Tag: AI

Sydney, Australia – Hotwire, the global communications and marketing consultancy, has announced the launch of its global AI innovation team for consultancy and first proprietary AI tool, GAIO.tech, that delivers unique insight into brand reputation, influence, and recommendations by AI chatbots. 

GAIO.tech is the first in a series of AI technology and consulting solutions Hotwire will launch in the coming months to help global brands use AI as part of their marketing and communications strategies to better meet business goals. 

With Hotwire’s GAIO.tech, marketing and communications professionals in technology and innovation companies will better understand how their brand and products show up in AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, as well as the opportunities to influence these answers. 

While search engine optimisation (SEO) focuses on keywords and backlinks, GAIO.tech enables brands to use generative artificial intelligence optimisation (GAIO) to analyse brand mentions in AI chatbots. It identifies the most prominent answers and sources, revealing which media outlets, channels, and influencers are prioritised. This insight will help PR and marketing teams better understand how generative AI-powered research and responses impact brand reputation and visibility, allowing them to refine their strategies accordingly.

Hotwire also appointed Sven Winnefeld as vice president for AI innovation to lead the AI team across its global organisation. This team will consult clients on their AI strategies and communications programmes, as well as develop a suite of proprietary AI-powered solutions.

Earlier this year, as part of its ongoing AI consultancy, Hotwire released a report titled ‘Brand Narratives in the Age of AI’ in partnership with the think tank House of Beautiful Business. This report includes insights from leading AI experts, including journalists, cyber-psychologists, designers, and brand leaders, to explore the AI trends and narratives influencing the business landscape and societal perceptions. It also introduces a new brand positioning framework for communications and marketing leaders to benchmark and develop their own AI narratives.

Commenting on the launch, Winnefeld said, “As consumers and B2B buyers increasingly turn to generative AI for research, it will only become more important that marketing and communications teams understand how consumers are using these tools and develop strategies to best position their company and products. GAIO.tech delivers insights into the answers of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, including the identification of the most cited products, brands, and sources. This tool is just the start of Hotwire’s work with AI to give our clients the insights they need to create the most effective marketing and communications programmes for the future.”

Heather Kernahan, global chief executive officer at Hotwire, also explained, “According to MuckRack’s State of AI in PR 2024 report, 64% of PR pros now use generative AI tools, compared to just 28% a year ago. This rapid adoption will shape how AI is used in PR and marketing to engage target audiences and stakeholders. By launching a team dedicated to AI innovation for communications and marketing, we can set our clients ahead of competitors through unique AI insights and technologies, done responsibly. Working with and understanding how best to deploy AI will allow global brands to build stronger reputations and relationships that boost customer retention and revenues.” 

At the heart of entrepreneurial success lies a keen, observant eye and an unwavering passion for bridging gaps in the market. For one visionary entrepreneur, his journey began with a profound realisation born from contrasting market trends across diverse regions. 

For MARKETECH APAC’s latest Milestone Series, we spoke with Rajiv Lamba, CEO and founder of SurveySensum and global managing director of NeuroSensum, to talk about one of his greatest milestones — creating an innovative AI-powered solutions platform to uncover deep consumer insights and democratise market research. 

In this piece, Lamba shares the inspiration behind the inception of SurveySensum and his journey in understanding consumer behaviour through technology and data-driven insights.

A vision realised through data 

Lamba’s journey began when he started observing contrasting market trends across different regions. Early in his career, he had some profound realisations, having noticed a stark difference in how consumers in the West versus those in Southeast Asia approached sharing feedback and preferences with brands.

“In Southeast Asian cultures, consumers would rarely provide direct, critical feedback in quantitative surveys, often claiming they liked a product or advertisement even if they didn’t,” Lamba explained. 

The observations Lamba made sparked his passion for bringing neuroscience principles into the market research realm through NeuroSensum, a neuroscience and AI-technology-based market research company. By leveraging tools like electroencephalography (EEG), facial coding, and eye-tracking, Lamba and his team could finally unveil the unspoken truths lingering in the subconscious minds of consumers. For him, it was an exhilarating experience to be able to unlock profound insights for their clients. 

However, as he delved deeper into the market research landscape, another glaring issue became apparent to him. Lamba identified that there is still a lack of fast, affordable, and accessible solutions for enterprises of all sizes. A staggering number of businesses couldn’t regularly leverage research consultancies due to the exorbitant costs and lengthy timelines involved.

