Tag: Generative AI

Australia – Getty Images has announced launch of its new offering ‘Generative AI by Getty Images’, a new tool that pairs the company’s in-class creative content with the latest AI technology for a commercially safe generative AI tool.

Generative AI by Getty Images is trained on the state-of-the-art Edify model architecture, which is part of NVIDIA Picasso, a foundry for generative AI models for visual design. The tool is trained solely from Getty Images’ vast creative library, including exclusive premium content, with full indemnification for commercial use. 

Sitting alongside the company’s broader, industry-leading services, Generative AI by Getty Images works seamlessly with the company’s expansive library of authentic and compelling visuals and custom content solutions, allowing customers to elevate their entire end-to-end creative process to find the right visual content for any need.

Customers creating and downloading visuals through the tool will receive Getty Images’ standard royalty-free licence, which includes representations and warranties, uncapped indemnification, and the right to perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive use in all media. 

Moreover, content generated through the tool will not be added into existing Getty Images and iStock content libraries for others to licence. In addition, contributors will be compensated for any inclusion of their content in the training set.

Craig Peters, CEO at Getty Images, said, “We’re excited to launch a tool that harnesses the power of generative AI to address our customers’ commercial needs while respecting the intellectual property of creators. We’ve worked hard to develop a responsible tool that gives customers confidence in visuals produced by generative AI for commercial purposes.”

Meanwhile, Grant Farhall, chief product officer at Getty Images, commented, “We’ve listened to customers about the swift growth of generative AI – and have heard both excitement and hesitation – and tried to be intentional around how we developed our own tool. We’ve created a service that allows brands and marketers to safely embrace AI and stretch their creative possibilities, while compensating creators for inclusion of their visuals in the underlying training sets.”

Customers will soon be able to customise Generative AI by Getty Images with proprietary data to produce images with their unique brand style and language. This and other service advancements will be added later this year.

Singapore – Global professional and consulting services company Accenture has announced its strategic investment in generative AI platform Writer under ‘Project Spotlight’, their engagement and investment program that aims to help enterprises create and shape content more efficiently.

This investment allows Accenture to further provide marketing and communications professionals with Writer’s features to generate written content, synthesise various content and align writing to voice and brand guidelines.

Accenture started using Writer in 2021 to augment its writing proficiency and is now scaling Writer’s generative AI capabilities internally, while also preparing to offer them to clients as part of its existing capabilities.

This investment is also a part of Accenture’s announcement in June 2023 that the company would invest $3 billion in its Data & AI practice to help clients across all industries rapidly and responsibly advance and use AI to achieve greater growth, efficiency, and resilience.

Baiju Shah, chief strategy officer at Accenture Song, said, “Our continued investments in generative AI platforms will empower clients across all industries to transform how they create, personalise and distribute content at pace, but also safely, securely and with brand integrity.”

“We’ve entered a new era of tech-powered creativity and believe Writer’s enterprise-ready platform is a strong addition to Accenture’s comprehensive set of generative AI capabilities, tools and expertise, helping our clients capitalise on a wide range of uses across marketing and sales,” he added.

Meanwhile, May Habib, CEO and co-founder of Writer, commented, “Joining Accenture’s ‘Project Spotlight’ program will enable Writer to benefit from Accenture’s expertise from decades of deploying AI across industries and functions, and help us grow by driving broader awareness of our capabilities.” 

Notably, Writer is the latest company to join Accenture’s Project Spotlight, which offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.

Singapore – Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, announced the platform release of 18.8 to offer a unified customer experience through generative AI integrations. 

The latest platform release aims to empower customer service, marketing, sales, and social teams with its AI-powered enhancements and generative AI integrations. It is also expected to drive higher productivity, better decision-making, and more seamless experiences from customer-facing teams.

With 18.8, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and OpenAI’s GPT models are now integrated into the proprietary platform, Sprinklr AI+. The integration allows Sprinklr AI+ to give brands unified generative AI capabilities for customer service, insights, social media management, and marketing built with enterprise-level governance, security, and data privacy. 

Furthermore, customers using the platform can now utilise Generative AI with just a few clicks, meaning they do not need to learn new workflows while enjoying the accuracy, security, and privacy offered by the Sprinklr platform.

The 18.8 introduces over 700 new features and enhancements across four of Sprinklr’s product suites: Sprinklr Service, Sprinklr Insights, Sprinklr Marketing, and Sprinklr Social. 

For Sprinklr Service, the platform enhancements will create smarter contact centres with the generative AI capabilities of Sprinklr AI+. Included in the enhancements are the generative AI-powered insights hub, quality management enhancements, conversational analytics 2.0, conversational AI+, video commerce on live chat, and a more robust workforce management solution. 

