In the wake of major CDN acquisitions by Akamai, CacheFly stands out as the go-to alternative, offering businesses unmatched speed, reliability, and customer-first flexibility. With over two decades of unparalleled service and innovation, CacheFly remains committed to empowering global content delivery.

Aprimo continues to push AI boundaries and drive digital asset management innovation, while prioritizing safety, security and value.

Aprimo, the leader in digital asset management and marketing resource management solutions, is helping to define the next generation of collaboration through the seamless integration of artificial intelligence across its offering. The company has unveiled a range of innovative features that not only demonstrate a visionary approach to the future of content operations—but also offer practical benefits for companies today.

“AI has moved beyond being a buzzword, now serving as a transformative force driving business evolution and enhancing customer interactions,” said Erik Huddleston, chief executive officer of Aprimo. “Aprimo is leading in strategically integrating AI features that significantly improve the content lifecycle. This pragmatic approach empowers businesses of all sizes to advance into a future characterized by enhanced collaboration and innovation.”

A pivotal element of this journey is the launch of Content Collaboration, a paradigm-shifting addition to digital asset management (DAM) that redefines traditional collaboration within content creation workflows. At its core are Collaborative Rooms, seamlessly integrated within DAM, fostering effortless collaboration among users. These ad-hoc rooms provide an ideal environment for creative brainstorming and team ideation, enhancing content creation workflows.

Aprimo's AI Content Coach utilizes the user’s library of assets as a learning model, swiftly training and updating GPT frameworks. It tailors brand-aligned content for marketing channels and customer segments, facilitating quick access to product/service information across departments. The tool generates content variations in tone, language, and audience for a versatile content creation solution. Aprimo’s innovations include near-term plans to enable customers to invite a Content Coach to a Collaborative Room.

In addition to Content Collaboration and AI Content Coach, Aprimo has issued successful releases of multiple practical, purpose-built features, including Smart GPT Document Tagging, Smart GPT Text Fields, Smart Tag Trainer and Smart GPT Video Summaries – each playing a vital role in streamlining content management, ensuring digital assets are tagged, structured and presented effectively. All together, Aprimo’s comprehensive suite of features empower businesses to enhance their content operations, making content more accessible, manageable and engaging, thereby optimizing productivity and customer engagement.

Importantly, Aprimo has also been a leader in content governance. An active member of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), the company has introduced AI Content Detection. Identifying AI-generated content is vital to managing and governing it effectively. AI Content Detection automatically identifies AI-generated content from popular AI engines. This detected content can then be connected to automated review workflows, significantly lowering the risk that AI-generated content will be released without human review.

Looking ahead, Aprimo is actively unveiling transformative AI releases, including:

• Personalization: Enhancing customer engagement through highly personalized content suggestions, tailored to individual preferences and behaviors.
• Predictive Analytics: Utilizing AI to forecast content trends, enabling proactive adaptation of content strategies for optimal outcomes.
• Real-time Language Translation and Localization: Instantly translating and localizing content with the help of AI, breaking down language barriers and facilitating global collaboration.
• Advanced Security Measures: Implementing AI-driven security protocols to safeguard sensitive content and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.

“Aprimo’s AI features have added real, practical value for us, saving money and time,” said Shauna Lallatin, digital asset coordinator for Plaid Enterprises, one of the world's largest, most diverse manufacturers of creative do-it-yourself products. “Among its benefits, AI increases the searchability of our assets. The system reads product labels in images, PowerPoint, PDF, Word and Excel documents to add to the information included in the metadata we enter to allow a single search to pull up all related information. Our assets are quickly findable and available as soon as they are uploaded.”

Said Huddleston: “Generative AI is driving foundational changes for content operations. Aprimo is committed to ensuring our customers can capitalize on the tangible business benefits of AI and will continue to push AI boundaries and drive content management innovation, all while prioritizing safety and security.”