Recognising the need for affordable and accessible market research solutions, Lamba founded SurveySensum under the Neurosensum umbrella. SurveySensum is an AI-powered customer experience platform that could democratise real-time customer feedback, making it a reality for mid-sized and large enterprises alike. 

“I envisioned a future where companies could rapidly build and share omnichannel surveys, gaining invaluable consumer insights at a fraction of research agencies’ cost, and enterprises could do more consumer research and make data-backed decisions,” Lamba shared. 

Building the vision, one piece of data at a time 

While the idea of launching SurveySensum holds a lot of promise for the industry, pioneering a disruptive technology is never without its challenges. Sceptics doubted the shift from traditional methods to a DIY customer feedback SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution.

However, no amount of doubt made Lamba let go of his vision, a strong belief that would soon pay him off tremendously. SurveySensum has grown into a platform that now serves over 170 large and mid-sized enterprises globally, spanning sectors as diverse as FMCG, telecommunications, banking, insurance, e-commerce, healthcare, retail, and automotive. 

What started as a vision has finally materialised into a platform that has helped clients save a remarkable 70–80% on their market research spending and up to 90% in overall time invested. 

Commenting on those challenges, Lamba stated, “My team and I persevered, fueled by our profound conviction that AI would inevitably reshape this industry. We doubled down on defining our target personas, educating them on the immense value SurveySensum could unlock, and demonstrating our real-world impact through our work.” 

It is interesting to note that while he’s working on SurveySensum, Lamba also serves as the global managing director at NeuroSensum, which means he was juggling both responsibilities across both entities. 

He revealed that his primary goals have been to generate consistent cash flow through a blend of internal profitability and external funding, while also exploring new avenues for growth, differentiation, and expansion beyond their current operations in Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Manila, and their client base spanning over 25 countries worldwide.

“It’s a delicate balancing act, but one that I’ve approached with a steadfast focus on building an exceptional leadership team and empowering them to execute our innovative strategies. It’s a lofty endeavour, but one that has only strengthened my resolve and leadership capabilities over time,” Lamba stated. 

Shaping the future of market research 

Lamba believes SurveySensum has revolutionised how businesses approach data-driven decision-making.

Whereas such in-depth analysis once took weeks or months of arduous manual coding, SurveySensum has condensed that process to minutes. Companies can finally respond with agility to the rapidly evolving needs and sentiments of their customers, pivoting strategies and staying ahead of the competition like never before.

“Looking back, I’m incredibly proud of how SurveySensum has indelibly transformed the way businesses approach data-driven decision-making. By harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, we’ve made it possible to derive real-time insights from open-ended customer feedback across a multitude of languages, including Asian native languages,” he added. 

Lamba also shared that he is incredibly excited about the future that awaits customer feedback platforms like SurveySensum, as the accelerating advancements in AI and machine learning will undoubtedly continue shaping this domain in profound ways.

“At SurveySensum, we’re already at the forefront of these trends with our cutting-edge text analytics capabilities. Our proprietary algorithms are continuously trained and refined across verticals, geographies, and data sets, ensuring our ability to extract accurate, actionable insights from even the most nuanced customer verbatim grows more potent by the day,” he explained. 

On the idea of future trends and technology shaping customer feedback platforms, Lamba believes that SurveySensum is positioned well enough to capitalise on these trends. The brand is already working to launch an AI summary and insights on our platform, where a client doesn’t need to analyse the data or information from the surveys, but the platform itself will be able to provide a textual summary and actionable insights. This will again save hours of analysis time and reduce dependency on research agencies and consultants for consumer research needs.

“Moreover, our omnichannel approach has perfectly positioned us to thrive in today’s ecosystem, where consumers are engaging with brands across a myriad of digital and physical touchpoints. Whether it’s email, WhatsApp, SMS, QR codes, chatbots, or social media, SurveySensum empowers companies to connect with their audiences wherever they are,” Lamba added. 

Personal and career reflections

Reflecting on SurveySensum’s milestones, including four successful funding rounds and achieving profitability, Lamba takes pride in the journey of disruptive innovation. 

“I can’t help but swell with immense pride and gratitude. This journey has been an exhilarating testament to the power of disruptive innovation and the tireless efforts of my passionate and highly talented team,” he shared. 