The 18.8 platform version also leverages improved actionability, upgraded channel coverage, and workflow improvements for Sprinklr Insights. Some of the enhancements include the introduction of an AI-powered insights assistant, generative AI-powered automatic summarization, and expanded source coverage for Chinese apps. 

Meanwhile, the new Sprinklr Marketing aims to ensure that campaigns engage audiences better than before. This is possible through its effortless and quick ad content creation, dynamic content adaptation, streamlined UTM tracking, and more optimised Google discovery ads. 

Lastly, the 18.8 platform version will also drive better social media engagement and improve governance for users on Sprinklr Social. The enhancements to the suite included new channel integrations, privacy settings, admin configurations, new Slack integrations, and automated video optimisation. 

Ragy Thomas, founder and CEO at Sprinklr, said, “Sprinklr is the fastest and most effective way to get AI into a global brand’s front office, prebuilt for security and data privacy.” 

“With Sprinklr AI+, our more than 1,400 enterprise customers can increase productivity, boost the quality of insights, and drive automation across their front office functions. Sprinklr’s ability to seamlessly integrate with customers’ own models, create new ones, or integrate with Sprinklr AI+ gives customers choice and access to the latest generative AI technologies,” he added. 

Singapore –  Multinational computer software company Adobe has officially launched Adobe GenStudio, a new solution that harnesses the power of generative AI for the enterprise content supply chain. 

Adobe’s GenStudio integrates Creative Cloud, Firefly, Express, AEM Assets, and Workfront to enable on-brand content creation at an amazing speed. 

This new end-to-end solution is expected to transform the enterprise content supply chain by combining the best of content ideation, creation, production, and activation on top of the power of generative AI. 

GenStudio puts the power of generative AI, smart automation, and agile editing into the enterprise content supply chain, empowering teams to work in real time to collaborate on creative ideas and decisions to deliver personalisation at scale. With this, the creative-to-activation processes that typically require weeks can now be done in hours or days.

Adobe’s integration of Firefly will provide commercially safe content generation for the platform. This will help companies rapidly move from ideation to content delivery across any channel, resulting in amazing customer experiences.

Other than the commercial safety offered by Firefly in GenStudio, Adobe also plans to include custom models, access to Firefly APIs, integrated workflows, and content insights that will provide analytics on content performance across channels.

GenStudio will also leverage the integration of Express Cloud to offer organizations dramatic acceleration in speed and agility without compromising quality or brand consistency. With Experience Cloud, experienced designers and marketers, such as campaign marketers, web site managers, social media marketers, and product managers, can create, edit, and version brand-approved assets for immediate personalization.

Furthermore, Adobe’s incorporation of Workfront, Firefly, and Experience Manager will accelerate and optimise the notoriously lengthy and expensive creative and activation processes without impacting business requirements. It will also create enterprise content workflows and enable content reuse through a single enterprise portal. 

Anil Chakravarthy, president of digital experience business at Adobe, said, “Generative AI has the potential to integrate high-velocity creative expression with complex enterprise activation to deliver a modern content supply chain that can meet the promise of personalization at scale.”

He added, “Adobe GenStudio gives creative and marketing teams what they need to take full advantage of generative AI and transform the creative-to-activation process with a seamless solution.”

Singapore – IPG Mediabrands has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to develop a suite of generative AI-powered applications that put brands at their center. Under the terms of the partnership, IPG Mediabrands will develop two pilot platforms, ‘Branvoice AI’ for branded content generation, and ‘BrandPortrait AI’ for audience and research insights.

The ‘BrandVoice AI’ pilot will use Google Cloud’s latest generative AI technology to codify the essence of brands so that written and image-based content can be ideated, briefed, and drafted in an automated, safe, and on-brand manner.

Meanwhile, the ‘BrandPortrait’ pilot will use the advanced conversational capabilities of Google’s large language models to provide IPG Mediabrands strategists and planners with the ability to generate and summarize proprietary research and audience data. 

All content will be approved by the brands – IPG Mediabrands clients – before being utilised by the AI pilot platforms. The first phase of the platform will completed by the third quarter this year.

The IPG Mediabrands Data & Technology Innovation department has been working exclusively on AI-based solutions for nearly four years, seeing AI as the ideal technology to augment the people and capabilities of IPG Mediabrands agencies. The innovation team has first experimented with generative AI technologies several years ago. Since then, it has built applications and prototypes that generate ad copy, imagery, reporting insights and SEO content, all proven out in real-world campaign scenarios.

IPG Mediabrands will now also use the power of Google Cloud’s generative AI support in Vertex AI, specifically the PaLM 2 language model, to take its solutions to the next level.

Eileen Kiernan, global CEO at IPG Mediabrands, said, “We are excited to partner with Google Cloud to develop this new platform. Not only does this partnership let us leverage market leading technology, but also we are aligned to Google’s responsible approach on data governance which ensures our clients information is well protected.”

