ON24 taps Performars to drive AI-powered digital engagement for B2B marketers across APAC

In a move that underscores the growing demand for AI-driven marketing in Asia, ON24 has partnered with digital transformation specialist Performars to fuel its expansion into South Korea and Taiwan. The partnership, announced today, is aimed at helping regional enterprises transform customer engagement and accelerate revenue through ON24’s Intelligent Engagement Platform.

For ON24, a Nasdaq-listed player (NYSE: ONTF) known for powering webinars, virtual events, and content experiences, the collaboration represents a key milestone in its Asia-Pacific growth strategy. Performars, a HubSpot Diamond partner with expertise in RevOps and CRM consulting, brings local market fluency and execution muscle—two things global tech platforms often lack when entering nuanced, high-context regions like Korea and Taiwan.

Why This Matters

The APAC market, particularly South Korea and Taiwan, is heating up in the B2B digital engagement space. With privacy regulations tightening globally and third-party cookies on the way out, the ability to capture and activate first-party data through direct digital engagement is now mission-critical. ON24’s platform, with its AI-powered Analytics and Content Engine (ACE), offers a timely solution.

“Performars brings deep local market knowledge and executional strength that complements our APAC growth strategies,” said Daniel Harrison, VP and Managing Director of ON24 for APAC & Japan. “Together, we’re enabling businesses in Korea and Taiwan to transform how they engage prospects and customers.”

In other words: ON24 is betting on local enablement to beat global rivals in one of the most digitally mature markets in the world.

What’s In It for Marketers

The partnership promises more than just webinars. Performars will offer a full suite of services—from running digital experiences to automating post-event workflows. That includes analytics, follow-up content creation, and integrating ON24 into CRMs for actionable sales insights. For marketers in life sciences, IT, finance, and electronics—industries already data-heavy and engagement-starved—this is a welcome turnkey approach.

“ON24 is a global leader in intelligent, AI-driven digital engagement,” said Jake Nobler, Sales Director at Performars. “This partnership allows us to help more organizations in Korea and Taiwan harness the full potential of first-party customer engagement.”

The Road Ahead

Starting July 2025, ON24 and Performars will roll out a series of digital campaigns and virtual events showcasing the capabilities of ON24’s platform across key industries. Expect success stories, live demos, and a heavy push to convert local marketers into AI-powered engagement believers.

With this expansion, ON24 joins a growing list of U.S.-based martech players strengthening their foothold in Asia through strategic local alliances. Given Performars’ regional experience and ON24’s technology stack, this could be one to watch.

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AI isn’t just for the tech giants anymore. According to a new report from ActiveCampaign, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are using AI to claw back time, cut costs, and take on enterprise-level competition with sharper marketing firepower. The report, titled “13 Hours Back Each Week,” finds that AI is helping SMBs recover an average of 52 hours and $4,739 monthly—giving them a fresh edge in a crowded digital landscape.

And it’s not just about saving time. It’s about leveling the playing field.

AI Is the Great Equalizer for SMBs

The report, based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. marketers and small business owners, paints a compelling picture: 75% of SMBs say AI is making them more competitive with large organizations. Those classified as “Power Users”—people who use AI at least once daily—are saving up to 57% more time and slashing operational costs by 36% compared to their more passive counterparts.

“Small businesses may work with tighter margins, but their size and agility provide a perfect opportunity for the strategic implementation of AI,” said Jason VandeBoom, ActiveCampaign’s CEO. “They're not just adopting AI—they're pioneering creative applications that deliver real ROI.”

From Task Automation to Strategic Insight

The study also highlights a key shift in AI adoption: SMBs are moving beyond simple automations to more strategic applications. 81% are leveraging AI for marketing, while 78% apply it to design and creative tasks, and 76% for analytics. In fact, SMBs are nearly neck and neck with enterprise firms when it comes to AI’s role in tasks like lead nurturing, follow-ups, and performance reporting—only a 3% gap separates them.

