Now publicly available, Formless harnesses the power of AI to challenge traditional form builders and empower businesses to collect high-quality data and engage customers

Typeform, the intuitive form builder and conversational data collection platform, today announced the public launch of Formless, an AI form builder powered by leading AI systems from OpenAI. With Formless, users can collect structured data through two-way conversations with forms that ask questions, as well as answer respondent questions. Formless enables companies to collect high-quality customer data at scale, while delivering an engaging customer experience. 

Gathering zero-party data, defined as information that customers voluntarily share with companies, is critical to creating exceptional customer experiences today; however, the stakes for data collection are higher than ever. McKinsey & Company research shows that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn't happen. Focused on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to create human-centered web experiences, Typeform is providing companies with innovative solutions that balance business needs with customer expectations. 

"At Typeform, we believe in a world where businesses give as much to people as they're trying to get, and we've been diligently crafting this vision into reality," said David Okuniev, co-founder, Typeform. "The beauty of Formless is that it enables companies to get great data, while also giving respondents a great experience. In an increasingly digital world, people don't want interactions that make them feel like just a number. Formless offers an ideal blend of the machine-driven efficiency and human-like personalization that today's consumers crave." 

Teams across marketing, sales, customer success, product, and human resources are using Formless to create conversations to generate leads, book sales calls, support their users, collect feedback, engage with their audiences, make product recommendations, and more. Key benefits of Formless include: 

• Enhanced respondent experience: Companies can choose to train the AI on their own data to anticipate and answer respondents' queries. The form can also adjust its questions based on prior answers, making it more efficient and relevant for the respondent. 
• High engagement and completion rates: Users are more likely to complete a form if it feels like a conversation rather than a series of impersonal questions. Powered by conversational AI technology, the natural tone of voice keeps respondents engaged. 
• Deep data and insights: Teams can get structured insights from unstructured data with open text analysis, and if a user gives an unclear or ambiguous response, the AI can ask for clarifications or more details, improving the quality of collected data. In turn, access to higher quality data and insights enables companies to better personalize their marketing efforts, services, offers, and product recommendations.
• Efficient content creation: Creators can develop high-performance, on-brand forms in minutes, saving valuable time that could be spent on higher impact activities. Formless offers customizable templates, and the possibility to let the AI completely build the form.
• Expanded reach: Formless speaks over 120 languages, enabling companies to connect with a global audience without language barriers, expanding potential reach and opportunities. 
• Easy implementation: Formless can easily be embedded into websites with different widget options. It can also be connected through Zapier with more than 1,000 applications. 

"How we ask for information online is ripe for disruption. Historically, forms have been a one-way street that puts the onus on the user and offers them little in return – Typeform is changing that," said Luke Dringoli, VP of Technology, Media Cause. "What Formless offers is a natural way of obtaining information that gets you all the data you need while endearing your audience to your brand."  

"Formless has been very easy to use and set up, especially with the new templates," said Porter Pursley, co-founder, Beehive. "Its interactive nature and conversational interface have really resonated with our audience. We've noticed higher conversion and response rates for our specific use cases and the conversation summaries have proved extremely helpful internally."

The Formless launch bolsters Typeform's position as an AI leader. In addition to delivering Formless, Typeform already offers AI-powered features, like question recommendations, within its flagship Typeform product, providing more than 150,000 customers with form-building capabilities that are taking online interactions from transactional to conversational.

Attendance Insights Predicts Event Attendance, Makes Data-Backed Recommendations to Improve Event ROI

Splash, a global event marketing technology company that enables businesses to host live, hybrid, and virtual events at scale, has introduced the event industry's first predictive AI tool: Attendance Insights. A machine-learning tool that predicts event attendance based on similar events hosted on Splash, Attendance Insights also provides data-backed recommendations to improve expected attendance.

"Over the past year, marketers were introduced to dozens of generative AI tools that have helped enhance everything from event agendas to content creation to promotional efforts. But none of these tools help event professionals actually get revenue in the room," said Kate Hammitt, CMO at Splash. "Splash is changing that with Attendance Insights, the event industry's first-ever predictive AI tool. It allows event marketers to easily understand the data behind their programs, and how to leverage that data to accelerate their organization's event-led growth."

