Viooh Partners With Atmosphere Tv To Unlock Programmatic Access

January 19, 2026

Stacker and Scrunch Partner to Bring AI Search Visibility to Earned Media at Scale

VIOOH, a leading premium global digital out of home (DOOH) supply-side platform, recently announced a strategic partnership with Atmosphere TV, the world’s largest streaming TV platform built for businesses, expanding access to premium place-based video inventory in the UK, North America and Australia.

The partnership delivers access to over 60,000 venues generating more than 1 billion monthly impressions across restaurants, bars, gyms, airports, hotels and other high-traffic business locations. Atmosphere TV reaches over 150 million monthly viewers with more than 30 channels of audio-optional, brand-safe content.

With over 85% market share in North America’s place-based streaming sector, Atmosphere TV’s network spans restaurants, bars, gyms, airports, hotels, offices buildings, and other high-traffic, high-dwell-time locations.

The platform delivers a compelling value proposition for advertisers seeking to reach consumers in high-dwell time environments, with average viewing times at 40 minutes. Atmosphere TV-enabled venues experience a 40% increase in visits during major sporting events, demonstrating the platform’s ability to capture audiences during premium viewing moments.

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“Atmosphere TV opens up a completely new advertising opportunity – reaching audiences in the moments when they’re relaxed, engaged and spending quality time in venues they’ve actively chosen to visit,” said Gavin Wilson, Global Chief Commercial Officer at VIOOH. “With 40+ minute average dwell times and 100% viewable, non-skippable inventory, advertisers can connect with consumers who are genuinely attentive. The programmatic capabilities we’re bringing to this partnership mean brands can target by venue type, location and even activate around live sporting events – it’s place-based advertising at its most sophisticated.”

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“Partnering with VIOOH brings a new level of programmatic sophistication to our offering,” said Ryan Spicer, Chief Revenue Officer at Atmosphere TV. “Our platform already delivers exceptional reach and engagement for advertisers. Now, through VIOOH’s technology and global marketplace, brands can access our inventory with the flexibility and precision that VIOOH programmatic enables, from preferred deals to programmatic guaranteed. This makes it easier than ever for advertisers to reach active consumers who are already out and primed to spend.”

Through programmatic buying via VIOOH’s supply-side platform, 100% of Atmosphere TV inventory is now available with comprehensive targeting capabilities including content, audience, geo, context and business type, tentpole events and live sports with radius targeting and first and third-party data integration. The platform accepts video with durations from six to 90 seconds, and offers flexible buying options including preferred evergreen deals, first-look private auctions and programmatic guaranteed.

VIOOH is a leading premium global digital out-of-home supply-side platform.

Launched in 2018 and with headquarters in London, VIOOH’s platform connects buyers and sellers in a premium marketplace, making OOH easily accessible.

Led by a team of digital OOH and programmatic tech experts, VIOOH is pioneering the transformation of the OOH sector, championing its role in enhancing omni-channel digital campaigns through the use of programmatic capabilities and data. VIOOH currently trades programmatically in 35 markets and drives demand through partnerships with +50 DSPs globally, with more to follow.

Atmosphere TV is a premium CTV FAST platform that makes it fun to watch TV outside of the living room – in bars, restaurants, gyms, airports, and other high-traffic locations. Atmosphere TV is tailored exclusively to businesses, offering more than 30 original and partner TV channels focused on sports, news, and entertainment. Atmosphere has been named to Deloitte’s 2023 Technology Fast 500, Fast Company’s 2022 Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes’ Next Billion Dollar Startups lists. The platform is designed to engage viewers in non-residential spaces, providing marketers with unique audience reach and moments of attention.

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Madhive Taps Two Industry Veterans to Further Drive Evolution and Innovation In Local Media

MTS Staff Writer

January 19, 2026

Madhive Taps Two Industry Veterans to Further Drive Evolution and Innovation In Local Media

Long-time TEGNA leader and News-Press & Gazette CRO Nicki Harkrider-Probey will spearhead local media growth and expansion while former Cox Media Group executive Mindy Buckalew will lead omnichannel operations

Madhive, a leading operating system for local media, today announced the appointments of Nicki Harkrider-Probey as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Mindy Buckalew as Senior Vice President of Operations. As local advertisers demand greater precision and accountability amid its shift toward data-driven outcomes, Harkrider-Probey and Buckalew will strengthen the company’s leadership and operational velocity toward data-driven, outcome-based advertising at scale.

“Nicki and Mindy bring deep experience in revenue transformation and digital operations at a critical moment for local media,” said Jim Wilson, CEO of Madhive. “They don’t just understand the landscape; they’ve spent their careers reshaping and innovating it. These trusted leaders will be instrumental in helping our local media partners further transform how they sell, operate, and deliver measurable results for advertisers.”

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Harkrider-Probey is an industry-leading expert in media sales and revenue growth bringing more than three decades of experience leading sales and revenue organizations across local and national media. She specializes in building high-performing teams, modernizing go-to-market strategies, and strengthening long-term client relationships. As Chief Revenue Officer, Harkrider-Probey will lead Madhive’s revenue strategy, focusing on driving partner growth, client expansion, scalable monetization, and aligning the company’s local-first platform with evolving advertiser demand. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Women in Media with a Silver Award of Excellence for leadership, an honor that underscores her long‑standing commitment to elevating the media landscape.