As he reached his fifth year on SurveySensum, he shared that some of his most profound learnings have stemmed from the setbacks and course corrections they’ve had to navigate along the way. The team faced some major mistakes early on, getting too caught up in the competitive landscape and over-engineering their initial product far beyond the basics of a true ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP).

It wasn’t until they took that first iteration to market that Lamba and his team realised it wasn’t aligned with what their clients truly needed. That, for him, was a wake-up call that taught him a lesson he will never forget: the paramount importance of deeply understanding your market from the outset.

“Knowing your target personas inside and out, grasping the nuances of their pain points and the true market size, and talking to them directly are the crucial first steps before investing significant time and resources into product development. Getting a lean MVP into the market rapidly, absorbing feedback, and iterating from that stable base is the smartest path to sustainable growth,” Lamba further explained. 

For Lamba, if there’s one piece of advice he could impart to aspiring entrepreneurs, it would be to make understanding your market deeply a priority from day one. Define your target personas with granularity, validate the scale of the opportunity, and start leaning with an MVP before overinvesting prematurely. Then, embrace an evolution mindset—continue evolving that initial solution based on real user inputs and consumption patterns.

“This approach has become the bedrock of my own entrepreneurial philosophy and leadership mindset. While the path has been arduous, it has also been immensely rewarding, constantly propelling me to new heights of personal growth, strategic thinking, and passionate determination,” he said. 

Another piece of advice from him is to closely monitor profitability and cash flow from operations and align your management team so that the company is self-reliant and self-sustainable. In spite of having two offerings—neuroscience-based consulting and SurveySensum SAAS solutions—we became profitable in our fourth year, and at the same time, we were able to get business from more than 25 countries across the globe and have a physical presence in four countries.

Lamba’s journey with Neurosensum and SurveySensum exemplifies the impact of innovative thinking and technological integration in market research. As he continues to lead with passion and vision, the future of market research promises to be more insightful and accessible than ever before.

“As I look to the future, I’m filled with excitement for what lies ahead for SurveySensum and the market research industry as a whole. The key is to keep evolving, keep rapidly iterating, keep shattering paradigms, and never lose sight of the deepest needs of your clients and the value they expect you to provide them,” Lamba concluded. 

Singapore – Around 82% of brands using AI to streamline workflows and automate content generation have experienced increased operational efficiency, market research by CleverTap revealed. 

CleverTap’s market research found that more than half, or 64%, of respondents use AI to build personalised experiences and content resonating with individual preferences at scale with real-time experimentation for optimal engagement. 

Meanwhile, 39% have leveraged AI for automated decision-making and taking more informed decisions by analysing large volumes of data, predicting outcomes, and strategizing for the next best action. 

The research further revealed that 54% of respondents have actually achieved faster content generation and campaign rollout with AI. 

In terms of adoption of AI by teams within a brand, 71.4% of respondents highlighted that AI capabilities are most extensively utilised by content teams, underscoring the pivotal role AI plays in content generation. 

Growth marketing teams follow at 57.1%, demonstrating a strong use of AI in strategizing and expanding marketing efforts. Central marketing and product teams also integrate AI into their operations, though to a lesser extent.

CleverTap found that brands today miss out on 4x higher conversions and improved business value due to inefficient AI adoption. This is why the all-in-one engagement platform recommends that brands in the early stages of AI adoption should strive to advance to more advanced levels. This progression involves transitioning from utilising AI solely for operational efficiency to harnessing it for personalisation, experimentation, and ultimately, strategic planning and decision-making.

Commenting on the report, Jacob Joseph, VP of data science at CleverTap, said, “AI is the catalyst reshaping every facet of today’s brands—from optimising operations and enriching customer engagement to revolutionising decision-making. The insights highlighted in our 2024 market research report offer a great strategic approach for brands at the initial stages of AI adoption. They should aim to progress, gain maturity, and achieve significant improvements in conversion rates and business value. After all, AI in customer engagement or in a tech stack is no longer just an enhancement but a necessity for a competitive advantage while addressing evolving customer expectations.”

Singapore – 8 in 10 companies in Singapore are transforming their business models in response to global megatrends such as generative AI and changing customer expectations, according to a report by customer platform HubSpot.

With this in mind, HubSpot’s research stated that a significant majority (81%) of Singaporean businesses said that they’ve evolved more in the past four years than the previous two decades due to these emerging trends – giving the highest level of disruption across all countries surveyed.

