Tag: amazon web services

Indonesia – Databricks has announced its entry into the Indonesian market as part of a broader strategy to expand its presence in the ASEAN region, driven by over 70% annualised growth over the past three years.

Databricks’ entry into Indonesia marks a key step in expanding its presence in the ASEAN region. This move aims to help more Indonesian businesses unlock the full potential of their data and AI capabilities.

As part of its entry into Indonesia, Databricks has strengthened its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This collaboration will make the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform available in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region through AWS Marketplace, starting in early 2025.

Indonesian businesses can now harness advanced features like faster custom model development using Databricks Mosaic AI on AWS Trainium chips. This enables them to pretrain, fine-tune, and deploy large language models (LLMs) on their own data with better cost efficiency. Enhanced AWS Marketplace integrations also make it easier to adopt Databricks, allowing companies to scale generative AI applications while retaining full control over their data and intellectual property.

“We’re thrilled to support Databricks’ expansion into Indonesia, which reinforces AWS’s IDR$71 trillion investment in the AWS Asia Pacific (Jakarta) Region. By building the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform exclusively on AWS in Indonesia, we are committed to supporting Databricks and our joint customers to securely manage data locally and drive digital and AI innovation that addresses industry needs,” said Kirsten Gilbertson, head for partner management for ASEAN at AWS.

Meanwhile, Cecily Ng, vice president and general manager of ASEAN and Greater China at Databricks, shared, “We’re excited to bring the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to Indonesia by leveraging the reliability, scalability, agility, and security of AWS. This expansion reflects our commitment to not only deepen our footprint in the region but also help Indonesian enterprises unlock the full potential of their data through advanced analytics and AI-driven insights, enabling them to transform their businesses in an increasingly digital economy.” 

Singapore – Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that regional superapp announced that Grab has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider. With AWS, Grab is pursuing a technology-led strategy to accelerate growth across its mobility, deliveries and financial services verticals, including its new digibanks, while continuing to improve its operational efficiencies and reduce IT infrastructure costs.

Grab relies on AWS to serve 41.9 million monthly transacting users and over 13  million driver and delivery partners registered on its platform. Every second, Grab does over a hundred transactions, receives over 500k GPS pings and services over 50,000 ETA requests. AWS powers Grab’s critical compute, storage, networking and database functions. 

By leveraging AWS’s resilient, secure, and elastic cloud, Grab accelerates innovation, rapidly launches new services and scales efficiently across its eight-country footprint- Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

As Grab looks to balance growth with cost discipline, it is also using AWS Cloud to power the majority of its operations in Southeast Asia across verticals such as mobility, deliveries and financial services and entities, including its digibanks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. 

By adopting AWS’s suite of cloud-based solutions, Grab has been able to gain agility and reduce operational costs. Grab uses analytics service AWS Clean Rooms, which enables secure, privacy-preserving data collaboration between different entities and organizations. Grab also leverages AWS’s purpose-built databases and has migrated more than 400 backend application services from traditional virtual servers to AWS Graviton2 processors to drive high performance, as well as cost and energy efficiency. 

Moreover, on-demand transactions made by Grab customers were up 22% in the third quarter of 2024. To cater to this surge in demand for services, Grab uses Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) as its transactional database coupled with Amazon DynamoDB. This ensures high availability, scalability, and adaptability of its platform to drive exceptional customer experience fueled by more accurate searchable data. With AWS, Grab seamlessly adapts to evolving customer needs by easily adjusting resources dynamically based on user demand. For example, during peak times like holiday sales, Grab can easily accommodate increased traffic to make transactions across the superapp seamless. Conversely, during off-peak periods, resources can be scaled down to save costs. 