“I’ve partnered with Madhive for years and have seen firsthand how it delivers precision at the local level with unmatched scale,” said Harkrider-Probey. “I’m thrilled to join the team as we accelerate our local-first DSP and operating system. By integrating Maverick AI and sophisticated planning tools into their workflows, we are giving local media buyers and sellers the actionable insights they need to drive real outcomes. Madhive is the most important growth engine for the industry today, and I’m ready to lead this next chapter.”

Buckalew joins Madhive to champion operational excellence, bringing a 19+ year track record of driving digital business and media transformation. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Digital Business Operations at Cox Media Group, where she led digital planning, execution, and workflow optimization across teams. In her role at Madhive, Buckalew will oversee digital business operations, with a focus on execution efficiency, platform scalability, partner integrations, and supporting continued product and operational innovation to ensure the company continues to deliver frictionless performance at every touchpoint.

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“Having sat in the customer’s seat at Cox Media Group, I’ve experienced firsthand how Madhive’s ‘pitch to pay’ workflow transforms local execution,” said Buckalew. The strength of the system lies in its ability to consolidate fragmented channels and systems into a single pane of glass. In my new role, I look forward to championing the operational rigor that ensures our clients maximize these efficiencies, reducing their overhead while elevating their execution.”

“To capture the $170 billion local advertising market, the industry needs more than just tools—it needs massive, unified scale,” added Wilson. “Madhive exists as the powerhouse operating system built to provide that scale, eliminate the complexities of execution, and capture a larger share of the local advertising market. Nicki and Mindy will bolster our leadership team’s deep understanding of the landscape today and what it will take to compete tomorrow.”

With over 400 employees, the appointments reflect Madhive’s continued investment in top-tier talent as it cements its role as the leading platform for planning, analytics, and outcomes solutions for local media. The company has earned the trust of media leaders including Fox, Hearst, and News-Press & Gazette, and continues to expand its digital advertising hub for local, offering both managed and self-service solutions.

Madhive is the only unified operating system built to empower local media companies to scale their advertising businesses and extend their reach to new audiences. Madhive’s customizable end-to-end platform supports the entire campaign lifecycle from proposal generation and planning to omnichannel buying, real-time optimization, and measurement. With robust workflow software that integrates seamlessly into existing systems, Madhive equips sellers with powerful tools to drive revenue. Trusted by the leading local media and broadcast companies and agencies, Madhive powers over 50,000+ campaigns reaching local audiences and delivering outcomes every day.

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AtData Launches Gibberish Detection to Strengthen Fraud Intelligence and Block Bot-Generated Identities

PRNewswire

January 19, 2026

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***New real-time signal identifies* *and intercepts emails classified as synthetic, random or automated***

AtData, a leading innovator in email address intelligence and digital trust solutions, today announced Gibberish Detection, a new machine learning-driven model in its fraud prevention suite. The capability identifies AI-generated, nonsensical, or otherwise low-intent email inputs at the point of capture. By surfacing a fast, high-confidence indicator of likely bot or synthetic addresses, the feature helps fraud and risk teams prioritize accuracy and speed while cutting operational costs.

“Stopping automated and synthetic accounts at the first touchpoint is one of the most cost-efficient ways to lower fraud exposure,” said Diarmuid Thoma, Head of Fraud & Data Strategy at AtData. “Gibberish Detection converts messy email input into a structured signal that boosts model accuracy, keeps review queues focused on real risk, and slows fraudsters instead of valuable customers.”

Across AtData’s leading activity network, approximately 5% of captured email inputs appear to be randomly generated, nonsensical, or otherwise gibberish – a baseline signal and early indicator of low-intent or automated creation. For a global on-demand services provider, AtData’s recent deployment found the gibberish detection rate doubled to nearly 10% of new orders.

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Gibberish Detection analyzes the text of an email address to classify the likelihood of randomness or automation using indicators such as pattern anomalies and likely bot behavior. The resulting real-time, confidence-weighted signal strengthens identity verification, fraud screening, and risk decisioning workflows by offering:

Faster decisions, less friction: Provides an instant blocking or scoring signal to prevent low-value registrations without adding multi-step verification that annoys legitimate users.
Higher accuracy, fewer false positives: Adds a purpose-built signal for automated patterns, reducing reliance on rules that can misclassify legitimate users.

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Lower operational costs: Reduces manual review volume—one of the largest expenses in fraud programs—by filtering low-value registrations at the start.

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Scalefusion Achieves Zebra Technologies Validation for Unified Management Platform

PRNewswire

January 19, 2026

Scalefusion Achieves Zebra Technologies Validation for Unified Management Platform

ProMobi Technologies announced that Scalefusion, a leading Unified Management solution, is now Zebra validated.

This validation comes after Scalefusion’s successful completion of Zebra Technologies’ Enterprise Testing Program, earning validation for its platform with Zebra’s range of thermal printers. This recognition confirms that Scalefusion has met Zebra’s rigorous interoperability and performance benchmarks, ensuring customers can confidently deploy and manage Zebra devices within their enterprise environments.

Zebra’s Enterprise Testing Program is designed to validate the compatibility of third-party solutions with Zebra’s mobile computers, scanners, printers, and RFID technologies. By achieving this validation, Scalefusion demonstrates that its UEM platform works seamlessly with Zebra to deliver reliable, scalable, and secure management. Customers leveraging Zebra’s printing solutions for mission-critical operations—such as retail, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare can now integrate them into Scalefusion’s platform with the assurance of smooth performance and consistent results.

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“Validation from Zebra underscores the strength of our platform and its ability to support customers operating in highly demanding environments,” said Sriram Kakarala, Chief Product Officer at Scalefusion.