The report also said that Singaporean companies are the most likely globally to feel that their current growth tactics are becoming less effective (71%) and are also the most likely across all countries surveyed to agree that the introduction of AI has required them to reinvent (82%) their business.

The study also found out that Singaporean companies were struggling to meet demands for multi-channel content, with 82% sharing a need for tools to help remix content from one format or channel to another. Singapore is also the most likely across all countries surveyed by HubSpot to cite an increasing number of channels as a pain point (40%).

Furthermore, a separate HubSpot study revealed that 92% of Singapore companies agree that consumers find customer service interactions frustrating, and that 81% of Singapore companies consider customer service and customer success separate functions with distinct goals and responsibilities.

This hinders visibility and the flow of information across customer facing teams, impacting the ability to deliver impactful, personalised customer service. Common challenges faced by customer service teams in Singapore include extracting meaningful insights from customer data (49%), tracking KPIs (46%), ensuring alignment of customer service goals with overall business objectives (38%), as well as ensuring agents have access to accurate and relevant information (34%).

Aligning with Singapore’s strong national focus on AI, the study uncovered that nearly all (96%) local companies are using AI as part of the customer service process. To transform customer service into a more proactive function, about two thirds of (66%) CX teams in Singapore are implementing predictive analytics and AI-driven tools to better anticipate customer needs.

With all this in mind, HubSpot has announced the launch of the new Service Hub and Content Hub. These tools are designed to help local businesses deliver streamlined, personalised customer experiences, which 80% of local companies view as key to business growth. These solutions are part of HubSpot’s Spotlight, a bi-annual initiative where the company highlights its latest innovations to help SMEs win.

Talking about this, Kat Warboys, senior marketing director of APAC, HubSpot, said, “A combination of rising business costs, new technology and evolving customer expectations have impacted the effectiveness of conventional growth tactics among Singapore’s businesses, accelerating a need for reinvention. Our research shows that a majority of local businesses agree that personalised, impactful customer experiences, powered by AI and automation, will be vital to their growth in 2024.”

“Long term success will be determined by the ability of businesses to effectively engage with their audiences across multiple channels throughout the customer journey, and demonstrate value to customers to maximise retention,” she added.

San Francisco, USA – Global digital experience software company Sitecore has announced the appointment of Dave O’Flanagan as its new chief executive officer, along with a series of key leadership and board changes to drive innovation and growth. 

In his new role, O’Flanagan will continue to advance Sitecore’s DXP leadership by driving ongoing innovation and transforming customer value with AI.

O’Flanagan previously served as the company’s interim CEO after three years as chief product officer (CPO). He led the transition to Composable and the introduction of Sitecore’s SaaS DXP solutions.

Before joining Sitecore, O’Flanagan was the founder and CEO of Boxever, which was acquired by Sitecore in 2021.

Together with O’Flanagan’s appointment, the company has also announced additional leadership changes. 

After five years of leading Sitecore’s suite of content and management products, Roger Connolly has been promoted to chief product officer to drive all content lifecycle and AI innovation. 

Danny Robinson has been appointed as the new chief technology officer (CTO), having previously led the team behind Sitecore’s AI-enhanced personalisation solutions. 

Meanwhile, Rohinee Mohindroo has been appointed as the new chief digital and information officer (CDIO). Mohindroo has been the driving force behind recent advancements in security and data privacy across the product portfolio.

Alongside these leadership moves, Sitecore has also made four new board appointments to help deliver on its vision. The new board members will work alongside Darren Roos, chair of the Sitecore board. 

Among the appointees are Christian Shin Høegh Andersen, partner at private equity firm EQT Partners, and Maggie Buggie, who brings 20 years’ experience leveraging technology to transform businesses, with a focus on AI and digital customer experience. 

Also on the board are Michael Ouissi, who has spent more than 20 years specialising in enterprise go-to-market strategy, and Saleah Hassen Laher, who has more than 30 years’ experience in enterprise software delivery and customer success.

Effective immediately, the leadership and board changes are aimed at accelerating the strategy of the new CEO and driving further growth for Sitecore. 

At the recent Sitecore User Group Conference, O’Flanagan revealed a suite of generative AI capabilities as part of the company’s ‘marketer-first’ AI strategy. These capabilities are expected to dramatically transform the way marketers work to create content and deliver standout, personalised experiences.

