Business users, regardless of technical skill level, can build applications quickly and easily that solve problems and deliver insight, all within the Quickbase platform

Quickbase, the dynamic work management platform, today announced Quickbase AI. The new suite of AI-powered capabilities, embedded into the Quickbase platform, gives business users – regardless of technical ability – the power to build applications quickly and easily that connect data and uncover insights that drive down costs and accelerate revenue growth. These AI capabilities are now available on a limited basis across the Quickbase platform, both for existing and prospective customers; already, over 1,000 applications have been built using Quickbase AI.

“Introducing AI into our platform levels the playing field, empowering everyone in the business to solve problems at the scale and speed of their business,” said Ed Jennings, CEO of Quickbase. “The average worker is looking for solutions that help them get work done, faster. We put AI into the hands of the people who can benefit most from it so that workers can use it to get work done. Unlike other solutions, Quickbase AI lets users, regardless of technical skill, quickly and easily build applications and solutions to solve their most complex workflow challenges – in minutes, all in one easy-to-use and sophisticated platform that is light years ahead of anything else available today. It’s a game-changer for business users and enterprises alike looking to eliminate the wasted time and resources that slow down work and delay projects and profitability.”

Gray Work, the lost time the average employee spends searching for information, dilutes productivity and impacts collaboration and timely decision-making. For enterprises, all this wasted time and siloed information has a profound effect on overall costs. The full suite of Quickbase AI delivers capabilities to get at this Gray Work challenge, removing obstacles to get work done, understanding data and adjusting project and revenue goals, so that you can run your business. In accelerating the adoption of a no-code tool and the onboarding to enable full use of a dynamic work management platform, Quickbase AI also helps enterprises advance their journey to modernize their technology stack with AI-powered capabilities that drive growth.

Chief among the new capabilities in Quickbase AI is Smart Builder, a generative AI app builder that lets users, regardless of technical experience, quickly, easily, and safely build fully functional applications in minutes for their specific use case. Using user-defined descriptions (leveraging natural language processing) of those business problems (project delays, supply chain breakdowns, etc.), Smart Builder helps business users eliminate the current gray work slowing down their projects.

In addition, Quickbase AI includes:

• Data Analyzer: A virtual “data scientist in a box” that helps identify and predict key outcomes by identifying unseen patterns across data, regardless of where that data is stored (hybrid, relational or graph databases), creating an integrated and simplified data user experience to discover opportunities (or threats) impacting optimal business performance and outcomes.
• Data Scanner: Enables proactive data governance and protection using machine learning, scanning for patterns and outputs across silos and applications for easier and faster classification, removal and/or protection, ideal for managing large data sets across disparate systems and applications.

With Quickbase AI, business users can drive productivity continuously across every project, reducing the manual processes that drive up cost and complexity and uncovering trends and patterns in their data that fuel smarter decision-making and resource allocation – from active inventory and materials management to product/service demand forecasting and predicting maintenance/replacement needs on equipment – that are indicators of potential delays. All with the confidence that their data is secure and not shared anywhere outside of the Quickbase platform.

• New global study assesses the opinion of 10,000 consumers on finding the balance between regulation and innovation of GenAI

• There is interest in GenAI across the globe with 72% of consumers surveyed having some excitement around GenAI

• While 68% said it is essential regulation does not discourage business innovation, GenAI transparency is a must

Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering, today released findings from a new global study that reveals there is consumer appetite for businesses using generative AI (GenAI) in the innovation of products and services, yet only where businesses are transparent and proactively communicate how they are using it. The research examines what consumers expect from businesses to maintain their GenAI social license to innovate with emerging regulations.

Among the key findings:

• There are equal amounts of fear and excitement about GenAI
  • While 30% are mostly excited about GenAI, there are 42% that are part excited, part nervous.
  • There is hope from 83% of consumers that businesses can use GenAI to be more innovative and to serve them better. Those more likely to buy from businesses using GenAI would do so for greater innovation (59%), to give them a better customer experience through faster support (51%) and a more personalized experience (50%).
  • But there is an expectation that businesses should use technology ethically while they innovate (87%).
• Majority agree that regulation is necessary for responsible use of GenAI
  • People recognize the need for GenAI regulation, with governments playing a vital role in its design, development and deployment. The vast majority (90%) agree government regulations are necessary to hold businesses accountable for how they use GenAI.
  • If a business fails to incorporate responsible and ethical thinking when using GenAI, 93% of surveyed consumers say they risk facing detrimental impacts, such as legal and regulatory issues (65%) and reputational damage (65%).
  • Businesses need to be transparent about their use of GenAI, otherwise they risk losing current and prospective customers. The greater part of consumers (85%) prefer businesses that stand for transparency and equity in their use of GenAI.
• Businesses have a social license to operate GenAI
  • Of those surveyed, 68% believe businesses must continue their rapid pace of GenAI innovation while effective government regulation is developed.
  • In order for businesses to use GenAI appropriately, consumers believe regulations should have businesses clearly outline how data is used (68%), ensure there is no illegal content generated (63%) and disclose when content is generated by GenAI (62%).