“Enterprises using Zebra printers for essential labeling, tracking, and workflow processes can now manage these devices through Scalefusion with confidence in performance, security, and compliance,” he added.

The Scalefusion platform simplifies endpoint management by enabling IT administrators to remotely configure, monitor, and secure devices across diverse locations. It also enables businesses to remotely configure, monitor, and secure Zebra devices across diverse locations and offers Firmware Over-the-Air (FOTA) updates, playing a crucial role in keeping devices compliant with the latest releases and security standards. With Zebra validation, enterprises can extend this unified management to Zebra thermal printers, reducing operational overhead while maintaining consistent governance across fleets of devices.

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Scalefusion is a proud member of Zebra Technologies’ PartnerConnect program, joining a network of trusted partners committed to delivering integrated, high-performance solutions that empower businesses at the front line of operations.

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e& and IBM Unveil Enterprise-Grade Agentic AI to Transform Governance and Compliance

PRNewswire

January 19, 2026

e& and IBM Unveil Enterprise-Grade Agentic AI to Transform Governance and Compliance

Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the deployment marks e&’s move beyond traditional chatbots to enterprise-grade agentic AI.
Powered by IBM watsonx Orchestrate, agentic AI is embedded into mission-critical governance and compliance systems across e&.

Global technology group e& and IBM announced a strategic collaboration to advance towards an enterprise-grade agentic AI foundation at e&, starting with policy, risk, and compliance. Unveiled at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the initiative reflects e&’s move beyond traditional natural language processing (NLP)-based chatbots toward governed, action-oriented AI embedded in core enterprise systems.

e& and IBM have introduced an agentic AI solution built on IBM watsonx Orchestrate – a product offering more than 500 tools and customizable, domain-specific agents from IBM and its partners – to help employees and auditors quickly access and interpret legal, regulatory, and compliance information. Integrated with IBM OpenPages and the broader watsonx portfolio, the solution delivers clear, traceable responses aligned with enterprise governance requirements.

A joint proof of concept delivered by IBM, GBM (Gulf Business Machines) and e& within eight weeks demonstrated how agentic AI can operate at enterprise scale under real-world conditions.

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IBM’s Client Engineering team led the design and integration of the agentic AI solution, with GBM supporting delivery through project coordination and deep familiarity with e&’s OpenPages and watsonx Assistant environment. The work showcased AI capabilities that move beyond traditional question-and-answer tools, enabling reasoning and action while remaining aligned with e&’s governance, risk, and compliance framework.

“Our ambition is to move beyond isolated AI use cases toward enterprise-scale agentic AI that is trusted, governed, and deeply integrated into how the organization operates,” said Hatem Dowidar, Group CEO, e&. “By collaborating with IBM, we are embedding intelligence directly into our risk and compliance processes, enabling faster decisions, consistent policy interpretation, and a foundation for broader agentic AI adoption across the enterprise.”

IBM watsonx Orchestrate enables agentic AI that goes beyond chat-based interactions, allowing AI agents to reason, orchestrate tasks, and integrate with enterprise systems under governance controls. For e&, it provides a foundation for trusted, explainable AI that can scale across compliance and other enterprise domains. It helps to streamline compliance tasks, reduce response times, and enable 24/7 self-service access across the organization.

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The initiative also aligns natively with watsonx.governance, already in use at e&, providing a strong foundation for AI governance, explainability, and compliance by design. By embedding agentic AI directly into the OpenPages governance, risk, and compliance platform, this represents one of the early enterprise-grade agentic AI implementations in the region, demonstrating how AI can support trusted, human-led decision-making under regulatory and operational requirements.

The deployment also demonstrates the flexibility of IBM’s AI and model gateway approach, enabling large language models to run across hybrid environments, including customer-managed infrastructure, while remaining governed under enterprise controls.

“As organizations move from experimenting with AI to embedding it into the fabric of how they operate, governance and accountability become just as important as intelligence,” said Ana Paula Assis, SVP and Chair for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, IBM. “Through our collaboration with e&, this proof of concept intends to demonstrate how agentic AI can be designed and validated for enterprise-scale use, deeply integrated into core systems, governed by design, and trusted to support human-led decisions and outcomes.”

This collaboration marks an important milestone in e&’s enterprise AI journey, establishing a scalable and governed foundation for agentic AI adoption across the organization. By embedding action-oriented AI directly into core governance and compliance workflows, e& is reinforcing its commitment to responsible innovation and setting a new benchmark for trusted, enterprise-grade agentic AI in the region.a

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IBM Launches Enterprise Advantage Service to Help Businesses Scale Agentic AI

PRNewswire

January 19, 2026

IBM Launches Enterprise Advantage Service to Help Businesses Scale Agentic AI

New AI‑powered consulting service delivers a secured platform, shared standards, and reusable AI assets to help organizations accelerate growth and drive innovation

IBM announced IBM Enterprise Advantage, a first-of-its-kind asset-based consulting service that combines proven AI-tools and expertise to help clients quickly build, govern, and operate their own tailored internal AI platform at scale.

Organizations can now use IBM Enterprise Advantage to redesign workflows, connect AI to existing systems, and scale new agentic applications without requiring changes to their cloud providers, AI models, or core infrastructure. This includes Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM watsonx, and both open‑and closed‑source models, allowing companies to build on their existing investments.