Sitecore’s new AI features, including AI-driven recommendations for website search, advanced A/B testing, and image recognition, enhance its existing AI offerings. The AI Copilot tool is crafted to streamline marketers’ tasks throughout the content creation process, boosting efficiency and impact across various channels.

Speaking on the announcement, Roos said, “I’ve known Dave since he joined Sitecore through the acquisition of Boxever, where he was the founder and CEO. The opportunity in front of Sitecore is great, and Dave’s customer-first mindset, focus on innovation and execution, as well as his energy around the positive impact Sitecore’s solutions can have on customers and partners, will help propel Sitecore’s growth.”

Also commenting on his promotion, O’Flanagan shared, “This is an incredibly exciting moment in Sitecore’s journey as we continue to redefine the potential of the DXP. We’re bringing together the best in content, personalisation, and AI to power standout experiences for visionary brands in every industry. It’s an honour to take on this role, and I can’t wait to get started alongside our brilliant customers, team, partners, and the wider Sitecore community.”

In the ever-evolving marketing landscape, one technology emerges as the potential linchpin – Gen AI. Revered for helping businesses move further, faster and more efficiently, does it also hold the key to a new way of marketing?

I recently discussed this topic and more with Rio Longacre, Managing Director at Slalom, and Jon Williams, Global Head of Agency Business Development at AWS.

Gen AI: Making sense of the mania

During our conversation, Longacre describes a paradigm shift in the Gen AI landscape. Moving beyond experimentation, companies are now forging strategic pathways, identifying areas where it can genuinely make a transformative difference.

“When ChatGPT launched, it quickly became the thing every client we worked with was suddenly dedicating significant resources to. They were building out Gen AI demos, investigating it. People were asking us to help them create a Gen AI strategy. And there was a lot of experimentation. There was a lot of wheel spinning too. It was like this Gen AI-mania – everyone just went all in,” he says.

“Within the last few months, there’s been a big shift, which is very positive. Instead of ‘Let’s just try different things’, it’s now, ‘let’s have a Gen AI strategy’. They are looking to identify areas where Generative AI could make a big difference and move the needle. They want to invest in those, whether it’s eCommerce, operations or creative; they want to come up with ideas that could work and test them. If they work, great. They’ll look to start to commercialise them. If they don’t, that’s OK too, then they can pivot and try something else.”

AI as a marketing assistant

Williams shares where Gen AI is shining as a marketing assistant, of sorts. “Amazon Q is a new type of generative AI-powered assistant that can be used specifically for work to be tailored to your business to have conversations, solve problems or generate content. It uses the data and expertise found in your company’s information repositories, such as codebases and enterprise systems.

“You could use Q, for example, to:

● Learn a brand style guide, then
● Use that information to turn a press release into a blog post that adheres to those standards, then
● Analyse how a brand has shown up on social media, then
● Create new posts around those releases that will make sense to followers, then
● Analyse the results of those posts, and finally
● Summarise them for review for teams

“It’s almost like this self-fulfilling circle of incremental productivity that’s happening as a result of leveraging some of the generative AI capabilities that come to use as a result of a bot but are plugged into the systems and data that your enterprise organisation owns. We’re only in the very early stages of that, which is pretty exciting.”

At Amperity, we work with many customers that want to be more data driven and customer-centric. We know that comes down to an understanding of the customer – even figuring out what the key segments are that you should be going after and what types of campaigns you should be launching.

If you think about the analysis you have to do to answer those questions today, there are so many barriers you must understand, including:

● Your underlying data and the schema
● SQL
● How to build visualisations

There are many barriers to a user from the customer data to actually figuring out what strategy should be launched. We’re seeing a lot of folks throw Amperity into the mix here too, developing tools where that data can be more democratised. You can ask questions of the data with natural language as opposed to needing to write SQL.

This will lead to a lot more data-driven decision making as folks are able to more easily access their data relative to the mini barriers that were in place previously.