Among the most telling stats:

• 47% of SMBs now use AI daily.

• 77% of marketers say they feel more confident when supported by AI.

• 97% say AI has already reshaped how they view their work.

“The real opportunity arrives when marketers move from isolated AI use to embracing it as a long-term strategic partner,” said Amy Kilpatrick, CMO of ActiveCampaign. “That’s where real differentiation and leadership begin.”

What This Means for the MarTech Ecosystem

This isn’t just another “AI is coming” headline—it’s already here, and small businesses are wielding it with surprising sophistication. As AI tools become more user-friendly and integrated into mainstream platforms like ActiveCampaign, barriers to entry are collapsing. SMBs no longer need large teams or deep pockets to compete—they need smart workflows and the right tools.

For marketers in particular, the report suggests that we’re entering a second phase of AI maturity: moving from efficiency-driven use cases to predictive modeling, trend forecasting, and fully automated marketing funnels.

If you’re running an SMB and haven’t yet embraced AI in your day-to-day ops, the clock is ticking—and competitors may already be weeks ahead in saved hours.

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Returning CTO to drive Omilia’s transformation into an AI-first, agentic enterprise platform

Omilia is doubling down on its AI ambitions. The enterprise conversational AI leader has named Marios Fakiolas as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO), marking both a strategic leadership shake-up and a bold step toward evolving its platform into an “AI-first” powerhouse.

A familiar face at Omilia, Fakiolas rejoins the company after founding and scaling HelloWorld PC, a boutique AI consultancy known for modern engineering and advanced conversational solutions. His return signals Omilia’s intent to push beyond basic chatbots into the realm of intelligent, adaptive systems that can reshape how enterprises engage customers.

Leading the Agentic AI Evolution

“Conversational AI is no longer just about scripted bots,” said Fakiolas. “We’re entering a new era of agentic systems that understand context, adapt in real time, and deliver tangible business results.”

That’s more than marketing speak. Under Fakiolas’ leadership, Omilia will overhaul its architecture around four ambitious pillars:

• AI-Driven Engineering

• Cloud-Native Data Flywheel Architecture

• Full-stack GenAI Integration

• Agentic AI for Customer Service

It’s a roadmap aimed at putting Omilia at the forefront of enterprise-grade AI innovation—at a time when global interest in large language models and intelligent agents is hitting a fever pitch.

The Right Leader at the Right Time

With more than 20 years of experience across defense, enterprise software, and AI startups, Fakiolas blends deep technical fluency with executive-level vision. During his first stint at Omilia starting in 2017, he helped define the company’s early voice-first capabilities. Now he returns with fresh perspective and a track record of scaling AI-driven teams and systems.

“His previous work with AI-native architectures and proven ability to scale high-performance teams positions him well to lead us into the next era of Conversational AI,” said Dimitris Vassos, Omilia’s CEO and Co-founder.

Why This Matters

Enterprise CX leaders are under pressure to modernize call centers and digital channels—not with gimmicky bots, but with intelligent systems that resolve issues, anticipate needs, and deliver measurable ROI. Omilia’s appointment of a returning CTO with startup-hardened credentials suggests it’s serious about answering that call.

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Thryv Holdings, the small business software provider known for its all-in-one platform, is dialing up the temperature for HVAC contractors with the launch of Thryv for HVAC—a specialized marketing automation solution designed to help heating, ventilation, and air conditioning businesses streamline lead conversion, customer retention, and recurring revenue.

Currently working with nearly 6,000 HVAC-related businesses, Thryv developed the solution in close collaboration with industry professionals, including Boeschen’s Heating & Cooling. The result? A software package that speaks HVAC fluently.

Built for Contractors, Not Marketers

“Contractors told us they need tools that work behind the scenes to automate customer follow-ups, boost their brand visibility, and drive repeat business,” said Rees Johnson, Chief Product Officer at Thryv. “With Thryv automations, they can grow their business while keeping their focus on service delivery.”

