West Cary Group, a Richmond-based advertising agency focused on marketing, data, and technology, has completed the sale of its proprietary Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) to a major global digital transformation company. The deal marks one of the first public sales of a custom GPT developed by an agency, signaling a new chapter in applied AI adoption.

The Marketing Research GPT is designed to accelerate strategic marketing tasks such as competitor mapping, trend analysis, audience profiling, and go-to-market planning—functions critical for data-driven marketing teams.

The tool has seen strong adoption, ranking as the second most-used research GPT on OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform for eight consecutive months. It was also spotlighted in OpenAI’s curated GPT recommendations, a rare nod that underscores its effectiveness.

“Large language models have unlocked a significant new market for our firm,” said Moses Foster, president and CEO of West Cary Group. “This sale validates our strategy of becoming a dedicated GPT provider for industries we know best, including financial services, energy, healthcare, and the public sector.”

Mike Benjamin, the tool’s lead creator, added: “Our goal was to architect a solution that addresses specific challenges for marketers. The acquisition by a market leader confirms we’ve developed a truly effective and valuable tool.”

The transaction positions West Cary Group as an early mover in the commercialization of industry-specific AI, with plans to expand into additional enterprise-grade solutions.

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Monks, the digital-first unitary operating brand of S4 Capital, is spotlighting a major contribution from Brianna Mersey, Vice President of Data for North America. Mersey’s peer-reviewed article, published in the latest issue of Applied Marketing Analytics (Vol. 11.1), introduces Instant BigQuery Machine Learning (iBQML), a new approach to audience building and personalization.

The framework integrates Google BigQuery with Google Analytics 4, enabling marketers to create predictive propensity models without advanced data science expertise. By tapping into first-party data, iBQML helps brands identify high-value user segments—such as likely buyers or churn risks—and activate them directly in GA4 for targeted campaigns and optimized bidding strategies.

“This was a brilliant experience from start to finish,” said Mersey. “The feedback pushed the piece further, and I’m excited to keep exploring ideas in this space.”

The solution, already deployed with clients like Hootsuite, allows marketers to focus budgets on users with the highest predicted value, driving conversion lift, loyalty, and efficiency in ad spend. Benefits include speed, automation, and seamless integration with existing data sources. While Mersey acknowledges limits such as a narrow range of model types and lack of real-time updates, Monks addresses these with custom ML solutions tailored to client goals.

The article stems from Mersey’s 2024 presentation at the MADS Conference, which led to the publisher’s invitation. Beyond its journal placement, the piece is included in The Business and Management Collection, a widely used professional learning resource.

“Brianna’s leadership in this space highlights Monks’ strength in delivering data-driven solutions for our clients,” said Chris Welhelmi, EVP and Head of Global Data at Monks.

Monks will expand on the topic in an upcoming webinar featuring Mersey and Hootsuite’s Zak Ramdani, Director of Search & Paid Media. Updates will be shared on Monks’ LinkedIn.

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Philadelphia-based Furia Rubel Communications has been recognized as a leader in legal marketing and public relations, securing No. 1 spots in The Legal Intelligencer’s “Best of 2025” reader survey. The agency topped categories including Public Relations Firm, Law Firm Marketer Providing the Best Customer Service, Online/Social Media Marketing Provider for the Legal Community, and Lawyer/Law Firm Business Development Coaching.

Founded in 2002 by CEO and former trial lawyer Gina Rubel, Furia Rubel serves law firms and legal service providers in the U.S. and abroad. The agency offers crisis communications, litigation communications, business development coaching, and marketing strategy, combining industry insight with hands-on execution.

“We are proud to be recognized again by the Philadelphia legal community for our expertise in providing public relations and marketing services,” said Rubel. “As the legal profession faces new challenges, we adapt our approach to craft communications that serve our clients’ business needs.”

The recognition builds on a history of accolades, including Furia Rubel’s Hall of Fame induction in 2021. Beyond client services, the agency hosts the award-winning podcast On Record PR, delivering insights on law firm marketing, media relations, and professional development. Now in its third season, the podcast is listened to in over 20 countries and was named one of the Top 10 Legal Podcasts by Attorney at Work.

As a certified woman-owned agency, Furia Rubel also provides strategic consulting to global professional service clients, including legaltech organizations, financial institutions, governments, and municipalities, with tailored expertise from its international faculty.

This latest recognition reinforces Furia Rubel’s status as a go-to agency for law firms seeking marketing, PR, and business development solutions in an increasingly competitive legal landscape.

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UserTesting, the enterprise human insights platform, is accelerating its footprint in Australia, driven by adoption among top banks, insurers, and high-growth tech startups. To strengthen its local presence, the company has named Paul North as General Manager for Asia-Pacific. North brings over 20 years of leadership in SaaS and digital experience, including stints at PeopleSoft, SAP, Optimizely, and Emburse.