Speaking on the report’s findings, Mike Mason, chief AI officer, Thoughtworks, said, “In a world where trust is paramount, businesses must understand that gaining the public’s confidence through ethical AI is not just a regulatory obligation, it's a strategic advantage. For decades, Thoughtworks has advised our clients on how to tap into the full advantage of the latest emerging technology while also building responsible governance into business processes to protect customers’ trust.”

Vanson Bourne’s principal research manager, Lauren Woodley said, “Thoughtworks took a unique perspective to the fast-paced topic of GenAI, exploring how consumers feel when interacting with businesses that use it. The findings are alarming, with consumers stating many concerns surrounding how businesses use their GenAI-related data. This emphasizes the social responsibility businesses have in building trust and reassuring consumers. If businesses are able to tackle the concerns through being proactive and transparent, the future of GenAI looks positive – from more innovative products / services, to an improved customer experience, the results do indicate feelings of excitement among consumers. But the overshadowing cloud of fear must be lifted first.”

Mason continued, “GenAI offers endless possibilities. We’re helping our clients experiment to prove out new capabilities that survey respondents are excited about, such as idea generation for more innovative products, faster support and more personalized experiences and then productionizing those experiments as enterprise-grade software.”

New Chrome Extension Merges Email and Browsing Experiences to Save Users' Time and Simplify Online Shopping

The new lockrMail Chrome extension empowers internet users to access email discounts, easily autofill website registrations, set custom filters for email delivery, confirm verification emails and read email content directly within the browsing experience.

Less than 1% of emails from brands pertain to order updates or shipping notifications. lockrMail is a free email productivity tool that enables users to pre-filter their inboxes by utilizing a unique and secure email address across all internet activity. Users decide which promotional emails reach their personal inbox with the ability to pre-select filters such as order updates and receipts or discounts that fall within a specific range. Filters can also be customized based on specific keywords or attachments. lockrMail is compatible with all email clients.

lockrMail beta users have filtered messages from more than 150,000 businesses, saving an average of 45 minutes each month. Uber, Poshmark, Shein, Amazon and DoorDash are the most filtered or blocked brands amongst the user base.

The new lockrMail Chrome extension alerts users of email discounts in real-time while shopping online. If a brand has emailed a recent, valid discount to either the shopper's lockrMail account or their Gmail account authenticated with lockrScan, the extension will notify the user with a link to activate or copy the coupon code. Discounts are available even if the user has blocked or filtered the emails containing them. The prompt notifications ensure users never overlook valuable discounts, enhancing the shopping experience and maximizing savings potential.

The extension also gives users added control as they browse and shop. Additional features of the extension empower users to: 

-          Allow, block and filter emails directly at the point of registration on a brand's site, as well as on an ongoing basis
-          Set and change the inbox that they want to receive messages to for any given website
-          Verify a new account or reset their password with the required code or link in real-time on the website
-          Group similar senders into custom "digests" with added filters to improve the relevancy of emails
-          Read full emails without leaving a brand or publisher website

Keith Petri, CEO and founder of lockr, said, "Your email address is your key to the internet and online shopping. But all of our inboxes are flooded with unwanted emails. With our lockrMail Chrome extension, users can seamlessly extract the information they need - like verification links or discount codes - from their inboxes in the exact moment they need it as they browse online. The inbox is personal. We want to help keep unwanted noise out of users' personal space, while still unearthing hidden treasures from the clutter."

Thinkific Labs Inc., a leading platform for creating, marketing, and selling online learning products, today announced the launch of 'The Leap by Thinkific' ("The Leap"), a powerful AI tool for content creators and influencers to build, promote and sell exceptional digital products in record time.