3 Ways marketers are leveraging Gen AI for greater efficiencies and cost- savings, according to Longacre:

1. eCommerce company: This company has written descriptions for 10,000 product SKUs using Gen AI in a couple of weeks, saving them months of time and about a million dollars.
2. Paid media: As it relates to paid media tools, such as those designed for Amazon Marketing Cloud, there’s a background image generator specifically tailored for crafting lifestyle images. Findings indicate a remarkable 20 to 25% increase in conversion rates for products showcased with lifestyle images compared to those with a plain white background. Swiftly deploying these features, testing their efficacy, obtaining results and subsequently, optimising based on these insights is a gamechanger.
3. Banks and finance: The bank’s creative briefs are now being generated by artificial intelligence, reducing the time spent on back-and-forth communication with agencies by approximately one week. Even with segmented strategies, brands often face resource challenges.

Accelerating the creation of creative briefs, creative imagery and product descriptions allows for a faster customisation of on-site experiences. This progression toward personalisation doesn’t require them to go in a ‘hands-off’ mode where Gen AI is really running the show. Instead, it’s truly like a genuine one-to-one chatbot interaction or conversational AI.

Keeping the human in the loop with AI

Longacre points out that every use case he shared has a human in the loop. Since we’re in the early days of AI, that’s not surprising as most brands are starting with ‘human in the loop’ use cases. This is where AI generates outputs that a person then approves and potentially refines. ‘Human in the loop’ use cases enable productivity gains while minimising risks arising from hallucinations or unexpected outputs.

“Maybe the copy is being written by Gen AI, but a human reviews it,” Longacre says.
“The image might be generated, but it’s not being pushed out into the wild.

“We’re starting to see a little bit of that, but generally, there’s human oversight. Even with chatbots. I mean chatbots have been around forever. Most of them were machine learning based. You need that knowing of, ‘OK, when do you have the escalation? Where do you pass from the chatbot to a live person for certain use cases?’ Identifying that is still super critical.”

Setting your brand up for success with Gen AI

In the journey of crafting a Generative AI strategy, Williams points out five key elements that play a pivotal role in ensuring success. They are:

1. Tech stack: Your tech stack is vital. You should have the ability to explore models, test use cases and choose the right ones.
2. A solid, mature first-party data foundation: Generative AI relies on the data to function properly, which means you must have robust data ingestion storage and management capabilities to make sure that the first-party data is accurate and as close to real time as possible to provide accuracy in the model outputs.
3. Human oversight: You still need that human in the loop intervention to make sure that what you thought was going to happen is happening and there are no anomalies.
4. AI-specific analysis skills: Leveraging AI requires the ability to interpret and accurately apply AI model outputs. You must ensure that your teams have the expertise to understand how the tools work and how best to put the data to work.
5. Process redesign: Consider existing processes or workflows that need to be resigned to take advantage of General AI.

Start small with AI for big results

My advice to brands and organisations when rolling out AI: start small. I would start with a small use case that’s highly measurable and one that doesn’t require major change. One place where clients we work with have seen a lot of success is just with subject line optimisation or optimising the body of emails or paid media ads. Since you can have a human in the loop here, it’s a great opportunity to experiment with creating different segmentation strategies and different messages.

This article is written by Joyce Gordon, Head of Generative AI, Amperity.

Singapore – AI digital behaviour aggregator SQREEM Technologies has announced it has acquired Melbourne-founded programmatic business Trade Indy to bolster their ongoing global expansion plans. 

SQREEM Technologies’ acquisition of Trade Indy plays a pivotal role in transforming the digital marketplace, enabling marketers to engage in the cookie-free future. 

The acquisition creates an innovative offering that will establish the company’s position as a global AI partnership provider. For both agencies and clients, the acquisition will enable brands to pinpoint and showcase their target audiences with unparalleled accuracy, fostering enduring digital connections, amplifying brand influence, and ensuring budget accountability.

Furthermore, Mark Rosenberg and James Robertson, directors at Trade Indy, see this acquisition as a logical evolution, as both entities align in their commitment to delivering top-tier technology and customer service. Joining forces with SQREEM grants Trade Indy access to the most extensive audience taxonomy globally, complemented by its vast network for activation and supply.

The acquisition commenced immediately, with Trade Indy now integrated into the SQREEM Technologies Group. 

Rosenberg commented, “The agreement to merge with SQREEM expands both business offerings by bringing together our experienced managed service team with advanced, cookieless, AI-driven technology. This move into the SQREEM group is an exciting growth opportunity at a time when the market is demanding next-generation digital media solutions.” 

“We are excited to see this relationship expand our horizons and provide us with not only the resources to maintain growth but also to introduce the SQREEM platform to other agencies and brands across the region,” Robertson further added. 