In Australia, UserTesting now supports three of the top four banks, three of the top four general insurers, the two largest health insurers, and two of the top three high-growth tech startups. Each month, the platform runs over 200,000 tests globally, many filled within hours, providing real-time insights from everyday consumers. Participants in Australia can earn up to A$120 for live customer interviews.

“As organisations across Australia and New Zealand increasingly prioritize experience-led growth, I’m excited to join UserTesting at such a pivotal time,” said North. “Our mission is to help local organisations accelerate innovation through fast, actionable insights, improving customer experiences while reducing rework.”

Trusted by Leading Australian Brands

UserTesting’s roster in Australia spans banking, retail, insurance, utilities, superannuation, and tech, including:

• Canva

• National Australia Bank

• Allianz

• QBE

• Rest Super

• Nearmap

• Energy Australia

• Bunnings

• Woolworths

• Medibank

Driving Innovation Globally and Locally

UserTesting’s regional expansion coincides with key global initiatives:

• AWS ISV Accelerate Program: Recognized as part of AWS’s cloud innovation ecosystem.

• Figma Prototype Testing (Beta): Allows designers to gather prototype feedback in hours with AI-powered analysis.

• Insights for Impact Program: Provides free and discounted licenses and training to non-profits, ensuring mission-driven initiatives are guided by real-world consumer insights.

With these moves, UserTesting is cementing its role as a leader in human insights, combining speed, scale, and AI-powered analysis to help enterprises make data-driven decisions in Australia and beyond.

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Storyblok, the headless CMS platform known for simplifying content management, has launched a VWO plugin that enables marketers to run A/B tests directly inside the Storyblok Visual Editor. The integration aims to remove the traditional bottlenecks of testing, which often require developers, designers, and analysts.

“Hoping something works isn’t a strategy,” said Dominik Angerer, CEO and Co-Founder of Storyblok. “Now, teams can launch tests in seconds without waiting for developer bandwidth, making decisions backed by real audience insights.”

With the VWO plugin, editors can:

• Run A/B tests without leaving the CMS

• Test personalized content for different audiences via segmentation tools

• Track results in their VWO account for actionable insights

The plugin is included at no extra cost for Premium and Elite Storyblok plans, with a VWO Enterprise account or Developer Plus add-on. Future updates will expand functionality to multi-variant and URL split testing.

Sparsh Gupta, CEO of VWO, added, “This integration puts real performance data directly where marketers already work. No more toggling between tools, just seamless experimentation and optimization.”

The move reflects a broader industry trend toward autonomous content optimization, enabling marketers to launch, learn, and improve engagement and conversions faster than ever before.

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If you’re still treating Connected TV (CTV) as an experimental add-on to your ad budget, you might be leaving serious money on the table. A new 2025 CTV Insights Report from Measured, the AI-powered marketing effectiveness platform, suggests that CTV not only holds its own against digital heavyweights Meta and Google—it often beats them. The catch? Brands aren’t spending nearly enough on it.

CTV Punches Above Its Weight

Analyzing 274 incrementality experiments across 60 enterprise brands, Measured found that CTV accounted for just 3.5% of total media budgets on average. Yet it delivered a median incremental return on ad spend (ROAS) of $2.88, compared to $2.30 for Meta (32% of budgets) and $2.39 for Google (40.5%).

That means the scrappy underdog of ad channels is generating more incremental value per dollar spent—despite being starved of budget compared to its digital rivals.

Don’t Trust the Platform Numbers

Part of the problem: measurement. According to Measured, CTV platforms under-report their impact by nearly 20% on average. The discrepancies were wild—some campaigns over-reported incremental conversions by a factor of five, while others under-reported by up to ten. Translation: depending on where you look, you’re either giving CTV too much credit or nowhere near enough.

“CTV isn’t underperforming, the data is,” said Trevor Testwuide, Measured’s co-founder and CEO. “When brands measure CTV using rigorously designed experiments, they uncover performance that’s been masked by flawed attribution and platform metrics.”

The Bigger Picture: A Shift Beyond Last-Click

The findings land at a pivotal moment for digital advertising. With the industry slowly prying itself away from last-click attribution—and with Google sunsetting third-party cookies—advertisers are hunting for better ways to prove value. Incrementality testing, long championed in academic circles, is quickly becoming a boardroom imperative.

Measured argues that brands leaning into continuous incrementality testing are not just validating CTV’s true worth but also gaining an edge in budget allocation. In other words, the brands treating CTV like a core channel rather than an experiment may be tomorrow’s market winners.

Context: Rival Channels Under Pressure

It’s no secret Meta and Google dominate digital ad spend, but cracks are showing. Meta has battled targeting headwinds since Apple’s App Tracking Transparency rollout, while Google’s search ads face saturation and higher CPCs. Against this backdrop, CTV’s mix of premium content, audience targeting, and measurable lift looks increasingly attractive—especially for enterprise marketers tired of squeezing incremental gains out of the duopoly.

What’s Next for CTV?

The report underscores a broader truth: the promise of CTV isn’t just about flashy streaming integrations—it’s about accountability. Brands that build testing and measurement into their strategy could unlock hidden performance at scale. But until budgets shift, CTV will remain the overachiever sitting at the kids’ table.

