Partnership leverages Ansira's loyalty program design, implementation, and run-ops expertise with Annex Cloud's flexible platform to create solutions for customers; alliance will focus on the automotive sector to start

Ansira Partners, Inc.  ("Ansira"), an independent global marketing services and solutions company with proprietary channel, website, and advertising technology, today announced a strategic partnership with Annex Cloud, a technology platform that transforms customer loyalty experiences for global enterprises. Collaboration between the two companies will result in greater loyalty offerings for clients from enhanced tracking, rewarding, and profiling, to strategy and analytics, as well as a robust loyalty solution for the largely untapped automotive dealer sector.

"Ansira has deep expertise in designing loyalty programs and providing loyalty strategy for clients, and our partnership with Annex Cloud combines our experience with their loyalty technology platform to create solutions that can go to market at speed," said Ansira's EVP of Integrated Loyalty Sukumar Muthya. "Our collaboration enables Ansira to offer packaged solutions where our customers want flexibility, designed and managed as a turnkey solution."

Ansira's unique go-to-market approach provides marketing solutions through its own proprietary technology and services, but the team is also tech independent, allowing for them to work within a client's tech stack, or to partner with their strategic alliances to bring forth the best recommendation for a client's needs. The Annex Cloud partnership will allow for the creation of a "loyalty in a box" solution offering for the automotive industry where loyalty programs are designed and managed, providing flexibility and speed to market for the client. This packaged offering will also bring unique capabilities for analytics support to enterprises outside of their marketing organizations.

"Our customers are in the center of everything we do, and we are thrilled to announce this strategic partnership with Ansira to further support our customers and their loyalty goals," said Annex Cloud Chief Revenue Officer Erin Raese. "Beyond supporting our clients' loyalty programs, customer experience (CX), personalization, and 'show me you know me' capabilities, within the partnership with Ansira we'll have a services offering to support data collected through our social behavior tracking, rewarding influencers in unique ways, gamification, and progressive profiling tools."

Part of the strategic alliance between Ansira and Annex Cloud is focused on engaging the essentially untapped market of auto dealers. Ansira's deep concentration in the auto vertical from the OEM to the hyper-local dealer level provides a market perspective, coupled with Annex Cloud's flexible platform, that gives dealers with single or multiple dealerships a significant advantage when creating a customer loyalty program given the data challenges across automotive tiers.

"Ansira works across multiple industries from retail and QSR to tech and financial services – and we have a major concentration in automotive, from the enterprise OEM to the dealers' doors. From our experience we have identified a significant pain point from auto dealers in their need to create loyalty programs specific to their local level and customers," Muthya said. "Dealers are not seeing their customers on a weekly or monthly basis, so they can't engage with a simple rewards program. Rather, they need to incent customers to use the dealer service lane and they need to keep them engaged over a longer stretch of time at the community level. Ansira's partnership with Annex Cloud is the ideal solution for dealers with one or multiple dealerships to gain entry into creating a loyalty program through a turnkey solution on a flexible platform backed by expertise in loyalty strategy, analytics, and knowledge of the operating models of an auto dealership."

Ansira is backed by Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, with deep expertise in the business and financial services sector.

Blackpoint Further Expands Cloud Security with Identity Response for Azure AD, Creating a Groundbreaking Product for Single Sign-On

Blackpoint Cyber, a SaaS-based MDR solution provider, has announced the launch of a brand-new Cloud Response feature, Identity Response for Azure AD. This new offering is the first of its kind, cloud Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Single Sign-On (SSO).

In light of the surge in identity-based attacks, where threat actors exploit victims' login credentials from compromised services or successful phishing campaigns, Blackpoint Cyber is taking a proactive approach to counter these threats. They have built a groundbreaking feature within Cloud Response: Identity Response for Azure AD. This feature amplifies the security of Microsoft environments and extends protection to third-party applications interconnected via Azure SSO authentication.

"Since the launch of Cloud Response last year, we were the first to monitor Microsoft 365 environments and provide true response on alerts. With Identity Response for Azure AD, we're blazing another trail, as the only company to contextualize SSO logins to Azure and put them in front of the SOC for response," said Xavier Salinas, chief technology officer at Blackpoint. "In an era dominated by cloud operations, it's undeniable that while it revolutionizes operations and boosts businesses, it also widens the scope for threats."