Meanwhile, Ian Chapman Banks, CEO of SQREEM Technologies, said, “As part of our ongoing growth strategy, SQREEM Technologies has grown significantly over the past two years alone, with acquisitions and partnerships in more than 10 markets globally. The Trade Indy acquisition is significant in that it simultaneously puts SQREEM into the global A-League of AI Innovators, but domestically, whilst Australia currently ranks 15th out of 62 countries across the world for AI adoption, this presents a unique opportunity for early adopters like SQREEM and Trade Indy to drive significant growth for their clients whilst expanding their global reach and relevance.” 

Manila, Philippines – With the majority of today’s businesses embracing the use of AI, it is no surprise that AI has placed itself as something that will be staying and breaking through even further in the field of customer engagement. Furthermore, in an industry where the demand for AI is consistently escalating, leveraging it to enhance customer engagement is now seen as a vital requirement for businesses to prosper in the digital era.

To help marketers unlock the potential of AI in customer engagement at a time when it matters the most, MARKETECH APAC returned with an exclusive webinar last January 24 titled “What’s NEXT 2024: Customer Engagement in Asia”, which aimed to impart valuable insights to marketers on how to properly integrate AI with customer engagement.

Kicking things off, Ranya Arora, senior strategic business consultant at Braze, highlighted in her keynote presentation that this impact brought about by AI in marketing has led businesses and marketers to adapt alongside it, with the emergence of AI-dedicated marketing teams as well as the prevalence of AI-powered campaigns, all to ensure personalised and streamlined experiences that greatly reinforce customer satisfaction and loyalty.

According to Arora, the significant rate at which marketing has adopted and integrated with AI has now transformed it into something that it is synonymous with, with 76% of CMOs saying that generative AI will change the way that marketing operates.

For her, there are three key roles of AI in customer engagement that marketers should focus on; (1) drive more relevance by making experiences feel personal on every channel by tailoring content to each customer based on their preferences, attributes, and behaviours, (2) drive more effectiveness by automatically testing and optimising campaigns for their best-performing version, and (3) drive more efficiency to assist with routine tasks to allot more time towards formulating strategies and creative approaches.

Meanwhile, Jia Ling Lim, assistant head of marketing and partnerships at BeLive Technology; Rolly Pane, managing director for Indonesia at Clozette; Saniya Dhingra Agarwal, head of customer experience at foodpanda Singapore; and Chris Martin Alarcon, head of content and community management at Home Credit Philippines also provided their industry insights on the benefits that AI can bring to enhance customer engagement strategies in a panel discussion.

The marketing leaders, from different industries and countries, also provided advice on how AI can be leveraged for following customer behaviour and personalisation through data insights, how to overcome obstacles in the process of utilising AI for customer engagement, as well as its future potential.

To sum it all up, the insights imparted by the webinar served as a guide for marketers to properly settle and get into utilising AI tools more effectively to improve their customer engagement strategies, paving the way for businesses and brands to flourish with the assistance of AI.

The webinar, titled What’s NEXT 2024: Customer Engagement in Asia is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze. It garnered over 100 participants all across Asia from prominent brands such as 2GO, Bounty Fresh, Carousell, Johnson & Johnson, Mercedes Benz, and Shiseido, amongst many more.
   
If you missed going to the event, you may register HERE to obtain your on-demand access.

Australia – Eagle Eye, the SaaS business carrying out loyalty, personalised promotions, and omnichannel marketing solutions for retail, travel, and hospitality brands, has unveiled ‘EagleAI,’ a modular, customer-centric data science solution powered by AI built specifically for the grocery and retail sectors.

‘EagleAI’ is expected to usher in the next generation of personalisation at scale. By leveraging customer data and predictive machine learning algorithms, EagleAI will help retailers and grocers across the globe better meet their customers’ individual wants and needs, optimise promotional spending, increase ROI, and enable true one-to-one engagement that ultimately drives loyalty.

This new AI-powered data science solution can automate the process of connecting and structuring customer data across touchpoints, using cutting-edge machine learning and AI to create uniquely personalised offers for customers rather than curating the ‘best fit’ set of offers based on a finite number available. This approach sets a new global standard for retail personalisation.

‘EagleAI’ is a set of machine-learning algorithms that factor in product affinity, shopping predictions, promotional responsiveness, budgetary controls, and more. Working simultaneously, the algorithms create and target the right offers for the right individuals.