As it looks to accelerate growth with initiatives focused on affordability, high value offerings, and digital banking, AWS provides Grab with a stable and scalable infrastructure to support this rapid expansion. For instance, Grab continues to scale its revamped Advance Booking feature across the region. It also did a region-wide roll out of its improved Group Order feature and continues to drive adoption for it, making it easier for users to join the group order, track food delivery updates and split the bill. With AWS, Grab was also able to build and launch digital banks in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as GX Bank in Malaysia, which was launched in under 16 months, scaling rapidly to serve close to one million customers within the first year of launch. 

Lastly, Grab is committed to being at the forefront of exploring how the latest AI technologies can better serve and respond to the needs of its users and partners. Catwalk, Grab’s machine learning (ML) model platform, is built on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), and has been used to deploy over 1,000 AI models in production, such as route guidance and pricing. With Catwalk, Grab provides users’ real-time decision-making across its services and delivers personalized experiences like tailored restaurant recommendations, loyalty rewards, and bespoke financial services based on users’ preferences. In addition, Grab uses AWS’s custom-designed AWS Inferentia chips with specialized ML inference capabilities to cost efficiently power its AI-powered services, including map enhancements and fraud detection in its digital banks.

Grab also leverages AWS as the underlying compute infrastructure for its many AI initiatives. The superapp stores hundreds of petabytes of data and processes over 200 TB of data—the equivalent of 200,000 full-length movies—on AWS daily. This data forms the foundation of Grab’s advanced analytics, ML, and AI initiatives, with AWS powering innovations across the company’s services offerings.     

Building on AWS’s compute foundations, Grab continues to develop and implement several AI-powered use cases, particularly to improve driver productivity and support merchant growth. By integrating large language models (LLMs) with point-of-interest data and historical customer notes, Grab has refined its last-mile guidance system for delivery partners. This enhancement provides drivers with more precise drop-off instructions, enabling them to complete more trips every hour, leading to higher earnings, while expediting food delivery to consumers. Additionally, Grab has rolled out a new feature that uses AI to create appetizing descriptions of food dishes in five of its eight markets. This has boosted order completion rates, bringing particular benefits to smaller, unique restaurants on the platform and enhancing the overall dining experience for customers.

Jeff Johnson, managing director for ASEAN at AWS, said, “AWS is proud to support Grab in its mission to drive innovation and enhance customer experiences across Southeast Asia. By leveraging AWS’s unparalleled operational performance, scalability, and cutting-edge technologies, Grab is able to deliver personalized, seamless transactions to millions of users throughout the region.”

He added, “As the leading cloud provider, AWS is uniquely positioned to help Grab optimize its price performance, boost operational efficiency, and continually evolve its broad suite of data-powered services. We’re excited to continue collaborating with Grab as it navigates the dynamic landscape of ecommerce and superapp development, ensuring it stays at the forefront of innovation in the digital economy.”

Meanwhile, Suthen Thomas Paradatheth, chief technology officer at Grab, commented, “At Grab, our strategy for growth is anchored on constant innovation to outserve the needs of our users and partners. This requires rapid experimentation, while ensuring security and stability, along with the ability to fully harness the potential of the latest tech like GenAI. We’re pleased to extend our partnership with AWS as our preferred cloud partner to continue to support us on this journey.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Amazon, through its Amazon Web Services (AWS) arm, has announced the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Region. With this, various sectors in the country will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from AWS data centres located in Malaysia.

As part of the launch, Amazon has also stated that it is planning to invest an estimated US$6.2b (approximately MYR 29.2b) in Malaysia through 2038, as well as support an average of more than 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually in Malaysia.

The construction and operation of the new AWS Region is estimated to add approximately US$12.1b (MYR 57.3b) to Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and will support an average of more than 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually through 2038. 

These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others within the country’s broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Malaysia.

Tengku Zafrul, Minister of Investment Trade & Industry (MITI), said, “The launch of an AWS infrastructure Region in Malaysia provides access to new and emerging technology for Malaysian entities and businesses of all sizes, boosting our country’s capabilities for digital innovation. “This milestone is a significant step towards fulfilling the vision of Malaysia’s New Industrial Master Plan 2030 to build a highly-skilled, innovative, prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable economy.”