Identity Response for Azure AD empowers the Blackpoint SOC to:

• Identify unauthorized access and discern if the login originated from Microsoft or an associated third-party service
• Recognize and take swift action against suspicious logins through Azure SSO
• Protects against attacks that deceive users into green-lighting malicious enterprise applications, inadvertently granting attackers access to an organization's Microsoft assets

Identity Response for Azure AD provides Blackpoint partners with:

• Further visibility into vulnerabilities within their attack surface
• Increased knowledge of potential data exposure, allowing for faster remediation
• Added context for audit procedures and damage assessment endeavors

Salinas continued with an example of how this new product can protect users and companies, "In the recent sophisticated attack on MGM, the alleged compromise of a user's SSO account allowed the adversary to access critical infrastructure, resulting in a reported revenue loss of around $2B. By applying protection to SSO, it becomes possible to identify and respond to sophisticated attack chains utilized by threat actors whether technological or, in the alleged case of MGM, psychological. Therefore, we will continue to forge the path for SSO protection, as this unmonitored attack surface continues to grow. Our partners can depend on our unwavering commitment to innovate, shielding, detecting, and counteracting threats in this evolving landscape."

Identity Response for Azure AD is available through Cloud Response within their product bundle, Blackpoint Response. This suite of security products is aligned to proven security frameworks such as NIST. With this product bundle, businesses can employ a unified defense strategy against the myriad of cyberthreats across attack surfaces.

BlackBerry UEM and ServiceNow Flow Designer integrations allow IT administrators to automate a variety of otherwise manual device management tasks.

BlackBerry Limited today announced that it has partnered with leading digital workflow company ServiceNow to automate device management for organizations. The solution, which integrates ServiceNow Flow Designer  and  BlackBerry® UEM , will help reduce administrative burdens on IT teams on commonly used device management tasks while maintaining the highest levels of security.

Available now in the ServiceNow Store , the new certified integration automates tasks including user activations, policy configurations, device commands, and more. IT teams will be able to customize the UEM actions they want to automate for a solution tailored to their organization.

"We are thrilled to partner with ServiceNow and enable organizations to automate their IT operations," said Neelam Sandhu , Director of Elite Customer Success at BlackBerry. "BlackBerry UEM and ServiceNow's Flow Designer are trusted around the world and across industries. This new integration will enable our customers to reimagine digital workplace productivity while continuing to enjoy the highest level of security."

"ServiceNow is excited to welcome BlackBerry UEM to the ServiceNow Store," said Nick Tzitzon , director of strategy and corporate affairs at ServiceNow. "BlackBerry's commitment to technology innovation and enterprise security is aligned with that of ServiceNow. This partnership has significant potential for our customers."

Advanced AI Solution Offers Enhanced Controls, Transparency, and Reporting across Reels for Brands

Today, Zefr, the leader in brand safety and suitability technology, is proud to announce our AI-Powered Brand Suitability Solution is now available across Facebook and Instagram Reels. This marks a significant evolution in ensuring brand safety and suitability across Meta, providing brands with unparalleled transparency into their content adjacencies on Reels - a video-rich format that demands the most sophisticated technology and AI for scaled measurement.

By leveraging the massive global scale of Reels and having the tools to gauge brand suitability, advertisers can explore new reach opportunities and engage a more expansive audience, boosting their overall media efficiencies. Zefr's cross-industry collaboration with both Meta and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) ensures that ad-adjacent content is aligned with GARM's safety and suitability standards.

Zefr's brand suitability verification solution for Reels provides advertisers with an intuitive Atrium dashboard, showcasing content-level examples, risk levels and impression data aligned to the GARM Safety and Suitability standards, categorizing content based on risk level. We also collaborate with Meta to ensure brand interests remain safeguarded throughout the ecosystem.

"As we look to the future of the digital landscape, we're ensuring our global brand partners receive unparalleled transparency and reporting across the world's largest social platforms. Our collaboration with Meta in developing this independent, AI-powered solution for Reels underscores our commitment in evolving the responsible marketing landscape," says Richard Raddon, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Zefr.