Thinkific first launched The Leap, as a  media property starting on TikTok, in 2022, as a way to reach more Creators, earlier in their journey. In the last 18 months, The Leap has grown to become the world's most popular media property focused on Creator monetization, with over 150,000 visits a month, 50,000 newsletter subscribers and millions of video views on social media.

Powered by AI, The Leap's first-of-its-kind digital product authoring tool allows Creators to input a content idea and, in just a few clicks, generate comprehensive drafts for digital products like mini courses, guides and tutorials, all designed to be consumed on mobile and feel intuitive to social audiences.

"The Leap opens the door, allowing Creators like me to very quickly and intuitively transform my ideas into digital learning products," said Katarina Terentieva, Entrepreneur & Creative Director. "It's a powerful tool that lets me do in minutes what used to take weeks or months - creating new products, growing my audience and making sales."

Additional features of The Leap's new Creator tool include:

• AI Powered Content Generation: Digital products are generated quickly and easily via Creator ideas
• Integrated Storefront: Creators can easily generate dedicated storefronts and individual sales pages to showcase and sell digital products or utilize as lead magnets.
• Mobile-Optimized E-Commerce: All Leap products and storefronts are optimized specifically for mobile purchasing, catering to the modern consumer and social audiences.

"At Thinkific we are focused on solving big problems for Creators to make it easier to start and scale their businesses. The Leap does just that - giving Creators a quick way to build and sell digital products - leveraging Thinkific's innovative AI and mobile learning experience," commented Greg Smith, CEO at Thinkific. "I'm really excited to share this with customers who have been struggling to get their first or next product off the ground and start making sales. The Leap makes it so much easier and faster. This opens up a new segment of our market for Thinkific to serve. There are 44 million Creators with over 10 thousand followers. The Leap enables them to convert their followers into customers."

Global research reveals that product, CX teams need better ways to capture, interpret, and act on customer behavior as budgets shrink and performance targets grow

While nearly three-quarters (73%) of DX professionals say their organization has a clear, consistent strategy for digital experience, a majority still rely on guesswork and gut feeling to make critical digital decisions - and 58% believe they are lagging competitors in the use of AI in digital experience optimization. That’s according to a new report on digital expectations and realities from DX data and insights platform FullStory.

The new study of 700 global DX professionals reveals that 43% do not have a clear view of customer preferences across their websites and apps. Half of DX professionals (50%) say they have no clear view of their customers’ behavior online, while 62% don’t have visibility of customers’ attitudes and beliefs. This figure rises to 73% for those attempting to understand customer moods and mindsets.

This lack of visibility makes it difficult for companies to achieve their digital objectives and improve their customer experiences, with 81% of respondents saying they have no clear visibility of when their customers are frustrated in apps or online.

This disconnect is especially urgent as product, UX, CX, and marketing professionals find themselves in the hot seat heading into the holidays and new year. Eight in 10 survey respondents (79%) say their business targets have increased for the year ahead, even as 51% face budget cuts. As a result, 66% report that they’ll have to do more with less.

Bridge the DX data gap

The survey indicates that the biggest obstacle to customer understanding is the gap between the complete, comprehensive data that DX teams need and the data they’re able to gather. According to the study, a third (33%) say that they have no single, reliable “source of truth” to inform their strategies. And two-thirds (67%) report that they often have to re-tag their site or mobile app when new questions arise.

Data silos are adding to these challenges, with 28% agreeing that relevant team members can’t directly access the DX data they need to make decisions. Nearly a third (30%) also agree that teams end up replicating the same work without knowing it due to disjointed systems and unreliable tech.

To overcome these issues, 71% of DX professionals are investing in DX insights and analytics platforms, with 35% adopting “frustration signal analytics,” 27% investing in session replay technology, and 49% using a full-service DX analytics platform.

Commenting on the findings, FullStory CMO Lindsay Bayuk said: “Product and CX teams are under increasing pressure to deliver extraordinary experiences - effectively and efficiently. While most have clearly defined DX strategies, many still struggle to harness and use the data and insights required to bring these digital strategies to life.

“The good news is that DX pros who invest in complete data capture and actionable insights can gain a meaningful edge over their peers and the competition. The platforms that bring these data and insights together into a single source of truth are the future of this market.”