She added, “We know that the potential of this technology is just scratching the surface, but we believe that by placing brands at the center of AI solutions, we get to a place where the true potential can be unlocked for brands and the industry overall.”

Meanwhile, Manvinder Singh, managing director of partnerships at Google Cloud, commented, “IPG Mediabrands will help to empower brands in new ways with their AI-based platform. The ability to quickly and effectively create content that is both engaging and aligned with brand values has the potential to help companies save money and more deeply connect with customers.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Local telecommunications company CelcomDigi has teamed up with Naga DDB Tribal and M&C Saatchi to launch a locally-crowdsourced AI film, a first in the market. This was launched ahead of the upcoming National Day celebration in Malaysia.

‘Projek My Malaysia’ harnessed the power of generative AI to inspire Malaysians to come together and share their vision of our country. 

To conceptualise the film, the public was given footage of an everyday Malaysian wandering the streets. They were then invited to transform scenes from it, using generative AI tools to express their vision. Their visions were turned into prompts, which became unique AI-generated video clips that reflected the Malaysia they see in their hearts. 

Throughout the campaign, hundreds of submissions were generated then put together to form a cohesive story that united the collective sentiments of the general populace.

Alvin Teoh, chief creative officer at Naga DDB Tribal, This project started with one question all Malaysians can resonate with – what kind of Malaysia would we like our kids to grow up in? It’s a universal desire that closes the gaps across the divide because deep down, we all want the same thing for our kids: a safer, happier, kinder, greener, fairer, stronger country for every child to live and thrive in.”

He added, “So all we did was hand over our pre-shot film to the rakyat and allowed them to alter the scenes according to their vision expressed via prompts and now, we have a co-created festive piece that hopefully reflects our collective desire to see this Malaysia take shape through all of us coming together. Because the truth is – the country we desire in our hearts is actually in all of our hands.”

Meanwhile, Marzuki Maani, executive creative director at M&C Saatchi, commented, “Making ‘Projek My Malaysia’ happen was in itself a stronger together experience. It took several teams to come together and play our parts to achieve the project’s ambition. I think what we created was a beautiful representation of what we could achieve when we work together towards a common goal.”

Lastly, Maurice Noone, film director at Directors Think Tank, said, “We wanted to capture the sentiments of Malaysians and present it in a fresh way. Artificial Intelligence is all the rage right now, but technology is just a tool. We felt we could do something meaningful and not just cosmetic. We felt there was a way to use it as a tool to express our collective vision of our country. Projek My Malaysia took the raw imagination of the public and made it real.”

He added, “It was scary working on the project because we didn’t actually know what fellow Malaysians would generate. Would it work? But, in the end we had wonderful scenes that were transformed that we never expected. Good to know Malaysians care about our future and can imagine possibilities that I’d never thought of. There is hope.”

Sydney, Australia – Advertising agency The Works has recently revealed a set of principles around the integration of AI and human craftsmanship in their creative and strategic processes, aiming to combine the support of Generative AI with human ingenuity.

Labeled as ‘trust marks’, these principles are an industry first that aims to signify the extent of human and AI contributions in crafting ideas and strategies.

These trust marks are separated into two distinct categories. ‘Original Human Thinking’, which reflects creative concepts and strategies solely from human ingenuity, and ‘AI Supported Thinking’, which represents concepts and strategies shaped through a blend of human innovation and AI augmentation. 

The Works created these trust marks in order to foster the use of AI in industries and improve productivity with it, as well as mitigating the potential risks and  ensuring the ethical use of AI.    

Douglas Nicol, partner at The Works, said, “Alongside a set of principles for the use of AI in a creative agency, we wanted to not just disclose how we are using Generative AI to our clients but also to provoke a discussion on what is ethical and what can drive productivity and new ideas in a world imbued with AI.”

“Our recent client roundtable on this pivotal subject sparked spirited discussions and revealed a resounding consensus in favor of preserving the artisanal prowess of the creative industries. The ethical facet of the conversation further fueled our impetus to introduce the trust mark,” he added. 

Singapore – Online fashion and lifestyle retail company Zalora, a part of Global Fashion Group (GFG), is adopting generative AI technology with the launch of its proprietary platform-as-a-service integration (PaaS) of OpenAI, TITAN. 

TITAN is used to drive new efficiencies in operations, improve online fashion customer experiences, and unlock growth opportunities for the company. It will also create more immersive and conversational online shopping experiences and data-driven recommendations for customers. 

Among the areas being powered by TITAN is its smart search discovery to handle a wider array of spelling variations and errors and better identify, present, and sort customers’ results, reducing the chances of experiencing zero search results. 

TITAN also powers their conversational shopping assistant, which includes smart prompts and improved real-time interactive features; their production automation to unlock automation across different functions and improve employee productivity gains; and their internal chatbots, which improve employee experience and productivity. 