Samantha Stetson, VP, Client Council and Industry Trade Relations at Meta, said, "Working with partners like Zefr has been instrumental in providing advertisers with critical brand suitability solutions like third party verification. Our cross-industry efforts represent significant progress in our broader brand safety and suitability efforts, offering advertisers both control and transparency on the suitability of their campaigns – and we are thrilled to now offer these solutions on such Reels, an important and growing placement for clients."

REPUBLIK, a global technology company building new ways for people to interact, proudly announces the successful conclusion of its $6 Million Seed funding round. The round saw participation from leading investors, including OKX Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Arcane Ventures, CMS Holdings, Comma3 Ventures, Define Ventures, Enjin, FBG Capital, HTX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Oracles Investment Group, Signum Capital, Sora Ventures, and UOB Venture Management.

The capital raised is instrumental in building REPUBLIK's platform and developing cutting-edge, web3 creator tools on the blockchain. Currently in beta across web app, iOS, and Android platforms, REPUBLIK has garnered substantial traction, empowering creators with new ways to interact and get rewarded for their contributions to the platform.

"For too long people have given their time, attention and creativity to existing platforms for almost nothing in return. REPUBLIK is going to change that by ensuring that the value of the community is fairly distributed. We're excited to have investors who share in our vision and partners that are helping us build a true community-owned platform," expressed Daniel He, REPUBLIK's CEO.

Unlike traditional social platforms, where monetization options are fragmented and often come with high fees, REPUBLIK uses Web3 technologies to streamline the entire process, drastically reducing costs borne by Creators. This results in Creators keeping a significantly larger share of their earnings, but also enables a token-based reward system that allows everyone to earn for interacting with content, referring friends and supporting Creators.

While legacy platforms capitalize on user attention without direct compensation, REPUBLIK believes that online communities have great value, and that this value should be fairly distributed to the people who helped create it. As such, XP in the app represents how much value a user brings, while RPK will be a freely traded token representing the value of the community. The more XP a user has, the more RPK will be distributed to them.

• World's largest creativity conference spotlights groundbreaking generative AI innovations, including three major new models in Adobe’s Firefly family of creative generative AI models designed to generate content safe for commercial use

• Over 100 new features released across flagship Adobe Creative Cloud applications including new Firefly-powered features and web-based workflows in Illustrator and Photoshop, new AI-powered editing capability in Lightroom, plus new AI-first Generative Fill and Text to Template features in Adobe Express

• New Adobe GenStudio accelerates enterprise content supply chains with new customized models of Firefly to ensure content is on-brand and scalable across enterprise marketing and creative workflows

Today, Adobe kicked off the world’s largest creativity conference, Adobe MAX 2023, which is broadcasting live for three days from Los Angeles to creators and marketers across the globe. With major product releases, inspiring speakers and community inspiration and engagement at the center of the event, this year’s MAX is ushering in a new era of Creativity for All. Building on the momentum of Firefly’s general availability and the launch of Adobe GenStudio, Adobe will showcase AI innovations that are redefining creative workflows and enterprise content supply chains. At MAX, the company will also host a meeting with financial analysts and investors.

Adobe today unveiled three new Firefly models – Adobe Firefly Image 2 Model, Adobe Firefly Vector Model and Adobe Firefly Design Model – models that are designed to generate content safe for commercial use. Adobe released over 100 major new AI features and updates across Creative Cloud flagship applications, including Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Stock.

Adobe Express now delivers even more AI capabilities with the addition of Generative Fill, Text to Template and Translate making the all-in-one creativity app even faster and more fun for users of all skill levels. For students, the new Drawing and Painting features are a game-changer in bringing their ideas to life.

To enable enterprises to keep up with the rising demand of real-time content creation and activation, Adobe showcased Adobe GenStudio. Adobe GenStudio is a new solution that brings the best of content ideation, creation, production and activation together with customized Firefly generative AI at the core to revolutionize the enterprise content supply chain. Adobe’s new end-to-end solution integrates Creative Cloud, Firefly, Express, Frame.io, Analytics, AEM Assets and Workfront to enable on-brand content creation at the speed of imagination.