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The world of search is shifting fast—and ProStar SEO wants to make sure businesses don’t get left behind. The Canadian SEO firm has launched what it calls its most advanced offering yet: LLM SEO services, designed to optimize content not just for Google, but for the new wave of AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and beyond.

Why This Matters: AI Search Is Eating Traditional SEO Alive

Search is no longer just about rankings on Google. Consumers are increasingly asking AI assistants what to buy, where to go, and which brands to trust. That shift is happening at breakneck speed:

• AI traffic converts 4.4x better than traditional organic visitors, according to Semrush.

• AI-driven search traffic is growing 165x faster than organic search.

• By 2027, LLM-driven traffic is projected to overtake Google Search entirely.

• ChatGPT alone now claims 800 million weekly active users.

ProStar SEO sees this as a massive inflection point for digital marketing. “The launch of our LLM SEO services marks a significant milestone in our commitment to providing innovative solutions that empower businesses to succeed in the digital age,” said Eric St-Cyr, CEO of ProStar SEO.

The Play: Marrying AI With Proven SEO Tactics

At its core, LLM SEO is about preparing content to be discoverable, relevant, and engaging within AI-driven ecosystems. ProStar’s service integrates:

• AI-powered content analysis to surface high-value opportunities.

• Technical SEO and link building to strengthen authority.

• Content marketing tuned to how large language models (LLMs) parse and present answers.

The company argues this hybrid approach delivers both traditional search visibility and readiness for the AI-first era.

Context: A Market Ripe for Disruption

The timing couldn’t be sharper. Industry data points to a tidal wave of AI adoption:

• The AI search market is projected to hit $108.8 billion by 2032, up from $43.6 billion this year.

• During the 2024 holiday season, AI referrals to retail surged 1,300%.

• On pages where Google’s AI Overviews appear, click-through rates on traditional organic results dropped 50%.

For businesses, the risk is clear: stay focused solely on traditional SEO and watch visibility decline. ProStar positions its LLM SEO services as a lifeline—ensuring brands surface in AI-driven recommendations while still holding their ground in organic search.

Who Stands to Benefit?

ProStar is targeting industries where AI-driven discovery is already reshaping customer journeys: e-commerce, healthcare, gaming, advertising, and blogging. In some cases, AI search platforms like Perplexity are already reporting 20–30% conversion rates on high-intent pages—numbers that make even seasoned marketers sit up straight.

The Bottom Line

If Google was the SEO battleground of the 2000s and mobile-first optimization defined the 2010s, the 2020s may well belong to AI-first SEO. ProStar SEO is betting early that the companies who adapt now will dominate when LLM-driven search becomes the default. The question is: will brands move fast enough?

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If you’re running a business in Australia, chances are your customers still want to hear from you the old-fashioned way: a text message. Now, 8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT), best known for its integrated customer experience (CX) platform, is making that easier by rolling out native SMS support in 8x8 Work for Australian businesses.

The update lets users send and receive one-to-one SMS directly from Australian mobile numbers (+61) via the 8x8 Work desktop or mobile app. For businesses, that means employees can manage calls and texts from the same number—no juggling multiple platforms or apps.

Why SMS Still Matters in 2025

Despite the rise of WhatsApp, Messenger, and endless chat apps, SMS remains sticky. According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), 96% of Australian adults still text regularly—a stat that hasn’t budged in two years. For companies, that makes SMS one of the most reliable and universally accessible channels for quick customer engagement.

8x8’s move also comes at a time when businesses are under pressure to cut friction in customer interactions. As David Land, senior manager of channel sales at 8x8, put it:

“SMS continues to be one of the most trusted and widely used communication tools in Australia, and our customers want it integrated directly into their workflows. By bringing SMS into 8x8 Work alongside calling, we’re giving businesses a simpler, more consistent way to connect—helping their teams respond faster, reduce missed opportunities, and deliver a better customer experience.”

Key Features at Launch

• One number, all channels: Use the same local number for both calls and SMS.

• No add-on required: Available across X Series X1–X8 licenses without extra cost.

• Easy setup: Admins can configure via the self-service 8x8 Admin Console.

• Compliant by default: Built to meet ACMA guidelines, the Spam Act 2003, and Australia’s Interception Act.

The new SMS functionality is live today for all Australian customers with eligible mobile numbers, whether headquartered in Australia or just operating local branches.

The Bigger Picture: UC Platforms Keep Doubling Down on Messaging

The launch highlights a broader industry trend: unified communications (UC) platforms are racing to integrate messaging directly into their CX stacks. With customer expectations for instant, cross-channel engagement higher than ever, SMS integration is less a “nice to have” than a baseline requirement.

Rivals like Zoom and RingCentral have been expanding their own messaging tools, but 8x8 is banking on simplicity: one app, one number, fewer headaches. For Australian businesses, especially SMBs looking for frictionless ways to reach customers, this could be a very welcome upgrade.

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