He added, “We recognise the transformative power of digitalisation, cloud computing and AI as key drivers in Malaysia’s effort to become a manufacturing and services hub within Asia. As the largest investment made by an international technology company in Malaysia, the AWS infrastructure Region will help ensure Malaysia remains competitive on the global stage.”

Meanwhile, Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS, commented, “The new AWS Region in Malaysia enables organisations across Asia Pacific to unlock the full potential of the world’s most extensive and reliable cloud, helping customers deploy advanced applications with a broad set of AWS technologies like AI and ML.”

He added, “Malaysia’s rapidly growing digital economy requires access to secure, resilient, and sustainable cloud infrastructure. With today’s launch, AWS is proud to support Malaysia’s digital transformation and help accelerate its role as a regional hub for AI.”

Hong Kong – Multinational insurance company FWD Group has announced a five-year agreement for technology services with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of FWD’s cloud-first strategy.

As FWD Group’s strategic cloud provider, AWS will continue to host core business applications, ranging from finance to customer and insurance agent interfaces. 

The extended partnership with AWS will also provide FWD with greater agility, scalability, and resilience as FWD continues to progressively move away from operating its own onsite data centres.

Examples of previous collaborations with AWS include Omne by FWD, which offers a customer-focused digital self-service and claims process that earned strong net promoter score ratings since its introduction in 2022. 

FWD was also supported by AWS in its development of a cloud-based centralised finance hub for collecting, validating, and processing financial, investment, and actuarial data in FWD.

Between 2021 and 2023, FWD saw significant growth in certificates awarded by cloud providers, which included AWS Skills Guild, a programme that builds cloud fluency across an organisation, which trained more than 600 FWD employees and contractors.

Talking about this extended collaboration, Sandeep Pandey, group chief technology & operations officer of FWD Group, said, “At FWD, cloud computing is a holistic business strategy, not just a priority for the technology function. This digital-first mindset has delivered operational infrastructure and capabilities that are not only secure and cloud-based, but also fully integrated across business functions and with valued partners like AWS.”

”With these foundations in place, we can now further scale our generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) deployment in an efficient, effective and responsible way, in line with our vision of changing the way people feel about insurance,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Francessca Vasquez, vice president of professional services and generative artificial intelligence innovation centre at AWS, commented, “AWS has been supporting companies in the financial and insurance industry around the world to better serve their customers with its cloud and AI technologies for more than a decade.”

“FWD Group’s ambition of harnessing the power of cloud and generative AI demonstrates their commitment to digital transformation and customer-centricity. We are excited to continue supporting FWD Group with AWS’s proven reliability and capabilities, helping them accelerate innovation, save cost, drive efficiency and expand their business,” she concluded.

Singapore – Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to invest an extra S$12 billion in its existing cloud infrastructure in Singapore between 2024 and 2028. This decision was initiated by the growing demand for cloud technology and services in the country. 

By 2028, AWS aims to have invested over S$23 billion in its cloud infrastructure, tripling its initial S$11.5 billion investment in the AWS Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region through 2023. 

AWS is working with Singaporean public organisations to develop solutions powered by AI and generative AI technology. These initiatives include SEA-LION by AI Singapore, Analytics.gov by GovTech Singapore, the Maritime AI-ML Digital Hub by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, StoryGen by the National Library Board, and Synapxe’s national healthcare data and AI app. 

AWS intends to launch its flagship AI program, AWS AI Spring for Singapore, in order to support Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0) goals. With the goal of accelerating the use of AI and generative AI technologies across Singapore, this extensive program incorporates collaborations with the government, enterprises, and public sector organisations in Singapore. 

Six key pillars comprise the comprehensive AI program, which is in line with Singapore’s S$1 billion investment in NAIS 2.0 to advance AI initiatives. Its goal is to benefit partners, customers, and the community of AWS. 