“Since the release of our first Firefly image model in March, we’ve been taken aback by the amazing response from the community, who has demonstrated how useful Firefly is to enhancing experimentation and design and speeding up workflows, without compromising creative control,” said David Wadhwani, president, Digital Media Business at Adobe. “With over 3 billion image generations to date, including more than a billion in the last month alone, the early adoption of Firefly demonstrates the unique power of bringing foundation models into the workflows customers know and love.”

Firefly

Adobe is developing high-quality Foundation Models across media types. Today, Adobe announced Firefly Image 2 Model, Adobe Firefly Vector Model and Adobe Firefly Design Model, as the next major releases in its family of creative generative AI models. Firefly Image 2 is the next generation imaging model that brings a new level of creative control and quality to users. Firefly Image 2 generates higher-quality imagery, renders humans more accurately and enhances text alignment to deliver even better outcomes for creators. Firefly Vector Model is the world’s first generative AI model focused on producing vector graphics, bringing Adobe’s vector graphic and generative AI expertise directly into Adobe Illustrator workflows with Text to Vector Graphic – used to create logos, website graphics, product packaging, icons and more. The new Firefly Design Model powers the instant generation of amazing quality template designs such as flyers, posters, invites and more directly within Express with the new Text to Template capability.

Content Credentials – which serve as a digital “nutrition label” to AI-generated assets – are automatically attached to Firefly outputs and can show information like the creator’s name, date, edits made and tools used. At MAX, Publicis Groupe will preview its vision for deploying Content Credentials at enterprise scale for the advertising and creative industry to restore trust online with major brands.

Creative Cloud Innovations

Building on the success of Generative Fill in Photoshop, which has seen a 10X adoption rate compared to past releases, Adobe introduced new Firefly-powered workflows in Illustrator with Text to Vector Graphic and in Adobe Express with Generative Fill and Text to Template capabilities. Additional innovations across Creative Cloud include new tools in Illustrator including Mockup and Retype and updates to Share for Review, along with the all-new Illustrator on the web. AI-powered advancements to Lightroom include Lens Blur, HDR Optimization, Point Color as well as a new streamlined editing experience in Lightroom mobile.

Adobe also announced the general availability of Photoshop on the web with Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand, now available on Google Chromebook Plus devices. Additionally, the company released new AI-powered Text-Based Editing and motion improvements in Premiere Pro and After Effects, seamless publishing of video content to TikTok, YouTube and Facebook from Express and Premiere Pro plus dozens of other new innovations across Creative Cloud apps.

Adobe Express Innovations

Express users can now use Generative Fill, the creative co-pilot powered by Firefly, to easily insert, remove, or replace objects, people and more in any image using just a description. The new Text to Template generative AI capabilities, built on the new Firefly Design Model, makes getting started with a design even easier, giving users the ability to generate extraordinary, editable templates using just a text description. Translate spares users time localizing content with the choice of 45 languages. The new Drawing and Painting capabilities add over 50 fun multicolor paint and decorative brushes, mimicking charcoal, pencil, watercolor textures, plus student-friendly drawing templates, available in the Express for Education offering, to make designing beautiful effects like flowers, hearts and more, simple and quick.

Adobe GenStudio & Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe is also showcasing Adobe GenStudio, a new end-to-end solution that brings together best-in-class applications across Creative Cloud, Express and Experience Cloud, with Firefly generative AI at the core to help brands meet the rising demand for content. Adobe unveiled powerful customization of Firefly models as well as new APIs, which ensure enterprise content is on-brand and scalable across marketing and creative workflows. By optimizing content supply chains – the process of producing and delivering the content that fuels impactful customer experiences – brands can now drive business growth through scaling personalization efforts to deliver customer engagement and loyalty. Additionally, Adobe is reimagining customer experiences with the all-new Adobe Experience Manager Sites with new capabilities that allow businesses to quickly test and optimize web content to drive conversions and deliver outstanding site speeds with Adobe-developed performance tools – including optimized boiler plate code, phased page rendering, persistent caching and continual real-user monitoring.