Today Sinch, which powers meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud, announced that Mailgun Optimize, the first deliverability solution built on an email sending platform, and Mailgun Validate, the fastest and most accurate address verification solution, are now part of the Sinch Mailgun product suite. Mailgun is an industry leader in email delivery, with over 400 billion emails sent every year for the world's biggest brands and technology providers. The expanded product suite improves every part of the email management lifecycle, all through one integrated platform and global Super Network, versus relying on piecemeal third-party solutions that lack insights at scale.

Email deliverability is extremely complex and poised to become even more difficult with upcoming policy changes from major inbox service providers. Following a dramatic increase in email volume that started in 2020, Google and Yahoo! will implement increased identity validation and other spam-prevention requirements for high-volume senders, matching established best practices such as DMARC, SPF and DKIM. Reaching users will be harder than ever, making sender reputation and strong deliverability practices the keys to successfully driving ROI. Mailgun Optimize and Mailgun Validate work seamlessly with Mailgun Send to bridge the complexities of delivery and deliverability, ensuring emails are reliably sent and landing in the primary inbox.

"Mailgun takes the guesswork out of reaching the inbox, setting the stage for unmatched ROI for every email sent," said Daniel Morris, Chief Product Officer, CPaaS, at Sinch. "By bringing together Mailgun Send, Optimize and Validate into a single platform, we are now the most reliable, scalable, and impactful email solution for enterprise brands and innovative technology companies."

A 2023 Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ Study found that for a composite organization of customers interviewed, the three-year incremental impact of using Mailgun for sending and deliverability was $627,000 due to 20.6 million additional emails being delivered and opened. Mailgun found that deliverability customers have a 97.4% average delivery rate, significantly outperforming the industry average of 84.8%, with bounce rates dropping to just 0.42% and open rates increasing by upwards of 21%.

Introducing the Mailgun Product Suite

Mailgun Optimize, formerly known as InboxReady, maximizes inbox placement by helping customers build and maintain their sender reputation while avoiding disruptions like blocklisting with advanced monitoring, reporting, and visualization. While Optimize is email service provider (ESP) agnostic and can be used on any platform to get actionable deliverability insights, leveraging it as part of the full Mailgun solution unlocks added benefits such as:

• Automatically integrated Microsoft SNDS IP data
• Real-time bounce classification
• Simplified inbox placement testing
• Expanded spam trap monitoring

Mailgun Validate verifies email addresses on demand to ensure customers are protecting their reputation by sending to the cleanest list possible. Validate uses real-world send data, rather than broken SMTP handshakes, combined with an industry-leading proprietary process for more reliable results. This multilayer verification approach includes MX record validation, grammar and typo checks, domain analysis and more.

Mailgun Send empowers businesses to send, receive and track emails effortlessly. Built by developers for developers, Send makes integrating a world-class cloud sending infrastructure easy through our RESTful email APIs, maintained SDKs and global compliance policies. With 99.99% server uptime and 24/7/365 support, even the largest enterprises can build impactful customer experiences on their terms.

TREW Marketing and Elektor have joined forces to provide never-before-seen insights about marketing to engineers and particularly technical buyers in Europe. The report, "Decoding Engineer Preferences," provides a new, comprehensive analysis of engineer preferences and technical buying behavior. It will be supported with an exclusive webinar on November 9, 2023 (16:00 CET).

The report offers need-to-know information for anyone marketing to engineers. Readers will benefit from unique and practical insights about how engineers interact with things like paid search ads, their preferred sources of information, and the types of content they find most valuable for work-related purchases. This cooperation between TREW Marketing, the US-based leading experts in engineer engagement, and Elektor, Europe's leading engineering community, truly offers the best of both worlds — highly useful research from a relevant and representative group of more than 1,200 technical buyers in Europe.

The November 9 webinar will be hosted by Erik Jansen, Managing Director of Elektor, and Wendy Covey, CEO of TREW Marketing. Together, they will present the highlights of this European-focused survey, and Wendy Covey will also offer some insightful comparisons to the State of Marketing to Engineers research released earlier this year. In one hour, Covey and Jansen will share results, highlight both similarities and differences, and provide attendees with a holistic view of engineer preferences when marketed to.