These pillars include AI Spring Public Sector, focusing on collaboration with the Singapore Government and government agencies to advance AI initiatives for industries and citizens; AI Spring Workforce, offering AI skilling and professional certification programs; AI Spring Enterprise, aimed at fostering AI adoption in local enterprises; AI Spring Startups, dedicated to nurturing core AI startups in Singapore; and AI Spring Communities, contributing to community development. 

Within the framework of AI Spring Public Sector, AWS will form collaborations with Singapore government agencies to facilitate and accelerate AI integration in the public sector and across industries. In a significant move, AWS just signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Synapxe, Singapore’s HealthTech agency. This cooperation intends to create a data and AI application that will enable healthcare practitioners to use data analytics and AI technology across several healthcare systems.

In addition to this, AWS and the Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) in support of AI Spring Enterprise. The partnership intends to leverage Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Q’s capabilities to create an AI adoption program specifically designed for regional businesses. 

The goal of this project is to give companies the ability to identify and scale AI applications for important use cases in their operations. The IMDA’s GenAI x Digital Leaders program, which aims to support locally established, digitally mature businesses in creating, developing, and implementing unique generative AI digital solutions, includes the MoI as a key component

AWS’s AI Spring Workforce program is prepared to raise Singapore’s workforce through skilling and professional certification programs in cloud and AI technologies. In accordance with this commitment and in support of the Singapore Government’s goal of tripling the number of AI practitioners to 15,000 within five years, AWS will work with Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) such as universities and polytechnics, as well as the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), to improve AI education. The goal is to train 5,000 people in AI skills per year across these educational institutions over a three-year period, from 2024 to 2026. 

By utilising its generative AI capabilities, AWS is expanding its assistance to instructors and students in Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), enhancing their educational experiences and facilitating technological discovery and experimentation. AWS and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to incorporate AI education into the ITE curriculum, which is a big step. 

Speaking about the investment, Priscilla Chong, country manager of AWS Singapore, stated, “AWS has been deeply committed to helping Singapore grow its economy, workforce, and digital prowess with cloud and advanced technologies since it launched its first Asia Pacific infrastructure Region here over a decade ago.”

She added, “AWS is doubling down on its cloud infrastructure investments in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to support customer demand, and help reinforce Singapore’s status as an attractive regional innovation launchpad, and a global leader in digital competitiveness. This investment will create a ripple effect across Singapore by increasing economic growth and cloud adoption. It also brings additional contributions to the local economy by AWS, such as upskilling the local digital workforce, developing renewable energy projects, and creating a positive impact in the communities where AWS operates.”

Meanwhile, Elsie Tan, country manager, Worldwide Public Sector, Singapore, AWS, said, “With AWS AI Spring, we are eager to embark on this collaborative AI journey with the Government and customers to unlock the potential of AI, and accelerate Singapore’s Smart Nation vision and goal to become a beacon in the international AI field. By leveraging AWS’s broadest and deepest set of artificial intelligence and machine learning services, cloud infrastructure, and network, AWS will empower local organisations and students with technology and skills to tackle unique challenges, unlock new opportunities, delight customers, and scale in a secure, resilient, and sustainable manner.” 

Leong Der Yao, assistant chief executive, Sectoral Transformation Group, IMDA, commented, “We believe that AI can be harnessed by enterprises to transform and stay ahead. In 2023, IMDA supported over 3,000 SMEs to adopt AI-enabled pre-approved solutions. Earlier this year, we also launched the GenAI Sandbox for SMEs and GenAI x Digital Leaders initiatives to enable our SMEs to adopt generative AI technology to generate greater business value. Building on this, we are excited to partner with AWS to uplift and empower our enterprises in generative AI. AWS, as a key global partner, will bring the necessary expertise to support IMDA’s GenAI x Digital Leaders initiative to help our digitally mature local companies identify and develop AI solutions for business transformation and growth.” 