About Adobe MAX

Adobe MAX – the world’s largest creativity event – offers something for creators at all skill levels, from all walks of life, working across all forms of media. Running from October 10-12, the three-day conference in Los Angeles is packed with creative luminaries, musical performances and global, collaborative art projects and round-the-clock networking. Speakers such as actor Adam Devine, record producer, songwriter and entrepreneur Oak Felder, creative director Karen X Cheng, founder Aaron Draplin, and co-founder and creative director Walker Noble will inspire and entertain audiences with their stories and insights into their creative processes. Adobe MAX will also showcase how Adobe is using Firefly with Creative Cloud, Express and Experience Cloud to power a world-class event experience.

New AI features use natural language to allow any user to automate more of their everyday work via the UiPath Business Automation Platform

UiPath, a leading enterprise automation software company, today at its global user conference, FORWARD VI, announced its platform’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) features with Autopilot™, an integration of Generative AI, Specialized AI, and automation that allows any user to automate work fast using natural language.

UiPath Autopilot can transform paper documents to automation-powered apps with a single click, enabling digital transformation that has eluded enterprises for too long. The new AI features of the UiPath Business Automation Platform reveal untapped automation prospects and process enhancement opportunities, and guarantee efficient development of automations, all anchored in a foundation of enterprise-grade capabilities.

AI-powered Autopilot capabilities include:

• For developers – empowers both professional and citizen automation developers to create automations, code, and expressions with natural language. In UiPath Apps, Generative AI-powered experiences help developers create workflows, generate expressions, build automations, and even create automation-powered apps from PDFs or images.
• For everyone – Autopilot for UiPath Assistant provides an AI companion to partner with any user to tackle tasks, and will include Clipboard AI, a time-saving feature for copying and pasting complex data between applications. These AI tools rapidly decrease the time typically needed to accomplish data-intensive work and tedious tasks. Business users can also use API and UI automation to update line of business systems to automate more work under human supervision.
• For automation testers – Autopilot for Test Suite accelerates every phase of the testing lifecycle, generates tests from requirement, and surfaces actionable insights from execution results.
• For business analysts – Autopilot for Process Mining enables business analysts to use natural language to filter, summarize, and create dashboards for their automation opportunities. Also, Autopilot for Communications Mining gives automation center of excellence teams comprehensive tools to uncover automation opportunities through natural language prompts.

“Since ChatGPT launched late last year, there has been an influx of new app-specific copilots. These are immensely powerful for summarizing and creating content, and I expect we’ll continue to see every app create a copilot,” said Flo Ye, Director, Automation Solutions at dentsu. “But there is a huge unaddressed opportunity with these GenAI-powered copilots: they enable brainstorming, but not action. That’s the beauty of UiPath Autopilot – it unites the patchwork of app-specific copilots and empowers you to take action based on your specific business rules and application stacks. In other words, Autopilot works alongside humans the way that we actually work, across applications and contexts. I’m particularly excited about how Autopilot for StudioX will continue to lower the barriers to automation entry for our cohort of citizen developers at dentsu.”

“The new Autopilot capabilities at UiPath enable citizen development in a novel way. Autopilot for Studio, in particular, means that learning programming skills, low code or not, is becoming less critical than learning about technology capabilities,” said Hemant Porwal, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain and Operations at Wesco. “We are already incorporating this vision into our next wave of citizen developer training.”

UiPath enables AI at work through intelligent automation solutions built with best-in-class Generative AI and a library of Specialized AI models adhering to principles of open, flexible, and responsible AI. With an open approach, UiPath empowers customers to leverage the entire AI ecosystem to devise AI-driven automations, delivering actionable, measurable results.

The company also announced at FORWARD VI its UiPath AI Trust Layer, a management framework for the governance of data, user interactions with UiPath Gen AI features, and large language models. The AI Trust Layer gives customers the necessary confidence, visibility, and governance to responsibly manage the use of Gen AI within UiPath.

