Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Manila, Philippines – Businesses of today are increasingly recognising the paramount significance of customer engagement for sustainable success. In this pursuit, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools has emerged as a game-changer. Leveraging AI’s power to comprehend and anticipate customer behaviour, preferences, and needs, companies can forge deeper connections with their consumers, delivering personalised experiences and fostering lasting loyalty.

Moreover, as customer expectations continue to evolve, harnessing AI tools to boost customer engagement is not just a competitive advantage but a necessity for businesses to thrive in the digital age.

This is what Sarah Chan, regional account executive at Braze, has pointed out. According to her, despite about 64% of marketers believing that AI adoption will be critical to establishing a competitive advantage, only 27% of marketers have deployed AI/ML in an active customer engagement strategy.

For her, there are three key steps marketers should take note of: (1) be more efficient in terms of spending more time driving strategy by leveraging generative AI for content assistance, (2) supercharge personalisation by means of tailoring content to each customer based on their unique preferences and behaviours, and (3) optimise conversions by automatically testing any campaign for the best-performing version.

Meanwhile, marketing leaders Greg Anonas, international wine and food marketing director at Emperador Distillers; Francis John Chua, marketing director, head of digital sales channels at Globe Telecom; and Albet Buddahim, chief marketing officer at PRIMER Group of Companies also provided their industry insights on how to deliver personalised and targeted marketing campaigns at scale using AI. 

The marketing leaders, representing their own industries, also shared their advice on how marketers can properly utilise these AI tools to their advantage and use it to assist them in conceptualising and executing their campaigns at the most optimal time and place.

All in all, the webinar laid out the foundations and key insights for marketers to be able to utilise AI tools to improve their own customer engagement strategies, as well as demystify the purported complexity of these tools for marketing strategies.

The webinar, titled The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze.

If you missed going to the event, you may register HERE to obtain your on-demand access.

Australia – Global commercial software company SnapLogic has announced the debut of its generative integration solution ‘SnapGPT, which leverages open source and proprietary large-language models and artificial intelligence to allow users to integrate any applications or data sources with natural language.

SnapGPT’s ease of use allows enterprises to eliminate costly IT backlogs and accelerate the development of new business processes, all in a secure environment. Moreover, SnapGPT is a combination of large-language models, proprietary AI-powered integration automation and data and security controls.

SnapLogic’s unique generative integration solution gives companies competitive advantages in innovation, creating data-driven decision-making, and seamlessly connecting diverse systems and data sources by empowering any employee to create new integrations just by using natural language. For integration specialists, SnapGPT streamlines workflows, reduces manual intervention and enhances development efficiency on an unparalleled scale.

Some of those instances the new solutions is capable of solving include creating workflows and data pipelines via natural language prompts in nearly 100 different languages, auto-generate sample data for testing and comprehensive documentation for each integration, and providing contextual suggestions and real-time guidance throughout the integration process, boosting confidence and providing self-service to users of all experience levels.

Jeremiah Stone, CTO at SnapLogic, said, “The speed of deployment and security is top of mind for every business technology leader. SnapGPT will help any team deliver technology products and services faster, resulting in a competitive edge.”

He added, “SnapLogic is dedicated to making valuable projects and complex systems easy to integrate and ship to market. We started this AI journey seven years ago and are accelerating it with generative integration to spread integration from IT to all parts of the business. Our passion is to make the integration process intuitive and easy to remove complexity and technical debt, working faster, smarter, and more efficiently.”

Singapore – DoubleVerify, a software platform for digital media measurement, data, and analytics, announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Scibids Technology SAS, a global AI-powered digital campaign optimization.

With the help of Scibids’ AI technology and media quality and performance data, along with DV’s product real-time campaign optimizations, advertisers will be able to accomplish real-time campaign optimization without the use of third-party cookies because of the acquisition. The transition from a performance proxy to observable business results is in line with advertiser goals.

Scibids creates AI technology that improves programmatic digital ad campaign buying for advertisers. Scibids AI develops personalised bidding algorithms that are in line with the advertiser’s particular KPIs and intended results by using DSP impression level data, first-party data, and measurement data from brands or agencies.

Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify, said, “The acquisition of Scibids is a decisive step in our journey to power superior campaign outcomes that started with developing and delivering the industry standard in media quality insights and has evolved into putting that data to work for advertisers.” 

He added, “The combination marries DV’s proprietary data with Scibids’ AI-powered optimization technology, letting us empower brands with unparalleled insights and control over their advertising performance.”

Speaking about the partnership, Remi Lemonnier,CEO and co-founder of Scibids, remarked, “DoubleVerify is a company that shares our commitment to independence, innovation and maximizing media performance, and we’re thrilled to take our partnership to the next level.” 

“This partnership will amplify the capabilities of our customizable AI technology and expand its impact across the digital advertising ecosystem to strengthen the open web. We look forward to working with the entire DV team to deliver new opportunities and maximize campaign outcomes for our global advertisers and partners,” Lemonnier added. 

Seoul, Korea – Telco companies SK Telecom (SKT), Deutsche Telekom, e&, and Singtel have united to establish the Global Telco AI Alliance, aiming to propel the telecommunications industry into a new era of AI-driven transformation and improved customer experience.

