streaming, November 14-16 at the Marina del Rey, CA

Parks Associates' latest research shows a dramatic increase in the use of ad-based video services, as the number of US internet households that recently used an AVOD/FAST video streaming service increased from 31% in Q1 2023 to 41% in Q3 2023. The research firm's Video Service Consumer Insights Dashboard highlights the key metrics in streaming and video services, with trending data based on Parks Associates' ongoing consumer survey work of US internet households.

Parks Associates will host its sixth annual Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media on November 14-16 at the Marina del Rey Marriott in Marina del Rey, California. The agenda features industry leaders from AiBUY, ESPN, Google, Hallmark Media, LG, Love Stories TV, Paramount, Red Nation Television Network, Sling TV, XUMO, and more. The event is sponsored by Adeia, AiBUY, Bango, FPT Software, JW Player, Penthera, and SymphonyAI Media.

Future of Video will start on November 15 with the session "AVOD and FAST: Making Sense of New Hybrid Models," to discuss the strategies and successes behind these hybrid models, featuring the following speakers:

• Evan Bregman, GM, Streaming, Tastemade
• Daniel Gagliardi, VP, Digital Distribution and Business Development, FilmRise
• Samuel Harowitz, VP, Content Acquisition and Partnerships, Tubi
• Brian Kline, President and COO, Penthera
• Mark Moeder, CEO, SymphonyAI Media
• Scott Olechowski, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder, Plex

That same day, Sarah Lee, Research Analyst, Parks Associates, will present in the session "Tracking FAST and AVOD," where she will discuss the changing dynamics among consumers, streaming content, and services. She will share new research from Parks Associates to illustrate new bundling and partnership strategies for service providers in the OTT service space.

"The use of ad-supported services such as AVOD and FAST grew to 41% this quarter, confirming past predictions that more consumers will find these cost-effective options appealing," Lee said. "Streaming providers are raising prices and cracking down on account sharing in search of profitability, but consumers are struggling to make ends meet. Ad-supported business models are a win-win for both parties."

Future of Video features Parks Associates' analysts moderating all sessions, with insights, data, and analysis from the firm's ongoing consumer and industry research, including the Streaming Video Tracker.

As AI adoption continues, implementing a data strategy with proper data access and governance is imperative to managing risk and unlocking essential value from data

Immuta, a data security leader, today announced the findings of its fourth annual State of Data Security Report, which highlights the current state of data security amid organizations' rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI tools. The 2024 State of Data Security Report, commissioned by Immuta and conducted by customer voice platform UserEvidence, surveyed 700 data platform and security practitioners at global cloud-based enterprise companies across the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia. 

The findings indicate that adoption and use of AI tools is high across organizations, however many are concerned about the impacts AI will have on their larger data security strategy. Only half of the respondents say their organization's data security strategy is keeping up with AI's rate of evolution. What's more, despite AI's recent boom, implementing stronger data governance and security controls will be a higher priority for data teams in 2024. When asked what significant initiatives their company is taking on in the next 12 months, 80% of respondents said their top priorities were data security related initiatives – such as implementing stronger data governance and security controls, and modernizing data architectures with new concepts like data mesh – while only 20% noted integrating AI into business processes will be a top priority.

"With the rapid onset of AI solutions and ongoing push to migrate data to the cloud, data leaders are now grappling with how to prioritize data security, agility, and visibility. They need solutions that provide both proper data protection and the flexibility to use data to drive value," said Matt Carroll, CEO of Immuta. "Without the foundation of a strong data architecture and data security strategy in place, it will be impossible for organizations to safely integrate AI into their processes. Business leaders must design AI-specific security strategies that include the right protocols and policies to protect data."

Other key findings from the report include:

Artificial Intelligence Sparks Excitement and Security Risks for Data Professionals
The rapid evolution of AI and machine learning (ML) has spurred both excitement and concern across organizations. According to the report, employees are already leveraging these tools to increase productivity and streamline processes within their roles. Nearly nine out of 10 (88%) of data professionals note their employees are using AI, and many data professionals are confident AI will help them become better at things like anomaly detection (44%) and phishing attack identification (46%).

At the same time, many are concerned about the broader security impacts AI will have on their organization. More than half of respondents (56%) cite the exposure of sensitive data via an AI prompt as their greatest area of concern. This trepidation reinforces the need for AI-specific security strategies and policies so organizations can confidently and securely utilize the technologies and also launch AI models at scale.

Data Governance and Compliance Are Top Priorities
Although AI is top of mind for data professionals across every sector, trust, security, and compliance are still leading organizational priorities. Nearly all (88%) data leaders believe that data security will become an even higher priority in the next 12 months, ahead of AI. With 80% of data professionals indicating that their data protection capabilities are better than they were a year ago, it's likely budgets and resources will increase as data security continues to be a growing priority for business leaders amid today's evolving threat landscape.