“We are also working with AWS to incorporate AWS Training and Certification programmes in polytechnic and ITE curriculums. IMDA will continue to collaborate with AWS to upskill and reskill professionals in roles such as AI and Analytics,” Yao added. 

Furthermore, Low Khah Gek, CEO of ITE, said, “ITE intends to equip all her students with AI and Gen-AI understanding and competencies to ensure they are industry-ready, job-ready and future-ready. AWS expertise and programmes will accelerate ITE’s plans for the students and staff to learn prompt engineering and start to use Gen-AI and LLM in their learning, projects and work. ITE and AWS will also conduct short CET Gen AI courses for the public and workers to support the upskilling of Singapore’s workforce.” 

Lastly, Ngiam Siew Ying, CEO of Synapxe, stated, “The inking of the MOU with AWS reflects our mutual commitment towards enabling our public healthcare users with leading edge cloud-native analytics tools. It will catalyse more efficient analyses towards actionable insights, and transform the way we enhance the quality of healthcare for Singapore.” 

Singapore – Vonage, a worldwide cloud communications company that helps organisations accelerate their digital transformation and a subsidiary of Ericsson, announced today a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This collaboration seeks to speed up the availability of innovative solutions to millions of developers on AWS Marketplace.

In this partnership, Ericsson’s 5G network capabilities and AWS services will combine with Vonage’s platform, which offers communications APIs and network APIs that interact with CSP networks. Customers will be able to use the network for innovation and improve their overall customer experience thanks to this connection, which will enable AWS and Vonage to develop a variety of solutions. 

Vonage Fraud Protection will soon be available on the AWS Marketplace and will consist of multiple parts. These include the Fraud Defender solution powered by AWS generative artificial intelligence (AI) services, the Vonage CAMARA-based API SIM Swap (which will be in alpha upon release), and the Verify and Number Insights APIs paired with Amazon Rekognition. Vonage hopes to accelerate the market rollout of network API capabilities by continuing to build solutions such to this one with this improvement. 

The SIM Swap network API is intended to allow developers to determine, among other things, whether fraudulent behaviour was engaged in the recent SIM card transfers of a phone number. Vonage’s new Fraud Defender API is designed to identify fraud signals in advance, and its Verify API makes secure, silent authentication easier. The Vonage Number Insights API also has the ability to score fraud.

With the use of AWS generative AI services, our solution’s fraud detection skills will be further improved. Businesses will be able to improve customer satisfaction while strengthening their defences against mobile fraud thanks to this connection. 

Speaking about the partnership, Kathrin Renz, vice president of AWS Industries, said, “AWS and Vonage have a shared passion for helping customers deliver innovation and value. Working together with Vonage, we aim to drive new industrial and enterprise applications across industries that combine 5G networks and technologies like generative artificial intelligence to fuel new products and enhance the overall customer experience.” 

Meanwhile, Niklas Heuveldop, Vonage CEO and head of business area global communications platform for Ericsson, stated, “By working with AWS, we will accelerate our ability to embed communications and network APIs in applications and deliver new product offerings for AWS and Vonage customers. With network APIs, we are exposing new capabilities from within the 5G network that have never been available before, allowing existing applications to be enhanced with network information and enabling the development of a new class of applications.” 

Speaking about the fraud detection, Nick Laidlaw, chief technology officer at Voicify, said, “Voicify already integrates Vonage’s communications APIs into our conversational AI experiences tailored for the restaurant industry. With the new Fraud Protection Solution that includes AWS and the addition of network APIs, such as SIM Swap, we can enhance the level of security we offer for SMS and telephony, ensuring transactions are secure and valid and reinforcing our commitment to providing a trusted conversational AI service.”

Singapore – Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Twilio have announced an extension of their strategic partnership, aiming to empower Twilio customers with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. 