Attendance Insights has been trained by hundreds of thousands of events hosted on Splash over the past five years. Through machine learning, the tool makes accurate attendance predictions and strategic recommendations based on past performance of a customer's events, as well as the performance of comparable events from other customers. Data points such as event type and format, page views, email engagement, guest list size, and number of days away from the event also contribute to Attendance Insights results.

"For so long, event professionals have needed a data partner to help them elevate their programs by identifying trends, tracking the right metrics, and understanding when and how to effectively create and accelerate revenue opportunities through events" said Hammitt. "With so much to manage for a successful event or program, finding the time and necessary skill sets to conduct the strategic, analytical work is often an event professional's biggest challenge. Attendance Insights gives event and marketing professionals that data partner, without adding headcount, and empowers them to create thriving event programs based on sophisticated data analysis."

Attendance Insights is just the first AI tool Splash is offering its customers. The company will continue investing in building and refining predictive AI technology that'll help solve event professionals' most pressing challenges.

Splash is hosting a virtual product launch event for Attendance Insights at 1 pm ET on Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

Beefree, a leader in no-code email creation tools, has appointed Justine Jordan as its Head of Strategy & Community, where she will steer the company's strategy and deepen community engagement using her people-first approach. Leveraging her extensive experience in SaaS and email marketing, Jordan is set to play a pivotal role in driving Beefree's growth and fostering stronger connections within the email marketing community.

Beefree, a pioneer in no-code email creation tools, has announced that Justine Jordan, a veteran in the SaaS and email marketing space, has joined the team as Head of Strategy & Community. Beefree, a key division of Growens (GROW:IM), is renowned for its innovative design tools that empower businesses to create visually compelling, high-performing emails and digital assets. Its tools for designing emails and pages are utilized by over 400,000 users every month across 120 countries, including by industry giants such as Amazon, Google, and Disney.

Justine Jordan's Role at Beefree

In her new role, Justine Jordan will be joining the Management Team and reporting directly to Beefree's CEO, Massimo Arrigoni. Her responsibilities include guiding the strategic direction of the company and ensuring that the leadership team is aligned on key decisions. Justine will also ensure that all employees are fully engaged with the strategic goals, understanding how their work contributes to the company's broader vision.

Additionally, Justine will lead community-focused initiatives, drawing on her extensive experience to understand and respond to the evolving challenges in email marketing. This role is crucial in guiding Beefree through its next growth phase and in embracing technological advancements.

Comments from Beefree's Leadership

Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of Beefree, comments, "In the face of rapidly changing landscapes and the rise of AI, the role of community is as important as ever. We need to be as close as we can to marketers to understand how their jobs are evolving. Justine's extensive experience and insights are invaluable as we navigate these dynamic times and cement Beefree's place at the forefront of email marketing innovation."

Justine Jordan adds, "I'm thrilled to start this new journey with Beefree. It's an opportunity to bring people and product together to collaborate on a shared vision for the future of email marketing. I'm enthusiastic about our role in bringing their voices and stories forward."

Justine Jordan's Career Background

From her early days as a designer, Justine's career has significantly shaped the email industry. She spearheaded the first conference dedicated to the email community, showcasing her leadership and innovation. Her contributions were acknowledged when she was named Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year in 2015. Her journey includes leading marketing for high-growth B2B SaaS companies, contributing to successful outcomes like ExactTarget's acquisition by Salesforce, and playing key roles in organizations such as Wildbit, Litmus, Help Scout, Postmark, and ActiveCampaign.

Industry-first automation controller for dbt models accelerates deployment and reduces engineering maintenance work by up to 80%

Ascend.io, the leader in data pipeline automation, today announced an integration that allows users to painlessly scale and run sophisticated dbt models in production with a single command. Ascend for dbt represents the industry's first automation and optimization controller for dbt models, giving data and analytics engineers access to Ascend's advanced orchestration capabilities with no added overhead.

Ascend for dbt allows analytics engineers to continue to build with dbt Core while deploying their models to Ascend for intelligent execution. This solves a major challenge with dbt Core, the open-source version of dbt, which requires users to bring in a separate orchestration tool to execute their models. By automating the process of deploying dbt models with DataAware™ intelligence, Ascend helps data teams deliver data products faster and more efficiently.