Some first highlights from the survey include:

• 58% of engineers avoid paid search links when searching online, but 29% will click if the paid link appears helpful.
• Technical publications (online) and supplier/vendor websites are the primary sources engineers turn to when researching products.
• Datasheets (86%) are overwhelmingly named as the most valuable content in decision-making, before Technical Articles (60%) and Product Reviews/Testimonials (50%).
• On a scale from 1 (no trust) to 10 (complete trust), engineers rate their trust in AI-based tools at 4.14.).

The webinar will also feature an interactive Q&A session where attendees can engage with the experts and dive deeper into the survey findings.

"We're thrilled to use our unique market position to share these insights with our community and clients," said Jansen. "Collaborating with the experienced team at TREW Marketing has not only added immense value to the report but has also been a rewarding experience for the Elektor team."

"Understanding engineer preferences is pivotal for businesses looking to tailor their marketing strategies effectively," Covey added. "This collaboration allows us to offer a global perspective on engineer behavior, empowering businesses to make informed decisions and strengthen their marketing efforts."

Springbrook Software, the leader in cutting-edge ERP platforms for local government agencies, has released a new modern AI-powered customer service solution: HelpDesk AI. The Springbrook HelpDesk AI empowers customers with lightning-fast access to vital product information, expediting their requests. This dynamic solution provides access to an extensive knowledge library covering all Springbrook Enterprise ERP modules, spanning Finance, HR, Payroll, Utility Billing, Payment Solutions, Tax Collection, Reporting, and Advanced Capital Budgeting.

Springbrook's HelpDesk AI harnesses ChatGPT technology and taps into Springbrook's immense product content library, packed with terabytes of video and textual resources.

"We are committed to providing our customers with the most advanced and easy to use solutions to address their everyday needs. Utilizing Artificial Intelligence in customer service takes us one step further in making our customer's works easier. Our new HelpDesk AI continually evolves through each customer interaction, fine-tuning its content delivery. Expect more groundbreaking technology like this across our Cirrus cloud-based finance ERP platform," says Robert Bonavito, Springbrook CEO.

Springbrook's HelpDesk AI boasts adaptive learning capabilities, expertly guiding customers to the right content using a series of questions and prompts. Backed by thousands of hours of customer service interactions, this solution is primed to handle virtually any request for training, guidance, or product details.

• Getty Images’ research revealed most popular visuals for Australasia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan continue to rely heavily upon stereotypical, inauthentic imagery representing various communities.

• Despite Asia-Pacific’s extensive span of cultures and demographics, there is limited diversity in imagery. Representation gaps range from disparities in depicting cultural specificities, to limited portrayals of Asian working life, among others.

• Getty Images today launched the “Inclusive Visual Storytelling for Asian Communities” report to support brands and businesses in APAC as they endeavor to be more inclusive in visual choices.

Getty Images, a preeminent global visual content creator and marketplace, today launched “Inclusive Visual Storytelling for Asian Communities” report to help brands expand and deepen Asian narratives. This guidance is a result of Getty Images’ ongoing global research initiatives, revealing that visual representation of Asian communities in Asia-Pacific (APAC) advertising remains stereotypical.

Powered by insights from Getty Images' VisualGPS research, the guidelines informed that less than 10% of most popular visuals for Australasia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan accurately represent Asian people and their lived experiences. Instead, most used imagery tends to lean heavily towards perpetuating common stereotypes: depicting Asians as youthful, slender, possessing lighter skin tones, and predominantly portrayed in work-related contexts. Furthermore, popular visuals remain similar in their underlying messages, styling, and emotion: often overly happy, and with little to no connection to each culture.