This collaboration, unveiled at the AWS Summit in New York, marks a significant step in the evolution of Twilio’s Customer AI roadmap, which seeks to provide personalized and real-time experiences for leading brands.

Moreover, the key focus of this partnership centers around predictive AI technology, which will merge Amazon SageMaker’s AI capabilities with Twilio Segment’s Customer Data Platform. The forthcoming features will enable businesses to gain deeper insights into their customers, allowing them to deliver more relevant and personalized experiences promptly.

Shawn Nandi, director of technology, industries at AWS, expressed excitement about Twilio’s AI innovation and its potential to revolutionize customer engagement. He emphasized that AWS is committed to supporting businesses in enhancing customer experiences through AI and machine learning.

In a statement, Alex Millet, senior director of product at Twilio, outlined their vision for Twilio CustomerAI, which aims to enable businesses to foster trusted relationships with customers at a digital scale. He highlighted that the ultimate goal is transforming how marketers, contact centers, developers, and data teams deliver world-class customer experiences.

Previous AWS and Twilio partnerships include Twilio Segment’s status as an AWS Marketplace partner and deep product alignment, featuring partnerships that leverage Twilio’s Programmable APIs and integrations with more than six AWS products.

Singapore – Customer support tech company Zendesk, Inc. has announced a five-year strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The partnership aims to help businesses deliver personalised customer experiences at scale, with technology that grows with them.

The strategic collaboration will help businesses provide faster, tailored conversational experiences to customers across all channels while also improving the efficiency of support operations through the use of AI-powered tools, bots and analytics on an open and flexible service. 

Moreover, the collab will make customer experience (CX) more seamless for both customers and agents to help businesses to stay competitive, retain customer loyalty, and adapt to rapidly changing market conditions.

The SCA will also extend Zendesk Suite’s latest innovations in customer service to AWS and AWS Marketplace with the following capabilities:

  • Enterprise-grade, secure customer service programs and chatbots on reliable cloud architecture that scales with the business
  • Conversational experiences across potential customer channels and devices
  • Multi-channel support in Zendesk Sunshine Conversations, Amazon Connect, and AWS Contact Center Intelligence.
  • Personalised interactions and quick problem-solving with embedded chatbots 
  • Boosting customer retention by using AI to analyze customer emotion and take the best action 
  • Driving agent productivity with AI-based tools that help agents respond and resolve issues faster by providing self-service options, time-saving routing, and AI-powered workflows

“Zendesk has been both a member of the AWS Partner Network and a customer for many years, leveraging our cloud services to create innovative customer and employee experience solutions for customers,” said Ruba Borno, vice president, worldwide channels and alliances at AWS. 

She also added that the SCA with Zendesk will allow companies to personalise experiences using data, taking customer experiences to the next level and helping businesses automate and scale their customer service operations on the cloud.

Pascal Pettinicchio, vice president, alliances and corporate development at Zendesk, explained, “Zendesk research found that 61% of customers are excited by the prospect of immersive experiences, and 80% of businesses plan to increase their CX budgets in 2023. By taking advantage of easy-to-use software powered by Zendesk AI and AWS, CX teams can free up time and resources to focus on what they do best — creating powerful customer interactions.” 

He added, “Zendesk’s platform delivers high-level performance to provide enhanced customer experiences — we knew that, by collaborating with AWS, we could meet customers’ demands.”

Meanwhile, Steve Franklin, global head of customer service at Siemens Financial Services also commented that Zendesk brings ‘stability’ to their company’s customer service operations and allows them to provide unrivaled experiences and timely responses to their customers. 

“They help us quickly get control when volumes spike, both in terms of understanding what is happening, so we can take steps to proactively reduce the volumes and also in the handling of the queries, to reduce the backlog back down again,” he added.

Last year, Zendesk has also launched its Intelligent Triage and Smart Assist, its artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that empowers businesses to triage customer support requests automatically.