"With data teams under pressure to innovate faster and generate more value for their organizations, they need systems to automate traditionally manual processes that deploy and maintain data products at scale," said Sean Knapp, founder and CEO, Ascend.io. "This new integration eliminates the pain of operationalizing dbt models, providing a smooth journey from design to production."

With Ascend for dbt, Ascend automatically tracks lineage across multiple dbt projects. By profiling the data against the generated dbt code, Ascend's automation controller identifies every change in code or data that affects a pipeline. This enables Ascend to auto-generate the jobs required to operate a sophisticated network of pipelines with maximum efficiency. Its dynamic intelligence limits unnecessary data processing, reducing cloud bills by up to 30% and engineering operations work by up to 80%.

Ascend's data pipeline automation allows engineers to continue to build ontop of dbt Core. Once the updated models are compiled and pushed into Ascend, the platform automatically identifies any change from previous versions and autonomously orchestrates pipeline operation in response to those changes.

"In addition to the cost and time saving benefits, we see this integration as a critical step in organizations' AI readiness strategy," said Knapp. "AI projects often require entirely new datasets at a speed most data engineering teams are currently not equipped to meet. By launching dbt pipelines in a fraction of the time it traditionally takes, data teams can create and manage new data products at scale and ultimately become more efficient and responsive."

Danfoss, Informatica, S&P Global, UnitedHealthcare, ZoomInfo and many others recognized for digital experiences that delivered business growth

A recent Forrester survey found that more than 60% of B2B buyers base their final purchase decision solely on the digital content and experiences companies provide. That’s why thousands of B2B companies choose ON24 , a leading digital engagement platform for B2B sales and marketing that helps enterprises generate data-driven insights and deliver cost-effective revenue growth. Today, ON24, announced the industry-leading digital experiences of 2023 that drove ROI for their organizations.

“At ON24, our goal is to propel business success through digital engagement, with our customers at the core. We take pride in helping our customers drive deeper engagement with their target audiences and extract meaningful insights that result in revenue growth,” said Callan Young, CMO, ON24. “It is our honor to recognize the leading organizations that exemplify excellence in leveraging our platform to create digital experiences that not only meet but surpass their audience’s expectations.”

The following organizations were recognized for delivering outstanding digital experiences on the ON24 platform in 2023:

1. Danfoss drove product growth and customer retention by leveraging distributor, reseller and customer data to optimize its webinar and digital engagement program.
2. FloQast influenced 82% of event pipeline in Q3 and created 120+ new active opportunities by routing high-quality leads from in-experience demo requests directly to sales.
3. Global X ETFs increased qualified, high-value leads in Australia by 22%, by integrating ON24 engagement data with their CRM and using the platform’s personalization capabilities.
4. Informatica scaled a live event into a hybrid experience across three key regions simultaneously, driving registration and delivering a consistent customer experience on a global scale.
5. Infopro Digital increased conversion rates and registrations by automating processes on the ON24 platform and making real-time adjustments based on customer feedback.
6. Kaspersky drove product adoption and business growth by creating new relationships with prospects and fostering existing relationships with customers.
7. KnowBe4 generated over $300k in pipeline through an ON24-powered digital experience.
8. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) achieved 100% participant satisfaction for its unique and impactful digital experience powered by the ON24 platform.
9. PowerSchool achieved record-breaking registration rates, 75 CTA clicks, over 400 poll responses and 300+ content downloads during an educational experience with ON24.
10. S&P Global doubled marketing qualified leads and boosted engagement by designing an ON24 digital experience personalized to different customer segments.
11. Tata Consultancy Services drove revenue growth with record-high registrations for their webinar on ON24, resulting in 70% attendee participation across 30 countries.
12. Texthelp sourced leads during a webinar series and converted at least 70% of them into marketing-qualified leads within 30 days.
13. TOPdesk increased revenue and improved its customer engagement by 7% YoY and extended the shelf life of its content with an on-demand hub.
14. TravelMediaGroup closed three deals from a single digital experience by creating a seamless and engaging customer experience on ON24.
15. UCB achieved a 50%+ attendee conversion rate by enhancing the HCP’s experience and integrating ON24 engagement data with its business intelligence system.
16. UnitedHealthcare achieved an 80% cost savings, increased attendee score and engagement with a new digital engagement strategy and an always-on content hub.
17. Wood PLC sourced leads, increased audience engagement and automated continuing professional education credits on ON24, across different time zones.
18. ZoomInfo surpassed webinar benchmarks by generating a record number of marketing-qualified leads and 190 scheduled demos, resulting in 10 closed-won deals.