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IBM Enterprise Advantage brings together the technical and industry expertise of IBM consultants with technology built from IBM Consulting Advantage, IBM’s own internal AI-powered delivery platform. With a growing marketplace of industry‑specific AI agents and applications, IBM Consulting Advantage has already supported more than 150 client engagements and been shown to boost consultants’ productivity by up to 50% to help clients achieve faster results.

Now with the Enterprise Advantage service, IBM is giving clients access to the same proven approach and capabilities to build their own AI platforms and navigate the complex AI marketplace to drive enterprise value.

For example, Pearson, a lifelong learning company, is using this service to build a custom AI‑powered platform that combines human expertise with agentic assistants to manage everyday work and decisions.

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A manufacturer company has used Enterprise Advantage to implement its generative AI strategy. This includes identifying high‑value use cases, testing targeted prototypes, and aligning leaders around a scalable, platform‑first strategy. With an Enterprise Advantage solution, the client is now deploying AI assistants using multiple technologies in a secured, governed environment that lays the foundation for expanding generative AI across the enterprise.

“Many organizations are investing in AI, but achieving real value at scale remains a major challenge,” said Mohamad Ali, Senior Vice President and Head of IBM Consulting. “We have solved many of these challenges inside IBM by using AI to transform our own operations and deliver measurable results, giving us a proven playbook to help clients succeed. Enterprise Advantage brings this framework to clients by combining human expertise with digital workers and ready-to-use AI assets so they can scale AI with confidence and achieve meaningful impact.”

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Battle SEO® Launches Multi-Location SEO Expansion to Help Franchises Dominate Regional Search Results

MTS Staff Writer

January 19, 2026

Battle SEO® Launches Multi-Location SEO Expansion to Help Franchises Dominate Regional Search Results

Battle SEO^® has announced the launch of a multi-location SEO expansion designed to help franchise brands and multi-site businesses strengthen visibility across regional search results. Through this expansion, a clearer path is being provided for organizations that have struggled with inconsistent rankings across cities, duplicated location pages, and brand messaging that gets diluted from one market to the next.

A growing share of franchise discovery has been happening through “near me” queries, map results, and location-based searches where local competitors often appear ahead of national brands. With that shift, multi-location performance has increasingly been shaped by hundreds of small local signals rather than one national campaign. To address this, Battle SEO’s expanded approach has been built around location-specific strategy that is kept aligned with brand standards while being tailored for each service area.

Under the expansion, structured location frameworks have been developed to support scalable page builds, market-by-market keyword targeting, and stronger internal linking between service, city, and brand-level content. Technical foundations are being prioritized so that search engines can understand each location clearly, while duplicate content and cannibalization issues are reduced. Local listings consistency, review strategy support, and on-page relevance improvements are being incorporated so that map visibility and organic rankings can be reinforced together.

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Reporting has been adjusted to reflect how franchise decisions are made in the real world. Rather than being presented as one blended national view, performance is being tracked by the market so that growth opportunities, weak regions, and competitive threats can be identified faster. This market-level visibility is intended to support franchisors, marketing teams, and operators who need clearer accountability and measurable progress tied to local outcomes.

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A structured approach has been put in place so local growth can be scaled without losing brand control, while search performance is strengthened across every location.

This multi-location SEO expansion is being positioned for franchisors, multi-location service providers, and regional brands seeking stronger visibility in the cities where revenue is actually earned. Additional details have been made available through Battle SEO upon request.

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Beyond Amazon: The Explosion of Retail Media Networks (RMNs) for B2B

MTS Staff Writer

January 19, 2026

Beyond Amazon: The Explosion of Retail Media Networks (RMNs) for B2B

You have likely watched Amazon dominate the advertising landscape, but a massive shift is occurring in the business world. Retailers are transforming into media powerhouses, and this change offers you new ways to reach professional buyers. Retail Media Networks are quickly becoming an essential part of the B2B marketing mix.

What Defines a Modern RMN?

Retailers are realizing their websites are valuable real estate for advertisers seeking high-intent audiences. They are turning their online stores into publishing platforms to monetize their traffic. You are no longer viewing them as simple merchants selling goods. They are now media owners selling access to their specific customer base. This shift transforms a cost center into a high-margin profit engine for the retailer.

For the buyer, this means seeing relevant ads right when they are ready to purchase. Retail Media Networks provide a direct line to customers who are already in a buying mindset. You get premium placement on digital shelves where decisions happen. This proximity to the point of sale makes these networks incredibly powerful for conversion.

Which B2B Players Are Entering the Game?

You might be surprised to see which major B2B players are building their own Retail Media Networks right now.

Staples:

Capitalizes on office supply purchase history to help software vendors target small business owners effectively.

Uber for Business:

Uses rider travel patterns to help corporate service providers reach executives during their commute.

Marriott:

Leverages vast booking data to allow luxury B2B brands to target business travelers during stays.

Chase Media:

Utilizes transaction data to assist financial service providers in reaching businesses with specific spending habits.

Why Does Purchase Data Beat Intent Signals?

Most marketing relies on guessing what a buyer wants based on vague search history or website visits. Actual purchase data removes this guesswork entirely. You know exactly what a company bought, how much they spent, and when they are likely to order again. This historical accuracy provides a stronger foundation for your campaigns.

This precision is why Retail Media Networks are growing so rapidly in the B2B sector. You stop wasting budget on people who are merely browsing or researching. Instead, you focus your resources on accounts that have a proven track record of spending money in your category. It changes the game from prediction to factual targeting.

How Can You Target Buyers Off-Site?