In a survey of over 75 HVAC business leaders, 77% said marketing was a top growth priority, but only a third felt they had the time or know-how to execute it effectively. Thryv’s new solution is aimed squarely at that gap—offering practical, hands-off tools designed with and for HVAC contractors.

What’s Under the Hood?

Here’s a quick rundown of what Thryv for HVAC offers:

• Online Visibility Boost: Synchronizes business information across 60+ directories and improves local rankings on Google, Yelp, and more.

• Automated Lead Response: Sends personalized email and SMS replies within seconds of lead inquiries.

• Seasonal Campaigns: Keeps customers engaged year-round with timely promotions and maintenance reminders.

• Recurring Revenue Tools: Promotes service plans and automates post-service follow-up.

• Reputation Management: Centralized dashboard for requesting and managing online reviews.

The system comes with customizable, pre-built campaigns that cover the full customer journey—from appointment requests to satisfaction surveys—helping HVAC pros spend less time in front of a screen and more time on the job.

Turning Wrenches Into Revenue

“Not all marketing software is created equal,” said Janet Turner of Boeschen’s Heating & Cooling, who helped advise the Thryv product team. “We needed something that understood the way we work. Now we can follow up, nurture leads, and even run promotions without lifting a finger. It’s built for real contractors with real day-to-day demands.”

With demand for HVAC services rising, especially in light of extreme weather patterns and increasing focus on indoor air quality, Thryv’s tailored solution arrives at just the right time. It also underscores a broader trend in verticalized SaaS—giving industry-specific professionals access to smart tools without a steep learning curve.

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SundaySky, the enterprise-grade AI video platform, is making a bold move to accelerate its next stage of growth. The company announced a wave of high-impact executive appointments, signaling its intent to cement leadership in the AI-powered video personalization space. The new team includes:

• Tammy Martin as Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

• Mark Flaharty as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)

• Brendan Cournoyer as Vice President of Marketing

• Dan Sylvester, promoted to Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

The expansion of SundaySky’s leadership bench comes at a pivotal time, as the company doubles down on scaling its AI-driven video platform and expands personalized video capabilities across verticals like advertising, marketing, and customer success.

Executive Hires Signal Strategic Inflection Point

“SundaySky is entering a period of strategic momentum,” said CEO Marc Zionts. “Tammy, Mark, Brendan, and Dan bring the leadership, experience, and energy needed to execute with precision and accelerate growth across key verticals.”

The appointments bolster SundaySky’s ability to execute on a product vision that's already resonating across the enterprise landscape—with customers increasingly demanding more personalized, measurable, and scalable video solutions.

Meet the New Leaders Driving SundaySky’s Next Chapter

Tammy Martin – Chief Financial Officer
A veteran of high-growth tech firms, Martin most recently served as CFO at industrial analytics startup Seeq, where she helped secure $300 million in funding. With experience in scaling SaaS metrics and executing strategic exits—including deals with IBM and UnitedHealth Group—Martin is poised to guide SundaySky through its next phase of growth with a focus on capital efficiency and operational rigor.

Dan Sylvester – Chief Revenue Officer
Since joining SundaySky in 2018, Sylvester has helped build and scale the revenue organization. As CRO, he now oversees all revenue-generating functions—from new business acquisition to customer retention and partnerships. His promotion underscores SundaySky’s focus on integrated growth and client success.

Mark Flaharty – Chief Commercial Officer
Flaharty returns to SundaySky with a deep track record in digital media, including stints at Google, Criteo, and Piano.io. He’ll now lead commercial strategy for SundaySky Advertise, the company’s personalized video ad solution. Expect him to sharpen the focus on ROI-driven campaigns for major brands across retail, finance, and media.

Brendan Cournoyer – VP of Marketing
With experience leading marketing at Building Engines and Brainshark, Cournoyer brings a data-driven approach to brand and demand generation. At SundaySky, he will spearhead initiatives to grow the platform’s customer base and expand awareness of its AI-powered personalization capabilities.