“By taking a user’s words, screenshots, or PDFs from paper documents as an input, Autopilot for Apps can create a robust automation workflow or interfaces for automations. This enables ‘one-click digital transformation’ for organizations by taking automated action,” said Graham Sheldon, Chief Product Officer at UiPath. “UiPath can operationalize the transformative force of AI through automation, seamlessly integrating intelligence into everyday operations, automating all knowledge work, upleveling employees, and revolutionizing entire industries with AI at work. And importantly, the UiPath AI Trust Layer will allow customers to use these new AI capabilities with confidence knowing their data is secure.”

The latest AI innovations from UiPath provide users critical context that acts as a compass for the next best actions, such as a chat with a customer for a service modification, paying a supplier’s invoice in a new operating region, or taking the pain out of completing work travel expenses.

“Automation is the best path to deliver on whatever AI conceives,” Sheldon said.

With more than 1.6 million learners, UiPath Academy is expanding its curriculum to include Specialized AI training and certification that practitioners, customers, and partners can tap into

UiPath, a leading enterprise automation software company, today announced the next evolution of UiPath Academy, the world’s first free and open online training platform for automation professionals. With more than 1.6 million learners today, UiPath Academy is now bringing tailored Specialized AI training curricula and certification opportunities to its learning community, reinforcing its dedication to upskill and reskill all generations of workers and equipping them with skills needed for real-world automation and AI projects at work.

Automation and AI are crucial for digital transformation success and effective training and certification programs, alongside diverse talent sourcing approaches, are essential. But according to a new IDC Vendor Spotlight, sponsored by UiPath*, Closing the AI and Automation Skill Gap in Modern Enterprises with Outcome-Focused Training and Certification, October 2023, executives at large enterprises across the globe are facing unprecedented pressures around adopting artificial intelligence, addressing ever-increasing data complexity, and managing a growing skills gap. In fact, according to the IDC Spotlight, 47% of North America enterprises identify a lack of necessary IT skills as a key impediment to successful automation implementation and 70% of global organizations have achieved less than 50% progress in fulfilling their front-office business automation objectives.

Despite the growing need for reskilling and job training, educational opportunities and training are not easily available or accessible for most people. UiPath is committed to investing in the future workforce through its UiPath Academy, which is focused on training and reskilling for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow.

“We’re experiencing a technological paradigm shift that necessitates changes in the workforce, particularly in automation and AI. While companies seek to automate processes across the enterprise, the talent pool required to manage new AI capabilities is still shallow,” said Hedley Potts, UiPath Vice President of Customer Experience & Enablement. “That’s why UiPath is constantly investing in our learning and enablement capabilities. These enhancements to our training and certification programs further our commitment to empowering people with the in-demand automation and AI skills to succeed in newly emerging careers and remain competitive in their current roles.”

In addition to the new Specialized AI curriculum and certification, UiPath Academy has evolved to include the following offerings:

• Navigate Your Path with the Career Guidance Survey: UiPath has introduced the latest Generative AI tool – a personal Career Guidance Survey. This tool will guide learners to their ideal role in automation based on their background and interests and taking into consideration unique strengths and ambitions. The tool takes the user’s input and suggests an automation role to pursue.

• Discover Career Paths in Automation: To provide learners with an in-depth understanding of the world of automation and AI, UiPath has prepared extensive documentation on each of its core roles, including Automation Developer, Business Analyst, Solution Architect, Infrastructure Engineer, and Specialized AI Professional.

• Learn About the UiPath Educational Ecosystem: Learners can immerse themselves in our vibrant community, including UiPath Forum discussions, joining our UiPath Community, or earning prestigious Certifications.

Get Certified at UiPath FORWARD VI and TechEd Day

UiPath FORWARD attendees can get certified for free during the event in the following roles: UiPath Automation Developer Associate, UiPath Automation Developer Professional, UiPath Automation Business Analyst, and UiPath Specialist AI Professional. UiPath certification is now the industry standard for automation education.

Unmatched Commitment to Democratizing Automation and AI

UiPath is also launching an “Elevate Your Skills Program,” a 10-day learning sprint that kicks off on October 23, for professionals that want to develop in-demand automation and AI skills. This program includes a tailored UiPath Academy learning plan with free, on-demand courses, a community of learners to collaborate with, and office hours with experts in multiple time zones.