Collaboration Is a Vital Element of Data Security
As organizations grow, their structures become more intricate and they manage more data – both of which make data security increasingly challenging and critical. This also creates more complexity around data ownership. According to the report, there is no clear owner of data security across organizations. Respondents indicated that the job title most commonly accountable for data security is Data Privacy or Security Manager (19%), or Chief Technology Officer (15%). However, numerous other roles were also noted as being responsible for data security. This lack of ownership creates challenges around managing security collaboratively, which leads to teams operating in silos and insecure deployments.

Data Access Is Still a Major Security Challenge
Similar to findings from last year's report – which found that 63% of data professionals lacked visibility into data access controls – data access remains a major security obstacle for teams: 33% of respondents cited a lack of visibility into data sharing and usage as their biggest security challenge, and that they have missed business opportunities as a result.

At the same time, 56% note that data security processes slow down access to data, meaning that over half of organizations are sacrificing some level of data-driven value for essential security outcomes – trading agility for trust and compliance.

By leveraging large language models, call recordings are transcribed to text, while also generating condensed summaries and one-line descriptions in seconds for iOS and Android users

Truecaller, the world’s leading global communications platform, today announced its Call Recording feature to enable iOS and Android users to receive voice-to-text transcriptions and summaries of recorded phone conversations powered by large language models (LLM) services like GPT. The feature is now widely available to Premium users in the U.S. and Canada.

The launch of Call Recording is beneficial to professionals whose work revolves around taking multiple daily phone calls where notes need to be impeccable and available quickly, including sales, legal, media, and real estate. For example, a lawyer can now record phone calls and receive the transcription as well as a summary to help them prepare for trials and build case files. The workforce is now implementing LLMs to ease challenges like this and improve overall efficiency. With access to an LLM like ChatGPT, 15% of work tasks in the U.S. could be significantly faster at the same level of quality.

“There’s been a significant increase in spam calls over the years and with new technologies like AI now available, it’s crucial to use them at their full potential to protect consumers’ security,” said Alan Mamedi, co-founder and CEO, Truecaller. “Our new Call Recording feature is built with transparency and privacy by design, using LLM to transform how we congregate conversations and deliver them in a seamless way in a variety of formats. We are excited to launch this globally and support all professionals in not missing important details during calls.”

Every country has its own set of regulations about informing the other party about the recording of a call and Truecaller follows each privacy policy. The application implements an audible beep sound that notifies both parties about the start of the call recording. Truecaller ensures recorded conversations are transferred to the user’s device immediately at the end of the call to maximize privacy.

AI-Driven Shoppable Ads and Sustainable CX Take Center Stage in New Study

Acxiom^®, the customer intelligence company, today released its annual trends report, "Where AI and Marketing Collide." The quantitative research reveals the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the customer experience (CX) and offers a strategic guide for brands seeking AI-powered marketing success.

Commissioned by Acxiom and conducted with global research and consultancy firm MTM, the study draws on feedback from 200 businesses and insights from 2,000 consumers across the US and UK.

Tate Olinghouse, Chief Revenue Officer at Acxiom, notes, “This year, AI has revolutionized brand-customer engagement. Our report dives into the emerging trends for 2024, providing perspectives from both brands and consumers on how AI will further elevate the customer experience in the year ahead.”

The Five CX Trends to Watch in 2024:

• Shoppable Ads: Leveraging AI, e-commerce, and digital advertising, these ads streamline the path from browsing to buying, evolving with user behavior and offering unprecedented personalization. The report shows that 66% of consumers value the convenience of discovering products relevant to their interests.

• Proactive Customer Service: Embracing conversational and generative AI, this new era of customer service leverages digital self-service and improved agent support, ensuring a frictionless and seamless CX. Notably, the study highlights that over one third (35%) of consumers favor AI chatbots over humans for basic interactions.

• Healthy Acquisition & Retention: Pivoting to AI-powered strategies for acquiring and retaining high-value customers, brands prioritize lasting profitability over sheer growth. 73% of customers surveyed remain loyal to brands that offer tailored, meaningful experiences.

• Predictive Personalization: Using AI to intuitively anticipate and address customers' wants and needs, brands are set to revolutionize CX. Nearly half (47%) of the report's respondents engage more actively with individualized content and offers.

• Sustainable CX: Catering to eco-conscious and socially aware consumers, AI empowers brands to align business objectives with consumer values. The study found that 44% are willing to pay a premium for sustainable products, and 38% weigh a brand's social impact before purchasing.