The alliance, marked by a Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony in Seoul, signifies a strategic commitment to collaborate and innovate in AI technology.

Ryu Young-Sang, CEO of SKT, expressed his excitement about the alliance, emphasizing its potential to revolutionize business models, provide new value to customers, and drive growth within the global AI ecosystem.

Moreover, the Global Telco AI alliance focuses on jointly developing the telco AI platform, integrating diverse technologies to create advanced AI services for telecom, digital assistants, and super apps with dynamic features for customers.

In a statement, Yuen Kuan Moon, Singtel’s CEO, and Khalifa Al Shamsi, CEO of e& Life, believe AI has vast potential to transform the telecommunication landscape and assured customers that the alliance is committed to fast-tracking innovative AI services for businesses and consumers.

Further, Claudia Nemat, board member technology and innovation at Deutsche Telekom, highlighted the importance of the alliance in bridging the gap between Europe and Asia while pursuing an open-vendor approach, ensuring the utilization of the best technology for specific applications.

Meanwhile, key executives of each company were present in person and online to endorse the historic initiative.

Kuala Lumpur – The shift in customer communication preferences has been found to lean noticeably towards conversational interactions, making more companies expand and invest towards conversational commerce. This was according to the latest data from an InfoBrief provided by global cloud communications platform Infobip, and IT market research and advisory firm IDC. 

The InfoBrief by Infobip and IDC suggested that the potential of conversational commerce is now being employed and recognized, with tools such as CPaaS and SaaS enabling businesses to provide a seamless, customer journey that’s visible across multiple touchpoints.

The increasing popularity of customer-centric business strategies among brands in the Asia Pacific region reflects consumers’ present attitudes and expectations. 70% of organisations in the region plan to increase communication platform spending in 2023–2024, despite the fact that only a few countries use CPaaS on average at 50%–59%, in order to offer distinctive customer experiences to the region’s expanding social media users, who are primarily young, active, and conscious of the power of their own influence.

All nations intend to spend money on CPaaS and SaaS solutions in the near future, but their reasons are claimed to be very different. Businesses in Indonesia and Singapore strive to improve customer experiences and develop new revenue streams, while those in China, Thailand, and the Philippines are driven to expand their domestic and global markets as well as improve and mobilise their business operations. This is probably owing to the latter countries’ booming retail and e-commerce sectors and overall greater adoption rate of CPaaS solutions, which is around 60% and above.

Nikhil Batra, research director of telecommunication for IDC Asia/Pacific, said that CPaaS solutions are increasingly recognized as crucial catalysts for enabling conversational commerce experiences.

“In fact, 27% of businesses in Asia Pacific are actively partnering with CPaaS platform providers to deliver contextualised customer interactions that not only boost profitability but also foster emotionally fulfilling engagements. This trend highlights the increasing importance of leveraging these technologies to meet customer demands and achieve business success,” he added.

Meanwhile, Velid Begovic, vice president of revenue at Infobip, commented, “Businesses position themselves to forge ahead, leveraging AI technology to create connections and unlock new growth opportunities, whilst organisations need an actionable, customer-centric strategy and the ability to invest in the right tools to grow the business and keep customers happy. By aligning their strategies with conversational commerce, businesses can proactively meet customer expectations, enhance engagement, and establish long-lasting relationships.”

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 – Asian food and grocery delivery network foodpanda has partnered with Singapore-based AI provider TabSquare to introduce new digital solutions for restaurants, including QR code-based ordering and AI-enabled predictive analytics.

Under parent company Delivery Hero, the two brands are working with restaurants in Asia starting with Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan in digitising their orders, payments, and customer engagement-related processes.

Using TabSquare, foodpanda’s restaurant partners can digitise analog items and automate tasks, enabling restaurants to be more time-efficient in the ordering process as customers can use digital menus to browse, order and pay at their pace and convenience.

Restaurants within foodpanda’s range also get a competitive advantage in customer engagement and retention thanks to TabSquare’s AI analytics, offering useful insights using a ton of aggregated data from customers’ shopping histories. The trends in price sensitivity, volume, and menu choices can be applied in a variety of situations once they have been found.

Commenting on this new venture, Jakob Angele, APAC CEO of foodpanda, comments that with this technology, they want to play a part in as many of their customers’ food interactions as possible.

“Moving into QR ordering in restaurants was therefore a very natural choice for us. It allows us to offer great benefits to our 500,000 restaurants, helping them with their profitability by serving their customers better. I am absolutely convinced that in five years from now, restaurants worldwide will be using QR code-based ordering and paper menus will be a memory of the past,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Anshul Gupta, co-founder of TabSquare, also said: “TabSquare has always tried to be at the forefront of innovation in the industry by bringing AI-powered solutions to boost restaurants’ revenue, streamline operations, and offer a better dining experience to their guests. With foodpanda, we will be bringing many new innovative features to the industry, for example, restaurants working with TabSquare can now promote themselves to foodpanda’s large customer base and attract new customers.”