You are not limited to showing ads only on the retailer’s website, as these networks extend their reach elsewhere.

Use retailer data to find your specific buyers on news sites or social media platforms.
Retarget users who abandoned their carts on the retailer site while they browse the open web.
Build lookalike audiences based on high-value business accounts to expand your total addressable market reach.
Serve video ads on connected TV platforms by matching email addresses from the retailer’s database.

What Technical Hurdles Will You Face?

The market is currently fragmented, which makes managing campaigns across multiple platforms difficult for your team. Each retailer operates its own “walled garden” with different metrics and reporting standards. You cannot easily compare performance between two different networks without manual work. This lack of standardization creates a heavy operational burden for your marketing operations team.

You have to log into separate dashboards to manage creative assets and track results. Retail Media Networks need better integration tools to help marketers scale their efforts without adding headcount. You must be prepared to handle disparate data sources until the industry agrees on common standards.

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How Should You Launch a Pilot Strategy?

You should approach this channel cautiously in Q4 by following a structured testing plan to validate results early.

Select Niche Partners:

Identify one retailer that aligns perfectly with your ideal customer profile rather than going broad.

Allocate Experimental Budget:

Set aside a specific “test and learn” fund separate from your main programmatic advertising spend.

Focus on Sponsored Products:

Start with simple native ad formats that appear directly in search results for immediate impact.

Request Transparent Reporting:

Insist on getting granular data on which specific SKUs or categories drove the most engagement.

Can You Accurately Measure Your ROAS?

Measuring success in this channel is often clearer than in traditional display advertising. You can link ad exposure directly to a transaction that happens on the same platform. This “closed-loop” attribution gives you a definitive view of your Return on Ad Spend. It allows you to defend your budget with hard numbers.

However, you must be careful about attribution windows. Retail Media Networks often claim credit for sales that might have happened anyway. You need to scrutinize the data to ensure your ads are driving incremental lift rather than just subsidizing existing demand. Always validate the numbers against your own internal sales data.

Final Remarks

The explosion of Retail Media Networks offers a fresh opportunity to reach business buyers with absolute precision. You can move beyond generic targeting and start leveraging real transaction data to drive growth. It is time to treat the point of sale as your most powerful media channel.

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Freeduhm.com Partnered With AdPlunge To Boost Both Brands Digital Advertising Business

MTS Staff Writer

January 19, 2026

Freeduhm.com Partnered With AdPlunge To Boost Both Brands Digital Advertising Business

The Freeduhm.com and AdPlunge alliance strengthens programmatic capabilities and unlocks scalable revenue growth for publisher partners worldwide.

Freeduhm.com, a global digital tech media and advertising company, announced a strategic business partnership with AdPlunge.com, a digital advertising network serving publishers across multiple verticals. The partnership is designed to accelerate growth for both organizations while delivering greater value, transparency, and revenue opportunities to publishers and advertising partners. Through this alliance, Freeduhm and AdPlunge will integrate their complementary capabilities to expand reach, improve inventory utilization, and strengthen programmatic execution across desktop, mobile, and emerging digital channels. By aligning Freeduhm’s data-driven optimization platform with AdPlunge’s established publisher relationships, the two companies aim to create a more efficient, scalable, and results-oriented advertising ecosystem.

“We are pleased to announce this strategic partnership with AdPlunge,” said Errol Fullido for Freeduhm. “Our shared commitment to performance, publisher success, and long-term value creation makes this a natural fit. Together, we will be able to deliver smarter monetization strategies, stronger demand access, and measurable growth for our publisher partners.”

AdPlunge brings to the partnership a robust network of publishers and deep expertise in traffic acquisition, yield management, and sourcing advertiser demand. Freeduhm’s technology and analytics capabilities will enhance campaign optimization, improve fill rates, and drive higher effective CPMs across the combined inventory footprint.

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“AdPlunge has strategically partnered with Freeduhm to bring even more value and opportunities to our publishers and partners,” said Oratile Maimane from AdPlunge. “By working closely with Freeduhm, we can offer a more comprehensive monetization solution that balances revenue performance with user experience and long-term sustainability.”

The partnership will focus on several key initiatives, including advanced demand aggregation, real-time performance optimization, enhanced reporting and transparency, and the development of new revenue streams for premium and long-tail publishers alike. Both companies will also collaborate on go-to-market strategies to expand their presence across key verticals, including news, lifestyle, finance, and technology. As the digital advertising industry continues to evolve, Freeduhm and AdPlunge believe this partnership positions both organizations to serve better publishers navigating increased competition, evolving privacy regulations, and changing consumer behavior.

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“Our goal is to help publishers grow with confidence in a complex market,” Errol Fullido added. “This partnership with AdPlunge strengthens our ability to do exactly that by combining scale, technology, and expertise to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes.” The partnership is effective immediately, with joint solutions rolling out to select publisher partners in the coming weeks.

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Wildix Positions AI as the Catalyst Moving the UC&C Channel Beyond Resale at 2026 Summit

Business Wire

January 19, 2026

Wildix Positions AI as the Catalyst Moving the UC&C Channel Beyond Resale at 2026 Summit

Summit highlights AI-driven execution, partner leadership and platform evolution across its unified UC&C platform

Wildix, a leader in AI-powered Unified Communications solutions, yesterday concluded its annual virtual UC&C Summit, convening partners and industry stakeholders worldwide to highlight how partner-led execution and live deployments are reshaping the role of UC&C platforms.