Meta-DSP company Genius Monkey announced a partnership with StatSocial, an industry-leading social audience insights platform built to empower marketers and researchers to make more informed decisions. StatSocial leverages a comprehensive set of self-declared social audience data for a deeper understanding of consumer audiences, brand measurement, and social and influencer ROI.

Genius Monkey – who has been paving the way in the programmatic attribution space for 10 years – continues to push for better ways to show ad lift, effectiveness, and audience insights in order to test and redeploy to converting audiences for maximized ROI. Under a multi-year partnership, Genius Monkey is integrating StatSocial to show a deeper relationship between the targeted audience and their interest affinities.

Genius Monkey COO, Travis Champ, had this to say about the partnership announcement:

"Audience insights and the ability to learn and optimize has always been a primary focus here at Genius Monkey. However, extracting that data from every DSP and network can limit the amount of data points you are able to collect on any individual, giving you only a vague knowledge of their true persona and personality." Champ continued "On top of this, Google Analytics persona and demographic data is notoriously not the most accurate. That is why Genius Monkey sought out an integration with StatSocial through Genius Monkey's identity graph in order to map household devices and data points to billions of social media platform profiles. This integration allows the Genius Monkey platform to learn more about what users that are being targeted are truly interested in, who they are, and have the ability to use those insights to further optimize our platform users' campaigns."

The StatSocial integration will allow Genius Monkey to:

• Analyze current customer base to identify and compare niche audience segments, and create new consumer audiences within the platform for valuable insights that will guide future go-to-market decisions
• Deploy powerful always-on tracking to better understand exposed and engaged social audiences, further improving our ability to measure campaign impact and brand awareness
• Expand survey and panel data to include over 85,000 new customer attributes such as passions, interests, preferred media, and much more
• Enrich respondent profiles with social affinity data, allowing us to be more flexible and launch on-the-fly analyses to incredibly niche sample audiences

Jeremy Hudgens, CRO of Genius Monkey, had this to say: "One of the most important things to us at Genius Monkey is showing continued value to our platform users. We have been listening to user input and the request for more audience insights and have delivered just that through this StatSocial partnership. We are very excited to put these data sets to work and continue ROI optimization while providing users with more knowledge on their customer base."

Lumifi's recent acquisition of Castra Managed Services aims to expand its capabilities and reinforce its commitment to the Gartner Visibility triad. With Castra's expertise in Exabeam, the SIEM capabilities will reach new heights.

Lumifi®, a leading innovator in managed detection and response (MDR), proudly announced its acquisition of Castra Managed Security. Castra is a revered enterprise-level MDR firm specializing in Exabeam, a security information and event management (SIEM) platform.

The partnership between Lumifi and Castra amplifies the Gartner SOC Visibility Triad, enhancing visibility through combined expertise in network detection and response (NDR), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and SIEM within their security operations centers. This collaboration powers a 24/7/365 cutting-edge Security Operations Center (SOC), merging Lumifi's innovative ShieldVision™ software with Castra's distinguished MDR services. ShieldVision™ is an advanced multi-tenant platform that excels in threat hunting, detection, and swift automated responses. At the same time, Castra's expertise in the Exabeam infrastructure ensures top-tier security at cost-effective rates for businesses of all scales.

Grant Leonard, co-founder of Castra, emphasized the value of partnerships, saying, "I am excited about the immediate synergies between Lumifi and Castra. We are excited to bring honed Castra services to a much larger audience and scale."

David Norlin, CISO of Lumifi, expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership, stating, "We're thrilled to join forces with Castra. This collaboration strengthens our SIEM capabilities, offering our clients more choices and control in designing their security architectures. We remain committed to providing diverse technological options that guarantee unparalleled service quality, and the Castra acquisition exemplifies this commitment."

Tony Simone, co-founder of Castra, emphasized the value of partnerships, saying, "Castra's journey has been about forging valuable collaborations. Our partnership with Lumifi allows companies to elevate their SIEM capabilities and adopt next-generation programs, enabling security leaders to enhance their infrastructure while aligning with their business objectives."

Michael Malone, CEO of Lumifi, highlighted the broader impact of the collaboration, stating, "With the escalating threats across all areas of cybersecurity, many companies find themselves vulnerable. Partnering with Castra is a decisive step, leveraging our recent growth capital to realize our broader vision. Together, we're bridging the cybersecurity skills gap, ensuring businesses are fortified against the diverse and evolving threats of today."