Chad Engelgau, Acxiom's CEO, adds, "2023 brought AI breakthroughs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, reshaping how we approach CX. Yet, it's crucial to note that AI's brilliance shines brightest when grounded on accurate, ethically sourced data. For brands to thrive using this advanced technology, a robust customer intelligence strategy is essential—prioritizing foundational analytics, scaling AI efforts, and balancing personalization with privacy and respect are key. Our report paves the way forward for successful AI-enabled CX."

Vonage, a global leader in cloud communications helping businesses accelerate their digital transformation and a part of Ericsson, announced today that SuperPhone®, an all-in-one SMS marketing platform, powered by Vonage Communications APIs is helping brands increase engagement with customers, drive revenue and grow their business.

"SuperPhone® was designed to support coaches, creators, brands and retailers build relationships and authentic connections with their audience at scale," said Ryan Leslie, CEO, SuperPhone®. "Our platform needed to enable seamless communication at high volume, across channels, so choosing the right technology provider was key - and that's what we found in Vonage Communications APIs."

SuperPhone's mission is to help coaches, creators, brands and retailers achieve the highest levels of customer engagement possible with a robust suite of powerful features including broadcast messaging, 1-to-1 communications, filtering, IVR & voice calls, and analytics. By leveraging Vonage's SMS API and Voice API, SuperPhone® is enabling businesses to connect directly with their key audiences over two of the most preferred communications channels, building stronger relationships and enhancing customer loyalty.  

"With Vonage SMS and Voice APIs, SuperPhone® empowers businesses to personalize their customer engagements, expand the reach of their services and communicate with customers on the channels they prefer," said Colin Brown, VP Product & Carrier Services, Vonage. "We are proud to work with businesses like SuperPhone® to accelerate digital transformation and build better connections, conversations and engagement with customers around the world."

Vonage Communications APIs make it easy for businesses to enhance customer engagement by building video, SMS, messaging and voice experiences within any mobile, web or desktop application.

Stagwell, the challenger network built to transform marketing, today announced a unique partnership with Google Cloud and SADA, a Google Cloud Premier Partner, to develop generative AI (gen AI) marketing solutions that support Stagwell agencies, client partners, and product development within the Stagwell Marketing Cloud (SMC).

Through this collaboration, SMC will build AI-based tools for modern marketers and receive development support from Google Cloud as a strategic cloud and AI provider. This work will greatly enhance SMC's ability to identify, develop, and infuse AI capabilities into all of its products. SMC will leverage Google Cloud's gen AI solutions including Vertex AI, Duet AI, and other advanced tools to create new solutions, initially spanning the following areas to help customers:

• Transform brand campaigns: Develop go-to-market programs for brands supported by gen AI, specifically with SMC's Media Studio Audience Identification, PRophet Monitor, and PR applications.
• Accelerate gen AI solution development: Develop solutions that drive market-leading initiatives, such as translation services for market research and survey solutions, and an AI agent-to-agent service.
• Harness data analytics and insights: Develop and train a proprietary Stagwell large language model (LLM) purpose-built for Stagwell clients; productize data assets via APIs to create new digital experiences for brands, and multiply the value of their first-party data ecosystems to drive new revenue streams using Vertex AI and open source-based models.

Additionally, SMC plans on releasing its solutions on Google Cloud Marketplace in the future, scaling access to Stagwell's marketing-focused AI-enabled product suite.

The partnership comes as artificial intelligence is poised to help transform a diverse range of popular consumer segments such as automotive, entertainment, financial, hospitality, retail and more, driving operational efficiencies, marketing transformation, and customer experience innovation for digital companies worldwide. For Stagwell, the collaboration with Google Cloud adds a trusted technology partner who can accelerate the company's ability to identify, build, and scale AI products.

"Partnering with Google Cloud is an opportunity to strengthen our SMC offering and engage with some of the best technology professionals as we build, test, and scale our gen AI products, enabling us to get market-shifting technology in the hands of our teams and our client partners faster than ever," said Mark Penn, chairman and CEO, Stagwell. "As we work to lead the AI-based transformation of marketing, it is an honor to partner with Google Cloud and SADA to chart the future on AI."

"Through Stagwell's collaboration with Google Cloud, brands can gain competitive access to the transformative power of gen AI, accelerating the development of customer-centric marketing campaigns with enhanced data analysis and automation," said Caroline Yap, Managing Director, Global AI Business, Google Cloud. "This partnership exemplifies Google Cloud's commitment to getting cutting edge technology into the hands of customers through its easy-to-deploy, scalable, and secure AI solutions." 

"At Stagwell and in the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, we are laser-focused on reinventing the marketing technology stack with AI-infused products and solutions," said Merrill Raman, Global Chief Technology Officer, Stagwell. "With rich proprietary data and insights from our in-depth knowledge in core marketing disciplines, we are eager to work with Google Cloud  and develop purpose-built gen AI models and tools that drive value for our clients and help them win in the marketplace."