Generaitiv collaborates with numerous creators within the Generaitiv community to train custom AI models and construct new bots.

Generaitiv - a decentralized, community-driven AI app store - introduced Custom AI Engagement Bots to provide digital communities with AI image generator bots specifically trained on their content and/or brand imagery.

These bots help increase online engagement for communities by posting and spreading unique marketing material organically. Moreover, simple text prompts enable the seamless creation of high-quality, high-quantity content.

Over 10 crypto communities have already integrated Generaitiv Custom AI Bots, including the Plague Frogs NFT community, the $BOB token community, the Vita Inu $VINU token community, and the $NPC token community. Notably, all communities using Generaitiv's Custom AI Bots have a combined Market Cap of over $100 million USD.

The $NPC token community is a prime example of Generaitiv’s custom AI image generation bot being leveraged to increase brand recognition and awareness through the generation of new and creative pieces featuring a consistent NPC character.  Members of the $NPC token community have used their bot integration to generate over 3,000 images for a community contest over one weekend.

Generaitiv collaborates with numerous creators within the Generaitiv community to train custom AI models and construct new bots. This partnership allows external communities to reap the rewards of an engagement bot without distraction from their internal goals. Generaitiv provides a full-service bot offering, meaning everything from AI model fine-tuning to bot infrastructure is provided in an intuitive, plug and play bundle.

The platform believes custom AI bots can create compelling customized images bespoke for their communities, helping increase engagement both internally and externally. Generaitiv encourages members of digital communities everywhere to "generait their imagination and list for sale in seconds."

The $GAI Token

$GAI is the token powering the Generaitiv ecosystem It plays a key role, allowing users to access high-value features on the platform without requiring any expenditure. Communities can use $GAI to unlock access to a variety of on-platform features including custom AI model training. The Generaitiv team has big plans for $GAI, making it the cornerstone of the future decentralized network. The token initially launched as an L1 Ethereum token with a total supply of 10 million units, of which 7 million tokens deposited for liquidity.

$GAI aims to solve the problems with centralized and non-interoperable systems currently implemented by popular AI platforms. Token holders will use $GAI to interact with various AI models available on Generaitiv. Meanwhile, AI Bots creators will use the token to train and process large AI datasets. Finally, $GAI will incentivize idle GPU and computing hardware to process these requests. Worldwide GPU shortages have rocked the availability of on demand cloud GPU resources, increasing the viability of decentralized alternatives.

The platform will impose a 5% tax on token buys and sells to fuel the development of the Generaitiv ecosystem and fund AI development. Some of these funds will also grow the $GAI Liquidity Pool, driving growth and maximizing value for holders.

Lastly, Generaitiv increases the benefits for digital communities using its custom AI bots and $GAI token. The platform has implemented a subscription system for communities to create interactive bots and engage with their members.

Calls for Industry Adoption of Privacy, Addressability, Advanced TV, and Programmatic Standards to Address Industry Challenges

 IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standard-setting body, unveiled its key priorities and roadmap for 2024 today. The roadmap addresses crucial pain points and challenges, ensuring the industry is aware and actively engaged in evolving digital advertising standards.

The 2024 roadmap identifies colossal shifts in digital advertising, happening simultaneously in the form of critical browser and platform changes, ongoing privacy regulation globally, accelerated growth in streaming (CTV), combined with the convergence of CTV and linear television, and cross-environment measurement challenges in an ever-expanding environment of signal loss.

"The digital advertising industry is standing on the precipice of profound change," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab. "The specifications we've outlined don't just reflect anticipated shifts – they're a clarion call for industry adaptation and resilience. We're dedicated to championing collaboration and embrace this critical year as an opportunity to shape a more adaptive and ethically sound future for digital advertising."