According to these guidelines, 4 out of 5 consumers across APAC agree that simply increasing the representation of individuals from diverse ethnicities, backgrounds, and appearances within advertising and media is insufficient, stating that companies also need to do a better job at capturing people’s true lifestyles and cultures. Strikingly, 3 out of 5 also said to feel they have been discriminated against based on body size, lifestyle choices, race, ethnicity, gender identity, disability, and sexuality. These findings underscore the imperative for the media and advertising industry to not only recognize the intricate diversity and multidimensionality inherent in Asian cultures, but also to align with consumer expectations in delivering authentic and meaningful portrayals of Asian identities.

To provide a comprehensive guide to visual storytelling centered on Asian communities, Getty Images’ new guidance encompasses various aspects of their identities, passions, and lived experiences, such as age, body, culture, disability, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation, profession, race and ethnicity. By presenting a robust spectrum of perspectives, the guidelines supply media and advertising professionals with practical and applicable insights, serving as visual checkpoints and equipping them to enrich Asian visual narratives within their brand communications.

“Despite the region's diversity, everyday images and videos that aim to capture Asian experiences often fall short, perpetuating harmful stereotypes or missing the mark entirely. This misrepresentation and underrepresentation in TV shows, social media and advertising has led to significant gaps in consumers’ understanding of the region's realities,” said Yuri Endo, Creative Insights Manager at Getty Images. “By sharing these guidelines, the report takes a significant step towards helping brands serving APAC customers promote accurate and respectful portrayals of Asian communities, ultimately contributing to a more inclusive and equitable visual landscape.”

Some of the identified representation gaps made visible in the report that are specific to APAC include disparities in depicting cultural specificities, underrepresentation of older adults, a lack of diversity in gender representation, limited portrayals of Asian working life, a prevailing preference for Eurocentric beauty standards and body types, an absence of individuals with disabilities, among others.

Delving into the nuances of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), the “Inclusive Visual Storytelling for Asian Communities” report, includes insights applicable across APAC, but also incorporates detailed insights into the local landscapes of Australia & New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and South Korea. Each country chapter provides local research about population demographics, imagery trends, underrepresented areas of diversity, and actionable strategies to combat stereotypes and promote inclusive representation.

The collaboration aims to boost digital sales and customer experience in the e-mobility era

Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced that it has signed a five-year collaboration with automotive marquee smart Europe GmbH to refine its Direct-to-Customer (D2C) business model in Europe and provide enhanced customer experience, data-driven personalization and engagement for the existing model smart #1, the newly announced smart #3, and other upcoming all-electric models from the iconic brand. Through this strategic collaboration, Infosys will help smart Europe GmbH redefine the online EV buying experience and apply state-of-the-art Machine Learning (ML) models to accurately forecast sales and aftersales demand.

Infosys was chosen to assist the premium EV maker in this transformation for its deep expertise in enabling consolidation across automotive sales and e-commerce processes and systems. To enable smart Europe GmbH derive exceptional value from software, data, and cloud investments, Infosys will leverage its trusted process, functional and technical expertise, complemented by a design thinking-led consulting approach. Infosys will also help smart Europe GmbH to efficiently sell electric vehicles across 15 European countries with a D2C sales approach and secure engagement across lead generation, prospect conversion, sales and aftersales channels, supplemented by end-to-end ownership and accountability.

Dirk Adelmann, Chief Executive Officer, smart Europe GmbH, said, "We are pleased to have Infosys as our partner on this journey. Infosys' strong leadership commitment backed by its ability to drive end-to-end application development and maintenance with efficiency and effectiveness, will help us boost our operational performance and user experience."

Jasmeet Singh, EVP and Global Head of Manufacturing, Infosys, said, "We are delighted to deliver our cutting-edge technologies to innovative companies like smart Europe GmbH to help ramp up their competitiveness in the European market. Infosys has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to powering innovation-driven customer experiences across touchpoints through our automotive and mobility offerings. Leveraging a blend of our expertise in the domain and strong regional presence, we will help smart Europe GmbH fast-track the adoption of cutting-edge digital solutions. The success of this engagement will be a real game changer for both smart Europe GmbH and Infosys in the electric mobility era."