Video is no longer a "nice-to-have" in enterprise engagement—it's a strategic must. But personalization at scale has remained elusive for many brands. SundaySky is aiming to solve that with an AI-first, modular platform that generates customized video experiences across the customer lifecycle—from acquisition to loyalty.

These leadership appointments suggest SundaySky is not just expanding—it's preparing for a potential breakout moment. With SaaS-savvy leadership now in place across finance, marketing, commercial strategy, and revenue, the company is well-positioned to compete in a crowded, fast-evolving space.

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Infobip, the global cloud communications giant, has just turned up the volume on customer engagement. The company announced the launch of WhatsApp Business Calling, a new capability that lets businesses initiate and receive voice calls directly within WhatsApp—giving customers a frictionless way to escalate conversations without switching platforms.

This feature brings real-time voice communication into one of the world’s most widely used messaging apps, building on Infobip’s omnichannel mission to unify digital customer journeys across chat, voice, and more.

Chat, Meet Call: Seamless Escalation Inside WhatsApp

Businesses using Infobip’s cloud contact center solution, Conversations, can now switch from chat to voice without breaking the conversational thread. Agents keep access to the full chat history and context, making transitions smooth for both sides.

Voice calls can be initiated straight from:

• WhatsApp chats

• Interactive messages

• Deep links in websites or apps

The move streamlines support for industries like banking, retail, travel, and eCommerce—especially for complex or high-stakes customer service interactions that text alone can’t resolve.

“Our customers tell us voice remains critical for delivering exceptional service, especially for complex issues,” said Mijo Soldin, VP of Voice and Telecom Strategy at Infobip. “With WhatsApp Business Calling, we’re blending the convenience of chat with the immediacy of voice—inside an environment customers already know and trust.”

More Than a Call: Branded Voice Meets Customer Trust

One standout feature: branded voice calls. When a business places a call, verified details like company name, logo, and a green checkmark appear on the recipient’s screen. That’s a big deal in an age of rising call spoofing and fraud—it reassures users the call is legit and helps businesses boost answer rates.

It also dovetails with Infobip’s broader focus on trusted communications, setting the stage for the rollout of its Branded Calling ID (BCID) solution later this year.

Omnichannel Is No Longer Optional

With WhatsApp Business Calling, Infobip is closing the loop on asynchronous messaging and synchronous voice—an essential step in meeting customer expectations for fluid, channel-agnostic experiences.

Now available globally, the feature includes:

• Full integration with the WhatsApp Business Platform

• Unified reporting and billing

• Context-aware agent transitions via Infobip Conversations

The result? Faster resolution, higher satisfaction, and stronger brand consistency—all without forcing users to exit the app they already prefer.

Infobip’s latest launch shows that in the race to redefine customer communication, messaging and voice aren’t rivals—they’re powerful allies.

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In a world where brand loyalty hinges on relevance, Data Axle is sounding the alarm: most marketers are personalizing wrong.

Unveiled today, The Connected Customer: Unlocking Relevance Through Unified Identity Intelligence exposes a critical gap between how brands personalize and how people experience those efforts. Based on a May 2025 survey of 1,000 consumers and 250 senior marketers, the guide paints a sobering picture of misaligned expectations and underutilized data.

Personalization Is Broken—But Fixable

Despite abundant access to data, marketers are struggling to connect the dots. While 77% of consumers feel emotionally connected to at least one brand and 70% are more likely to buy from companies that “get them,” most brand strategies still rely on siloed signals—treating personal and professional identities as separate entities. The result? Fragmented customer profiles and underwhelming engagement.

“Marketing today isn’t suffering from a lack of data. It’s suffering from a lack of understanding,” said Andrew Frawley, CEO of Data Axle. “People don’t live in neat B2C or B2B boxes—they live in both.”