To provide peace of mind against the latest cyber threats, Lumifi offers a turn-key cybersecurity monitoring and management solution at an affordable monthly price. This solution delivers advanced levels of security to businesses of all sizes across regulated industries, including energy, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and more.

Multi-experience orchestration, Experience Builder, and AI-driven advancements enable greater collaboration, speed, and scale

Contentful, a leading composable content platform for digital-first business, announced today the launch of new products and capabilities, including AI-driven advancements, that unlock all digital content across the organization to deliver impactful experiences at scale.

In today's digital-first world, boundaries and expectations are constantly changing while the landscape of digital channels continues to evolve. Through it all, content is the customer experience. It's through content that organizations captivate, entertain, and engage. And now, with the seismic shift driven by generative AI, organizations must determine how to take advantage of the latest technical advancements to deliver and scale experiences with the increasing speed, efficiency, and intelligence that is essential to compete in the marketplace.

"Generative AI has ushered in a new era in which we all can accelerate our creativity by leveraging the power of machines to improve speed, experimentation, and collaboration. This will revolutionize the way we create, deliver, and interact with content," said Steve Sloan, CEO of Contentful. "At Contentful, our vision is unlocking the power of digital content for our customers, and we are already enabling this power through our latest composable content capabilities, infused with the power of AI, with more planned on our product roadmap to help digital teams reach their full potential."

Contentful has incorporated a variety of generative AI-driven capabilities into the Contentful product and ecosystem and is also introducing a number of other capabilities that support better ways for digital teams to work together to harness the business value of content. Highlights of the new and enhanced capabilities across the Contentful Platform, Contentful Studio, and Contentful Ecosystem include:

Contentful Platform
The Contentful Platform enables developers to break down content silos and orchestrate content from any source across the organization to create and deliver digital experiences faster, consistently, and at scale. External references and cross-space references unlock content from systems, like DAMs, PIMs, and commerce platforms, as well as content within Contentful, to help teams efficiently leverage all of their content for reuse in any digital experience across brands, regions, and use cases.

Enhanced enterprise governance and security, including an expanded EU data residency footprint, can help address an organization's data protection and compliance needs. The AI Content Type Generator, announced previously, streamlines the content model creation process so developers can accelerate time to market.

Contentful Studio
Contentful Studio empowers digital teams, including marketers, designers, and content creators, to visually assemble and manage digital experiences for any channel without developer assistance. The new Experience Builder capability will provide a visual canvas whereby teams can create consistent, on-brand experiences using design system components and a structured content foundation. This enables teams to combine creative innovation with solid governance to ensure consistency and scalability across every experience.

The new AI enhancements in Contentful Studio include the AI Image Generator to easily create and manipulate images, and the improved AI Content Generator to quickly create content, translations, and SEO keywords.

Contentful Ecosystem
The Contentful Ecosystem includes a large portfolio of solution and technology partners to help customers get to market faster with impactful digital experiences that meet customer expectations and drive business value. New partnerships and enhanced integrations from best-in-class enterprise solutions – including AWS, Salesforce, SAP, Twilio Segment, commercetools, BigCommerce, Cloudinary, and WPP – enable digital teams to improve accessibility, analytics, and performance, simplify front-end development, and streamline content operations to bring differentiated experiences to life quickly.

Contentful AI advancements from ecosystem partners include the new AI Content Detector from Writer, enabling content editors to assess content that may be generated by AI so they can maintain content transparency and integrity. SurferSEO delivers AI-driven SEO capabilities to help digital teams drive website traffic more effectively.

"Contentful allows us to collaborate on content across our business with the flexibility to address new and unique visitor needs as they arise," said Nik Fletcher, Head of Digital Experience, Rapha. "Contentful's capabilities, in a product that the team loves to use, allow us to tell the story of our brand and products at global scale - and continue to inspire the world to live life by bike."

"With the combined power of Contentful and Writer, marketers can leverage generative AI to scale content production while ensuring brand integrity – a point of concern for many businesses," said May Habib, CEO of Writer. "This builds on the existing joint Writer and Contentful AI capabilities that enable brand consistency and governance. All of these features help content teams move quickly, innovate, and deliver the best experiences to their customers."

Contentful will be on stage with customers, partners, and industry experts at the last two stops of its Storylines Tour in Silicon Valley and Berlin this month, where they will share more details about the product innovations and ecosystem advancements and talk about the important role of content in effective brand storytelling.