Washington, USA – Amperity, customer data platform (CDP) for enterprise consumer brands, has announced its support for the AWS for Advertising & Marketing initiative from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that aims to help brands accelerate advertising and marketing transformation.

AWS for Advertising & Marketing is an initiative featuring services and solutions purpose-built to meet the needs of advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, ad technology providers, and analytics service providers. The initiative helps customers deliver personalised ad experiences, optimise ad serving performance and cost, and innovate on audience segmentation and attribution. It also simplifies the process for industry customers to select the right tools and partners, helping accelerate their production launches and see faster time to value.

By supporting AWS’ initiative, Amperity has created a secure, modern data stack that enables brands to maximise the value of their first-party data.

Amperity emphasises how now’s the time the adtech industry needs to rethink how first-party data is integrated into the system, and for marketers, that means building a flexible foundation to unify, activate, and acquire new and existing customers based on a consistent view of their first-party data. 

“As third-party data signals and identity graphs continue to deteriorate and provide less value for brands, marketers must take a new approach to customer acquisition and retention, removing the reliance on third-party data solutions, and focusing on building high quality, omnichannel first-party data assets,” said Derek Slager, CTO and co-founder at Amperity. 

He added, “Through this initiative, Amperity can work with AWS to provide the critical components to deliver a secure, scalable way for brands to engage with customers and collaborate with one another without compromising privacy or compliance to build better customer experiences and business outcomes.”

AWS helps advertisers and marketers to reinvent workloads with various martech solutions, and for prescriptive, solution-specific support, AWS for Advertising & Marketing partners with tech companies such as Amperity. The latter meanwhile has worked with enterprise brands across a variety of industries including telecom, retail, QSR, and CPG in maximising the value of their first-party data.

Amperity recently expanded to the APAC region, appointing Billy Loizou as Area Vice President for the channel.

Singapore – Singapore telco M1 has tapped IT service management company Amazon Web Services to enhance its current customer experience by launching Maxine, a VoiceBot for its existing hotlines.

Said VoiceBot is built on Amazon Connect, AWS’s omnichannel cloud-based contact center service that helps improve contact center agent productivity and end-user customer experiences. ‘Maxine’ is able to engage in more lifelike conversations with customers, as well as help improve end-user customer experiences by engaging them in open-ended conversations instead of menu-driven interfaces.

The deployment of ‘Maxine’ is part of M1’s continuous transformation journey to be a digital platform. As a cloud native solution, M1 is able to regularly develop and deploy new and incremental features and capabilities that enhance Maxine’s services. 

This solution enables M1 to scale up and down in a short period of time. It also provides call center agents the flexibility they need to work remotely, without compromising the customer experience. 

According to Stamford Low, director of customer experience and retail at M1, customer experience has always been a top priority for them since embarking on their digital transformation journey two years ago. He added as well that they have doubled down on delivering exceptional experiences for their customers.

“We are committed to ensuring a seamless and engaging experience for our customers on all platforms, including our hotlines. With technology as our enabler, M1 will continue to train Maxine to improve its capabilities and add more value to our customers, through the development of a self-help service,” Low stated.

Meanwhile, Dean Samuels, chief technologist for ASEAN at Amazon Web Services, commented that customers, such as those with M1, rely on actionable data to provide faster and more holistic customer experiences, optimize agents’ time based on what matters most, and enable customer service managers to take action in real time.

“With Amazon Connect, M1 can provide superior customer service at a lower cost with an easy-to-use omnichannel cloud contact center. Embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) with Amazon Connect makes it easy to automate interactions, understand customer sentiment, authenticate callers, and enable capabilities like interactive voice response (IVR) and chatbots,” Samuels explained.

To date, M1 has its 1627 (Bespoke), 1622 (Business) and 1800-843-8288 (Prepaid) hotlines operating on the Amazon Connect platform. This will be progressively rolled out to other hotlines.