Therefore, in a retail setting, ‘EagleAI’ acts as the ‘brain’ of the Eagle Eye AIR platform’s nervous system, which is the transaction layer that executes an unlimited range of offers in real-time to every customer touchpoint.

With this, the AI-powered solution creates the ability to build personalisation at the individual level and execute it at scale. This combination and ability make it unique among other retail marketing platforms that, while capable of personalisation, lack the capacity to deliver individual offers to millions of customers. Similarly, while some traditional mass marketing may reach large groups of customers, it still does not come with individualised offers.

EagleAI is well positioned as a platform to strengthen retailer-supplier relationships as it enables retailers to offer their supplier partners a new and proven route to build customer loyalty, grow share of wallet, recruit new customers, drive cross- and upsell activity, and launch new innovations.

Eagle Eye developed EagleAI after acquiring a Paris-based SaaS company with extensive and proven AI capabilities, Untie Nots, in early 2023. Leveraging the expertise of the Untie Nots team, the power of the Eagle Eye AIR platform, and Google Cloud technology such as Vertex AI, EagleAI is a standalone solution under the umbrella of the Eagle Eye Group.

Moreover, while EagleAI is designed to create winning scenarios, the biggest winners are the consumers themselves, who receive compelling and entirely personalised promotions. The AI-powered data science solution is an answer to data from McKinsey showing that 71% of consumers expect personalisation, and 76% are frustrated when they don’t get it.

By optimising customer communications and putting customers at the centre of decision-making by understanding their needs and crafting relevant offers and marketing, EagleAI helps create more rewarding connections and deeper relationships between retailers and their customers.

Tim Mason, CEO of Eagle Eye, said, “At Eagle Eye, we’re on a mission to power the personalised marketing revolution, and launching EagleAI represents a significant step on that journey. We believe that personalisation is the retail version of the Golden Rule—treating people as they would like to be treated—and with EagleAI, retailers can put this into practice in a real, scalable, efficient way.”

Mason continued, “I am hugely excited by this opportunity and by the work that Zyed and his brilliant team will do to enable current and future clients to unlock the full potential of their customer data. Together, we can offer a bright AI-assisted future to forward-thinking retailers.”

Meanwhile, Zyed Jamoussi, co-founder of Untie Nots, shared, “Our vision for EagleAI is to empower businesses to personalise the end-to-end customer experience while maximising ROI. We’re giving retailers the capability to manage the full complement of promotional, loyalty, and media investments for every individual customer across every business unit.”

Melbourne, Australia – With the widespread adoption of AI in various industries, the latest report from Media Collateral revealed a significant percentage in the incorporation of generative AI among communication professionals throughout the Asia Pacific region, with marketers and journalists emerging as the frontrunners in embracing this technological shift.

According to the findings, 74% of communications professionals have now integrated generative AI into their work, with marketers and journalists noted as the primary users.

Notably, 90% of marketers have embraced generative AI, while 61% of journalists have adopted this technology, with only 3% of the latter deeming it essential for their daily tasks.

In terms of future engagement, 79% of respondents indicated their intention to increase engagement with generative AI in the next two years.

Meanwhile, insights into workforce disruption showed that 25% anticipate a reduction in job opportunities due to generative AI, while 60% foresee a transformation of job roles.

Furthermore, a significant number of respondents view AI as a catalyst for efficiency and innovation, with 80% using generative AI for productivity, 67% to simplify tasks, and 52% to create innovative content.

In primary use cases, content generation was reported as the predominant reason for utilising generative AI, with 75% of professionals using or planning to use it for this purpose.

Speaking about the result of the report, Andrew Thompson, report author and manager of editorial and research at Media Collateral, said, “As someone entrenched in journalism and communications, this study stemmed from vital questions about our professional futures amidst the advent of generative AI.”

“Generative AI tech, such as ChatGPT, is reshaping how we ideate and create messages, just as the printing press and internet once revolutionised their spread. Communications professionals will be shaping, and shaped by, the unfolding narrative of humans and AI. Our hope is that this report offers current practical insights and fuels ongoing creative inquiry,” he concluded.

The valuable insights included in the report were derived from a digital survey conducted from October to December 2023. This survey targeted professionals in journalism, marketing, public relations, content creation, and advertising within the APAC region.