IAB Tech Lab's Product Roadmap showcases its top priorities as developed by its global members and approved by the Board of Directors, comprised of industry leaders from over thirty leading ad tech, media companies, and agencies:

• Advanced TV Creative ID Framework Spanning Digital and Linear: IAB Tech Lab is spearheading a crucial cross-television measurement and reconciliation framework. Collaborating with the industry, IAB Tech Lab will establish a comprehensive Creative ID Framework, giving all segments of television delivery a fundamental building block, answering what played where and when while helping buyers understand the value of ubiquitous use of a creative ID across all television environments. This framework will be supported by standardized labeling and retrieval of advertiser metadata, allowing the industry to support new currencies and reconciliation methods more rapidly.
• Ongoing Fragmentation of Privacy Laws: There are three new US states with privacy laws going into effect in 2024 (and two going into effect in early 2025). Accompanied by new privacy and personal data regulations in international markets such as India and Brazil, 2024 will bring legal and technical professionals together in IAB Tech Lab's Global Privacy Working Group to enhance the Global Privacy Platform (GPP), ensuring compliance across all new jurisdictions.
• Addressability & Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Industries are actively developing innovative privacy-first addressability solutions in response to the uncertain fate of third-party cookies and other legacy identifiers. Whether it's new synthetic identity solutions or Privacy Enhancing Technologies such as Secure Multi-Party Compute (SMPC), Differential Privacy, and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) at the forefront of this privacy-by-design addressable revolution, IAB Tech Lab is defining guidance regarding advertising use cases and new technical standards for addressing known and unknown audiences, supporting innovation in data-secure addressability solutions within the digital advertising ecosystem.
• Measurement: In 2024, the IAB Tech Lab is prioritizing comprehensive cross-environment measurement strategies as data signal loss complicates understanding consumer behavior and measuring campaign effectiveness. While initially centered on viewability via the Open Measurement SDK, IAB Tech Lab's measurement initiative will evolve, encompassing diverse measurement use cases across multiple media environments.
• What Platform Changes Mean for You: Web browsers and mobile platforms more frequently offer proprietary solutions for advertising and measurement in their applications. Along with industry-developed addressability solutions like Data Clean Rooms and ID solutions, these proprietary APIs are a new area for the industry to investigate, test, and develop potential solutions to add to portfolios of addressability. IAB Tech Lab will dive deep into new measurement methodologies and analyze new addressability mechanisms based on these APIs to provide unbiased guidance to the industry.
• Buyside Education & Adoption: This year, IAB Tech Lab will emphasize educational content development, emphasizing who benefits and why. Initiatives include brand and agency content development and another ad operations workshop focusing on the Advanced TV Creative ID Framework. These initiatives aim to raise awareness about standards and specifications in the market, fostering a better understanding among buyers and sellers of the benefits of utilizing these standards for their business.

To support adoption, IAB Tech Lab will provide persona-based implementation guides, host events tailored to specific industry segments, and offer extensive supporting materials for specifications, ensuring a simple integration process. IAB Tech Lab will also expand its educational outreach to guide the market through implementation use cases, leveraging workshops, expert-led events, and tailored educational sessions designed to empower industry participants with actionable insights.

In conjunction with its 2024 priorities, IAB Tech Lab is excited to announce its 10th anniversary at the IAB Tech Lab Summit on June 11-12, 2024. This milestone event will celebrate a decade of setting technical standards, industry collaboration, and innovation, and will showcase critical industry achievements. The summit will include keynote speakers addressing artificial intelligence, privacy & data security, and a lifetime achievement awards dinner recognizing exceptional contributions to the digital media industry.

There is no shortage of standards work to be done in 2024, and while IAB Tech Lab's focus is evident with its top priorities, the industry also needs to continue evolving existing standards. OpenRTB saw three version updates in 2023 to support new features for programmatic efficiencies in CTV, identify potential Made-For-Advertising sites and more. The working group already has a dozen working proposals to consider for 2024 updates. We'll also see much-needed changes in the VAST standard to support the Creative ID Framework.

2024 signifies a new phase in elevating industry standards and fostering a more robust, efficient, and data-secure digital advertising ecosystem. IAB Tech Lab urges digital advertising professionals and technical experts to engage actively in its initiatives, adding their input to develop industry standards to drive the global digital ad economy forward.