Singapore – Travel service provider Trip.com has unveiled a series of enhanced AI-powered services to aid travellers in planning their next trip. More specifically, they include AI-curated itineraries such as include ‘Trip.Trends’, ‘Trip.Best’, and ‘Trip.Deals’, cater to users’ diverse needs and preferences by capturing real-time information on the latest travel trends, prices, and top-ranked hotels, flights, and attractions.

Each list focuses on a different consumer group and market position. ‘Trip.Best’ enables global travellers to select the best experiences a destination has to offer, including flights, hotels, and attractions, as well as lifestyle choices such as restaurants, nightlife, bars, and shows. The list is curated by examining various travel products on Trip.com and scoring them based on an algorithm, with only the top 1% of products featured.

Meanwhile, ‘Trip.Deals’ is designed for budget-conscious users who are looking for the best deals on flights, accommodation, and travel destinations. The list is curated based on various factors, such as historical and projected price changes, as well as current travel expenses.

Lastly, ‘Trip.Trends’ tracks the most popular travel topics and events in different markets, based on user searches across various platforms including Trip.com, mainstream online search engines, and social media. This feature provides users with up-to-date information on the most exciting and current activities and events worldwide and in their local areas.

James Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of the board at Trip.com Group, said, “Tourism will continue to be an important industry in a smart society, as it satisfies people’s innate desire to travel and explore. Artificial intelligence cannot replace this experience but can help to advance it. Trip.com Group will actively embrace technological development and use advanced AI-driven services to improve the travel process and overall experience.”

Manila, Philippines – In today’s competitive business landscape, brands are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) as a powerful tool to enhance customer experience strategies. AI technology has revolutionised the way companies interact with their customers, offering personalised and efficient experiences that drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. But with AI still being an overwhelming technology for many in the industry, how can brands and marketers properly navigate existing and future AI technologies to help in their marketing efforts to improve customer experience?

To navigate the complexities of AI in customer engagement strategies, MARKETECH APAC returns with a new webinar this July 25. Titled “The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI”, the webinar aims to impart valuable insights to marketers to harness the full potential of AI and stay ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of customer engagement.

The webinar will host a panel discussion, tapping some of the Philippines’ leading industry leaders to impart their thoughts on how brands should implement AI-powered customer engagement strategies. The panel is composed of Greg Anonas, international wine and food marketing director at Emperador Distillers; Francis John Chua, marketing director, head of digital sales channels at Globe Telecom; and Albet Buddahim, chief marketing officer at PRIMER Group of Companies. The triad of Philippine marketing leaders will also share their advice on how to deliver personalised and targeted marketing campaigns at scale using AI.

Moreover, the webinar will also feature a keynote presentation by Sarah Chan, regional account executive at Braze, where she will discuss the evolution of AI technologies in marketing and how brands should check out the right channel and the right time to execute such a strategy.

The presentation will also discuss the following:

  • How does AI-powered automation help in delivering timely and relevant messages across multiple channels?
  • What are the benefits of harnessing AI-driven customer journey mapping to ensure seamless experiences at every touchpoint?

“​​The marketing industry is in a constant state of change, and AI has introduced both challenges and opportunities that can be intimidating to many marketers. AI isn’t new technology, but with its evolution–marketers can no longer ignore the potential it brings. Join us in this timely webinar to explore AI-driven marketing and how it can transform brand’s customer engagement strategies,” said Katherine Sy, regional head of content at MARKETECH APAC.

The Future of Customer Engagement: Harnessing the Power of AI is made in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze. Catch this webinar on July 25, 11AM (PHT) by registering HERE. See you there!

Singapore – Consultancy firm Human8 has recently unveiled its employee AI prompt school, accompanied by its own AI research assistant. 

To address concerns regarding data ownership and the impact on confidential research data and PI information, earlier this year OpenAI developed a proprietary AI research assistant utilising the ChatGPT algorithm, enabling them to conduct real research data experiments and evaluate the capabilities of generative AI.

Annelies Verhaeghe, chief platform officer of Human8, said, “Just like with the internet and social media revolution, as an agency we’ve always embraced tech and innovation, investing in discovery to accelerate success. However, to safely and creatively experiment with AI, we first needed to overcome the data privacy obstacle.”

Meanwhile, Maz Amirahmadi, Managing Director, APAC, said, “In Asia Pacific, AI adoption has taken off in 2023 across various verticals and markets. According to an IDC report, a top adoption driver is improving employee productivity. The tool will enable our team of consultants in APAC to keep pace with the acceleration, and we are already seeing strong appetite among colleagues and clients to collaborate with AI.” 

Human8’s trials show that using generative AI as an analytical tool with thick data from primary research produces far more actionable research results. This emphasises the significance of using up-to-date data.

Verhaeghe added, “With our proprietary AI tech at hand, we defined a series of A/B experiments to gain a better understanding of the potential and implications of generative AI systems for our business and the industry at large. Our experiments were designed to explore well-known challenges related to AI data quality, data sampling and even data hallucination.”

Human8 has incorporated its personal AI research assistant across its global operations. By utilising AI automation for more analysis of unstructured data, this has opened up more opportunities for human interpretation and consulting.