As economic pressure increases and service expectations rise, organizations are reassessing communications as an operational system expected to deliver reliability, visibility and accountability at scale.

Against this backdrop, Wildix outlined the continued evolution of its 100 percent channel-only model. The company emphasized that partner differentiation is moving beyond transactional resale toward an advisory role focused on the design, governance and optimization of communication workflows that support day-to-day operations.

“The UC&C market has matured. Customers are no longer evaluating platforms in isolation; they are looking for partners who can translate communication into operational value,” said Emiliano Tomasoni, CMO, Wildix. “To prove our commitment to enabling this shift, we’ve launched the Wildix Spokesperson Program, giving the channel a real voice by selecting one partner to be our global ambassador for a year and truly placing them at the center of our story.”

Building on the agentic AI strategy outlined at last year’s Summit and the subsequent launch of Wilma AI, the AI layer embedded across Wildix’s ecosystem, this year’s program focused on execution. Wildix highlighted how embedded automation and AI-driven assistance are now being deployed in live customer environments, governed through partner-led frameworks, and integrated into everyday voice, messaging and meeting workflows.

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“Wildix has demonstrated incredible technological vision and agility, making it seamless to integrate complex AI into real-world business environments,” said Carlos Estrela, CEO, Leader Redes y Comunicaciones. “My message to other partners is clear: embrace generative and agentic AI, especially for voice. That is no longer just an innovation; it’s the true differentiator in market.”

Wildix positioned this moment as an inflection point for the channel. As AI-native vendors and point solutions proliferate, long-term relevance increasingly depends on delivering measurable outcomes, not tools. Industry forecasts suggest that more than 80 percent of unified communications sales will be indirect by 2026, reinforcing the growing importance of partner-led delivery (source: Omdia).

As part of its broader partner program, Wildix shared first-year results from Sales Academy, a sales methodology introduced in response to increasingly complex UC&C buying behavior. Designed to put the channel first and meet partners where they are, the program applies structured sales frameworks through live opportunities rather than standalone training. In its first year, participating partners generated more than $40,000 in new monthly recurring revenue and recorded 23 percent year-over-year growth. The program has since been recognized by UC through the UC Awards for partner enablement.

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The Summit also highlighted concrete examples of partner-led execution across healthcare, professional services and retail. Among them was RoboReception, a joint AI‑embedded healthcare solution co-developed by RoboReception and Wildix and delivered through U.K.-based MSP Focus Group. Originally created by a dentist to address front-desk bottlenecks and missed calls, the solution automates inbound patient interactions and reduces administrative workload. Wildix reported that RoboReception generated more than $9 million in measurable return on investment within its first six months across 65 U.K. dental clinics, while maintaining service levels without additional headcount.

Looking ahead, Wildix positioned 2026 as a year defined by execution and operational depth. Wildix outlined continued investment in AI-driven coaching and insight, tighter governance across voice, messaging and mobile environments, and greater partner control through capabilities such as fixed-mobile convergence and emerging messaging standards. Together, these priorities reflect a broader view of unified communications as an operational system rather than a standalone platform, enabling partners to meet customers where they are and progressively embed intelligence, accountability and measurable outcomes into everyday workflows.

“As customer expectations rise, AI is the opportunity for our partners to deliver value and stay relevant,” said Steve Osler, CEO, Wildix. “We provide the full AI stack to turn the channels they control into intelligence, making them indispensable architects of customer growth.”

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Doceree Sets the Global Standard for Healthcare Marketing

MTS Staff Writer

January 19, 2026

Doceree Sets the Global Standard for Healthcare Marketing

Two AI-powered solutions redefine how 2,000+ specialist medical publishers and healthcare advertisers connect

Doceree, the AI-powered Operating System for healthcare marketing, announced a defining industry milestone: the creation of the world’s largest network of specialist medical publishers, connecting more than 2,000 premium medical, clinical, and professional publishing platforms with endemic healthcare advertisers through its healthcare-native AI platform suite.

This global network includes some of the most trusted medical publishing brands in the world and represents a fundamental shift in how healthcare media is monetized, measured, and scaled—away from generic ad technology and towards AI-first infrastructure built exclusively for regulated clinical environments.

A Structural Shift in Healthcare Media

Doceree’s publisher network milestone is powered by the launch of two breakthrough AI-driven solutions introduced in 2025:

AdManager — the industry’s first unified ad management and monetization platform built exclusively for healthcare publishers
Premium Programmatic — a programmatic advertising solution powered by patented MeSH Taxonomy, designed to engage physicians at their most critical reading and learning moments

Together, these solutions redefine how publishers unlock demand and how pharmaceutical and life sciences brands reach healthcare professionals—with precision, compliance, and contextual relevance.

As healthcare publishers increasingly outgrew broad-market ad platforms (that were never intended for regulated clinical ecosystems), Doceree’s purpose-built approach saw rapid adoption across the world’s most trusted medical publishers.

“Partnering with Doceree has been transformative for our global strategy,” said Andy May, Global Head of Promotions – Clinical, Springer Nature. “We’ve strengthened our footprint and seen a clear uplift in yield from endemic advertisers—without compromising trust or experience.”