"SADA is proud to be Stagwell's trusted advisor on their gen AI and cloud transformation journey. We're thrilled to be a part of this exciting partnership working with a visionary company like Stagwell that is leading with technology to help take their businesses to a completely unprecedented level," said Tony Safoian, President & CEO, SADA.     

Chart-topping songs from trending pop to classic jazz, heavy metal and disco are now available for use in creating on-trend videos and designs in Canva.

Canva is making it easy for its Pro and Education customers to access a new library of music clips featuring some of the world’s biggest artists. By doing so, the company is enabling its community of millions to create more engaging content by incorporating their favorite songs into their design work.

For the first time, Canva is providing access to sixty-second clips of commercially-released songs for personal use in videos, social media posts, presentations, education materials, and beyond through partnerships with Warner Music Group (including Warner Chappell Music and Warner Recorded Music), Merlin and over a dozen other labels and publishers.

Canva is the first visual communication platform to add commercially released music at the point of creation, for content that can be shared across multiple platforms. Now, Canva customers can browse and embed more than half a million songs from a wide range of genres and artists, such as Michael Buble, Vance Joy, Kenya Grace and Curtis Mayfield, and thousands more, enabling them to bring their designs to life.

Content creation for social media on Canva has grown exponentially in recent years, as video-based social platforms drive the growth of the fast emerging visual economy. Today, online video usage represents more than 65% of global internet traffic, and in the last year, the number of Canva designs using TikTok templates has grown 10x. As more people create videos in Canva, audio searches for specific artists and songs have also increased.

In addition to opening new possibilities for Canva users, popular music on Canva puts record labels and artists directly in front of millions of creators, and allows them to earn royalties when clips of their songs are used in published Canva designs.

“Like visual communication, music is a universal language that serves as a powerful tool for self-expression,” said Silvia Oviedo, Head of Content, Discovery and Print at Canva. “Adding popular music to Canva is a natural evolution of our vision to put the entire visual communication ecosystem under one simple platform. We’re thrilled to give users a unique starting point and make it easy for them to add great music into their work.”

How to use popular music in Canva

Canva Pro’s music library has everything from chart-topping pop songs to classic jazz, heavy metal and danceable disco, all easily accessible right from the audio tab in the Canva editor. Users can now create music-filled designs and bring to life what’s in their mind's eye. Here are a few of the possibilities:

• DIY designers can showcase their musical tastes and personality by adding songs to travel vlogs, wedding videos or holiday greetings.
• Content creators can edit short-form videos like a professional for non-commercial purposes on social media, and publish across platforms in a single click.
• Teachers can get students engaged by adding music to lesson plans, homework materials and more.

The newly expanded music library is available to Canva Pro and Education, with small enterprises using Canva for Teams and Nonprofit users to follow, in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Free Canva users can browse the new music library, but will need to upgrade their subscription to use it in designs. The popular music library cannot be used in content created for commercial purposes, across all Canva account types.

Canva partners with Warner Music Group, Merlin and more

Earlier this year, Warner Music Group and Merlin announced first-of-their-kind partnerships with Canva, and now, those partnerships come to life with hundreds of thousands of songs available in Canva’s popular music library.

Rachel Scarpati, Senior Director, Business Development and Digital Strategy, WMG and Andrew Ludwick, Vice President of Business Development, Digital at Warner Chappell Music said of the partnership, “Warner Music Group is thrilled to see our partnership with Canva come to life with launch! We are committed to constantly exploring new revenue streams for our artists and songwriters, all while creating opportunities for them to establish unique connections with their fans. We can’t wait to see how Canva users enhance their designs with their favorite music.”

“Merlin members are enthusiastic to see their artists’ music made available to Canva users — a platform that’s at the forefront of visual communication and creator tools,” said Charlie Lexton, Chief Operating Officer at Merlin. “Since the initial announcement of our partnership, we’ve been eagerly awaiting this launch. We’re excited for Canva users to connect with Merlin member music, which features the most dynamic independent music from around the world.”

The most powerful all-in-one visual communication platform

Before Canva, design tools were fragmented and expensive. Now in its 10th year, Canva has streamlined visual communication so that it’s easy for anyone to plan, create, schedule, publish, and analyze social media content in one place. On-trend templates and the drag-and-drop editor make it simple to create professional-quality designs, and take them to the next level with animations, graphics, audio tracks, filters, and special effects.

The launch of popular music comes amid a year of record growth and expansion for Canva. The company has added dozens of new products and features in the last year, delivering on its promise to bring every design capability into one simple, easy to-use platform. More than 65 million new users have started using Canva in the last year – a milestone that originally took the company eight years to achieve. Canva now has 16 million paying subscribers and 50 million Canva for Education users.