Gunjan Soni, Zalora CEO and Global Fashion Group COO, said, “With a history of innovations under our belt, we are excited to embrace the future with Generative AI and leverage it to deliver the best ‘tailored for fashion’ e-commerce experience for our customers both during and post-purchase.With TITAN we will once again be the first in the region to offer these innovations to our growing loyal base.” 

Zalora’s drive to innovate is paired with the responsibility to safeguard the millions of customers it serves as well as their personal data. The company is committed to using AI and TITAN in a responsible way, having developed a series of principles to guide responsible innovation, and implementing several measures to protect customers’ data. 

Meanwhile, Sumit Jain, Chief Technology Officer at Zalora, also shared, “ZALORA is excited to leverage the potential of OpenAI via TITAN, our AI platform, to reimagine eCommerce and create a truly ‘wow’ customer experience. The future of retail will be driven by technology innovation, and the extent to which we prioritise ensuring a safe and seamless experience for customers.” 

“By building on OpenAI technology through our proprietary platform, TITAN, we intend to lead Fashion E-commerce innovation in maintaining a safe and seamless experience for customers and taking the online shopping experience to the next level,” he added. 

Zalora’s introduction of TITAN, its proprietary integration of OpenAI technology into its platform, comes alongside a series of new tech advancements the company plans to roll out this year. This includes the development of their conversational shopping assistant and Warehouse Management System (WMS), both of which are still in the early phases of development. 

TITAN will also serve as a gateway for ZALORA and its parent company, Global Fashion Group, to scale new heights in Southeast Asia and replicate this technology across the Group’s different regions, including Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Singapore – The Ascott Limited, the lodging business unit under CapitaLand Investment, is the latest brand to launch its own generative AI-powered travel chatbot. The service, named ‘Cubby’ after its own mascot, is equipped to provide travel insights including destination highlights, accommodation recommendations, must-visit attractions, suggestions for shopping and adventure activities, as well as the best ‘Instagram-worthy’ spots, amongst others.

The ChatGPT-fuelled chatbot is built on Microsoft OpenAI and Azure Services. Cubby also leverages real-time data, using Bing search, Azure Map (Nearby API), Azure Map (Weather API) and other Azure services, alongside data and insights accessed via Ascott’s global website DiscoverASR.com, to deliver on an improved, tech-enabled guest journey. 

Currently in its test-bedding stage where learnings are still key, this transformative initiative is part of Ascott’s mindful adoption of AI-driven guest-centric innovations to support its rapid growth trajectory.

For a start, Cubby will be supporting Ascott’s live chat agents, so that the agents can focus on responding to more complex inquiries which require deeper and more thorough engagement with guests. For guests who enjoy having an AI travel buddy that is online on a regular schedule, Cubby has the ability to generate personalised itineraries according to user input. 

The itineraries can be customised and amended according to the destination(s) selected, length of stay, travel preferences, and other criteria. Travel tips as well as health and safety information alongside advice on visa requirements, travel budgets and packing checklists are some of the added knowledge Cubby is able to share.

Tan Bee Leng, managing director for brand and marketing at Ascott, said, “An exciting quest of learning and discovery begins as Ascott takes its first step into the future of personalised travel exploration with the pilot launch of Cubby, where innovation meets warm and cuddly hospitality. Cubby, with its AI prowess, taps into a vast treasure trove of data, enabling fast analysis of travel preferences, trends, and recommendations; from suggesting hidden gems to tailoring itineraries that match specific areas of interests.”

She added, “As we journey alongside our valued guests in this shared adventure of experimentation, every interaction with Cubby is set to unlock a realm of limitless possibilities in AI-driven travel planning. Ascott is dedicated to nurturing Cubby’s growth, empowering it to deliver more personalised and engaging experiences with each interaction.”

In anticipation of evolving guest expectations, Cubby will become multichannel in its later phase, seamlessly integrating with different applications for greater convenience. Improved language capabilities will also be implemented to ensure that Cubby is optimised for local use. This integration will allow Cubby to respond instantly across channels, using the guest’s preferred language and platform while handling an immense volume of guest inquiries simultaneously and consistently.

“From computer vision to natural language processing, Ascott recognises the pivotal role of AI technology in shaping the future of travel experiences. The adoption of generative AI tools to create advertising campaigns has provided us a shorter time-to-market, and the development of a chatbot has deepened our level of engagement with guests,” Tan said.

She added, “Our commitment to equipping our associates with knowledge and expertise in AI is not merely an investment; it’s a pledge to futureproof Ascott and create a new paradigm of personalised engagement with our valued guests. Embracing AI humbles us in the face of technology’s vast possibilities, empowering Ascott to learn, adapt, and evolve with the times, so that heartfelt hospitality and cutting-edge innovation can harmoniously intertwine.”

Other brands that have previously released their own travel chatbots include Expedia and Trip.com.

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.