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Why Pharma Brands Are Shifting Programmatic Spend to Doceree

What differentiates Doceree’s network is not scale alone—it is the healthcare-specific intelligence embedded into every placement. Doceree delivers three advantages traditional programmatic platforms cannot match:

More Reach — Verified, Not Aggregated

2,000+ directly integrated specialist medical platforms
6M+ verified healthcare professionals across 45+ specialties
Direct publisher relationships—no resold or blind inventory

More Context — Precision Built for Medicine

Patented MeSH taxonomy of 7M+ clinical keywords
Real-time contextual targeting aligned with medical content
Deterministic NPI-based identity matching, enhanced with specialty and device-level intelligence

More Formats — Designed for How Physicians Learn

Sponsored scientific content, clinical case studies, and CME partnerships
Programmatically delivered branded articles within trusted environments
Integration with RepTwin, Doceree’s AI-powered virtual representative available to physicians 24×7

The result is healthcare marketing that feels useful, credible, and clinically relevant, transforming advertising into meaningful medical dialogue.

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“Healthcare marketing has outgrown generic programmatic models,” said Harshit Jain, MD, Founder & Global CEO, Doceree. “What we’ve built with this publisher network is not just scale, but infrastructure—designed specifically for regulated, clinical environments. By connecting trusted medical publishers directly with endemic healthcare demand, we’re setting a new global standard for how meaningful, compliant, and accountable HCP engagement should work.”

A Purpose-Built Playground for Healthcare Publishers

For publishers, the shift to healthcare-native technology unlocked capabilities that generic ad platforms could never deliver—especially the ability to activate highly targeted, physician-only campaigns without compromising editorial integrity or user experience.

“AdManager allowed us to activate precision physician campaigns while protecting the reader experience,” said Sarah Mayes, Director of Advertising, Taylor & Francis. “Every impression carried intent and value.”

Unlike broad-market ad technology that treats healthcare as an edge case, AdManager and Premium Programmatic were engineered from the ground up for healthcare publishing realities.

“A dedicated healthcare ad manager was long overdue—and Doceree delivered,” said Nicola Harris, Agency Account Director, Cogora.

A Clear Industry Signal

For publishers, Doceree delivers access to the deepest pool of endemic healthcare demand, higher CPMs, automated compliance monitoring, intelligent inventory management, and streamlined operations—all through a single healthcare-native platform.

“Healthcare publishers have outgrown generic ad platforms,” said Vijay Adapala, EVP – Global Supply Partnerships, Doceree. “The growth of our publisher network confirms a clear industry shift toward solutions that prioritize relevance, compliance, and sustainable revenue.”

With continued investment in AI, infrastructure, and global partnerships, Doceree plans multiple enhancements to AdManager and Premium Programmatic in 2026—further cementing its leadership in healthcare programmatic marketing.

Doceree is the AI-powered operating system for healthcare marketing. We believe the role of AI is to bring richer context to every HCP interaction. Our patented AI understands multiple layers of clinical, behavioral, and contextual signals to enhance every HCP interaction in a privacy-compliant manner, delivering measurably better outcomes every time. In just five years, we have emerged as leaders in AI-powered, hyper-personalized healthcare messaging—redefining HCP engagement with more powerful context and more powerful outcomes.

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Alorica Named Innovative Organization Winner in the 2026 BIG Innovation Awards

Business Wire

January 19, 2026

Alorica Named Innovative Organization Winner in the 2026 BIG Innovation Awards

Alorica Inc., a global leader in digitally-powered customer experiences (CX), has been named an Innovative Organization winner in the 2026 BIG Innovation Awards, a global recognition program honoring companies that deliver applied innovation with measurable, real-world impact.

The award recognizes Alorica’s ability to scale artificial intelligence across enterprise CX operations through Alorica IQ, the company’s digital innovation practice, and its award-winning conversational AI platform, evoAI. Together, they form a platform-driven approach—rooted in Alorica’s human-in-command design philosophy—that enables intelligent automation while strengthening both customer and agent experiences.

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“This recognition validates our belief that innovation truly matters when it delivers real business outcomes,” said Max Schwendner, Co‑CEO of Alorica. “Through Alorica IQ and evoAI, we help brands convert AI investment into significant operational value—where human expertise and intelligent automation work together to build trust, efficiency, and long-term growth.”

Alorica IQ serves as the company’s innovation engine, blending platform engineering, frontline agent insight, and scalable deployment to turn applied AI into repeatable, measurable impact across the organization and for its clients worldwide. At the center of this model is evoAI, an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform that integrates seamlessly into existing technology ecosystems. Supporting more than 100 languages and dialects, evoAI delivers emotionally intelligent, context-aware interactions across voice and digital channels. Built in partnership with frontline CX agents, the platform enhances workflows rather than disrupting them to improve adoption, agent confidence, and performance.

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Across multiple deployments, evoAI has demonstrated the ability to automate up to 50% of customer interactions, reduce average handle time by 40%, and deliver quantifiable improvements in CSAT, engagement, and conversion across industries including telecom, retail, healthcare, and financial services.

“Innovation has always been part of Alorica’s DNA, but we specifically focus our efforts on technology that drives scalable growth for both Alorica and our clients,” said Mike Clifton, Co‑CEO of Alorica. “Our teams continue to push CX forward with solutions that are trusted, secure, and enterprise‑ready to help brands modernize their operations and create more meaningful, efficient interactions with their customers.”

This recognition adds to Alorica’s growing portfolio of industry accolades. evoAI, now a seven-time award winner, previously received the Bronze Stevie® for Technology Excellence, a Gold Globee® Disruptor Award, AI Breakthrough Award for Conversational AI Innovation, CUSTOMER Product of the Year Award by TMC, a We Love Tech Award for Customer Experience and the AI Excellence Award for Outstanding Organization from BIG.