Indeed, 91% of marketers agree that blending professional and personal data could boost targeting accuracy and outcomes. Yet only 34% of organizations are doing it, often hampered by legacy systems, departmental silos, and regulatory hesitations.

Consumers Want Smarter, More Responsible Personalization

While it may be tempting to interpret these findings as a call for more personalization, the message is more nuanced. Consumers aren’t asking for louder marketing—they’re asking for smarter, more responsible personalization.

According to the report:

• 78% of consumers welcome improved experiences via responsibly blended data

• 85% demand transparency in how their data is used

The message is loud and clear: identity-based marketing must evolve beyond convenience to intentionality, balancing trust with relevance.

From B2C/B2B to B2Me

Frawley frames it as a paradigm shift—from traditional segmentation to what he calls B2Me. It’s a move away from transactional engagement to building long-term, identity-first relationships.

“Brands that treat identity as a strategic discipline, not just a data point, will win in the long run,” he said.

At the heart of the guide is a call for a new kind of infrastructure: an identity spine—a permissioned, scalable framework that unifies consumer data across personal and professional touchpoints. With it, marketers can drive engagement strategies that reflect not just what customers do, but who they are.

Practical Roadmap, Not Just Rhetoric

The Connected Customer doesn’t stop at diagnosis. It offers actionable steps for brands to:

• Break down internal silos

• Streamline data collection and use

• Strengthen identity resolution strategies

• Operate ethically and transparently

In an era where attention is fleeting and trust is fragile, Data Axle’s latest guide offers marketers a blueprint for staying relevant—and more importantly, human.

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PromoRepublic AI wants to be your brand’s field team — without needing a field team.

PromoRepublic, known for its multi-location marketing platform, just launched PromoRepublic AI, a full-fledged ecosystem of AI Assistants and Agents aimed at solving the long-standing bottlenecks in local marketing execution. It’s not just another layer of automation — this AI-native stack is designed to address why so many campaigns stall at the local level.

With over 25,000 locations and 10+ brand groups in its network, PromoRepublic has spotted a clear pattern: local teams struggle to keep up with essential tasks like updating listings, replying to reviews, or even publishing brand-compliant posts. Marketing plans don’t translate into action, and the brand experience becomes fragmented.

What’s New: AI-Driven Local Execution

PromoRepublic AI tackles this operational disconnect head-on by automating day-to-day tasks while still allowing teams to maintain creative and strategic control. The offering includes:

• Composer: Crafts brand-safe, localized content and replies at scale.

• Assistant: Delivers brand-level and location-specific insights via natural language queries.

• Agents: Automate routine actions like social publishing, listings management, and review responses.

This system works with or without human involvement, meaning it’s as useful to lean teams as it is to large, decentralized ones. A 24/7 chat and voice interface ensures accessibility and continuous learning from user interaction.

Unified Data, Unified Execution

One standout feature: PromoRepublic AI isn’t running blind. It's backed by a centralized data warehouse that ingests GA4, Google Search Console, POS, and CRM data, giving everyone from HQ to local managers access to a single source of marketing truth. With this backbone, PromoRepublic AI enables full-funnel visibility, making it easier to tailor local strategies and measure ROI in real time.

“Generic automation falls short for complex multi-brand enterprises,” said Roxy Badun, Head of Product and Customer Success at PromoRepublic. “Our AI workflows let you set the rules while the system handles execution.”

Early Results Show Promise

Early adopters are already seeing results: over 70% location activation within three months. The biggest wins? Automating responses, distributing hyper-local campaign kits, and syncing content and data across digital platforms. For brands juggling scale and consistency, this could be a game-changer.

The Bigger Picture

In a crowded martech landscape where "AI-powered" is often just window dressing, PromoRepublic is betting on executional depth. With local discoverability tied directly to bottom-line performance, especially for franchises and brand groups, automating the final mile of marketing could be the competitive edge that sticks.

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