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ClickHouse Raises $400M Series D Led by Dragoneer to Accelerate Expansion Across Analytics and AI Infrastructure

Business Wire

January 19, 2026

ClickHouse Raises $400M Series D Led by Dragoneer to Accelerate Expansion Across Analytics and AI Infrastructure

Company acquires Langfuse to enter LLM observability and introduces a native Postgres service to unify transactional and analytical workloads

ClickHouse, a leader in real-time analytics, data warehousing, observability, and AI/ML, announced the close of its Series D financing, raising $400 million. The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, GIC, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and WCM Investment Management.

The financing follows a period of sustained, accelerating growth for ClickHouse. The company now serves more than 3,000 customers on its fully managed service, ClickHouse Cloud, with ARR growing more than 250 percent year over year. Over the past three months, customers including Capital One, Lovable, Decagon, Polymarket, and Airwallex have adopted the platform or expanded existing deployments. These customers join an established base that includes AI innovators and major brands like Meta, Cursor, Sony, and Tesla.

“ClickHouse was built to deliver exceptional performance and cost efficiency for the most demanding data workloads, and this momentum validates that strategy,” said Aaron Katz, CEO of ClickHouse. “As we look toward the future, we are adding support for unified transactional and analytical workloads, so developers can build any type of applications powered by AI on the best technical foundation. And we are expanding our offering to include LLM observability, so AI application builders can evaluate the quality and behavior of AI outputs as they move into production. Additional funding, combined with continued product execution, positions us to deliver the leading data and LLM observability platform in the AI era.”

A High-Conviction Investment in Data Infrastructure and AI at Scale

Founded by Marc Stad in 2012, Dragoneer takes a highly selective, research-driven approach and seeks long-term partnerships with a small number of category-defining companies. The firm has invested in several of the leading data platforms of the past decade, as well as foundational AI companies.

As AI systems move from experimentation into production, the demands placed on underlying data infrastructure are increasing. AI-driven applications generate significantly higher query volumes, operate with tighter latency requirements, and require continuous evaluation and observability. In this environment, value increasingly accrues to infrastructure platforms that power large-scale, data-intensive production workloads.

“Major platform shifts ultimately reward the infrastructure companies that sit closest to production,” said Christian Jensen, Partner at Dragoneer Investment Group. “As models become more capable, the bottleneck moves to data infrastructure. ClickHouse stood out because it delivers the performance, efficiency, and reliability required for AI systems operating at scale.”

Dragoneer’s investment followed a rigorous evaluation that revealed the platform to be a category-defining leader in the modern data stack. ClickHouse supports a broad range of mission-critical, real-time workloads embedded in always-on, customer-facing, and AI-driven systems.

ClickHouse’s growth has also been driven by its ability to enable net-new workloads rather than simply replacing existing systems. By making real-time analytics cost-effective at scale, the platform supports use cases that were previously impractical due to latency or cost constraints. Unlike many data infrastructure platforms that primarily serve internal analytics teams, ClickHouse is frequently embedded in customer-facing products, where performance and reliability directly impact end-user experience.

“We look for platforms that customers rely on when systems cannot go down, and ClickHouse consistently demonstrated those characteristics,” Jensen added.

LLM Observability: ClickHouse Enters the Market with Langfuse Acquisition

ClickHouse is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Langfuse, the open-source LLM observability platform. Unlike traditional observability, which focuses on system health and performance metrics, LLM observability focuses on ensuring that non-deterministic and increasingly complex AI systems produce outputs that are accurate, safe, and aligned with user intent. As AI systems become increasingly embedded in production workflows, LLM observability has emerged as a critical requirement for teams building and operating AI-powered applications.

The Langfuse open source project has seen rapid adoption, ending 2025 at over 20K GitHub stars and more than 26M+ SDK installs per month.

“We built Langfuse on ClickHouse because LLM observability and evaluation is fundamentally a data problem,” said Marc Klingen, CEO of Langfuse. “Now, as one team, we can deliver a tighter end-to-end product: faster ingestion, deeper evaluation, and a shorter path from a production issue to a measurable improvement.”

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Native Postgres Service: ClickHouse Announces a Unified Data Stack for AI Builders

ClickHouse is excited to announce an enterprise-grade Postgres service deeply integrated with ClickHouse. To power modern, real-time AI applications that require both transactional and analytical capabilities, ClickHouse is delivering a unified data stack that includes high-performance, scalable Postgres backed by NVMe storage and with native CDC capabilities. In just a few clicks, users can sync transactional data to ClickHouse, unlocking up to 100X faster analytics. With a unified query layer powered by a native Postgres extension, users can build applications that seamlessly span transactions and analytics without managing separate systems. The service is built in partnership with Ubicloud, an open-source cloud company delivering high-performance Postgres, led by a team with a strong track record at Citus Data, Heroku, and Microsoft.

“Postgres and ClickHouse complement each other naturally, and are key for AI applications. Together, we’re delivering an integrated stack that removes complexity for teams, with production-grade Postgres for transactions and ClickHouse for analytics working as one,” said Umur Cubukcu, Co-CEO, Co-Founder, Ubicloud. “We’re excited to join forces with ClickHouse at Ubicloud because this is how the open-source ecosystem wins: trusted teams building best-in-class products that work and grow together.”

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Continued Global Expansion and Product Momentum

In parallel with its financing and acquisition of Langfuse, ClickHouse continues to expand its global footprint and ecosystem. In the past year, the company has entered the Japanese market through a partnership with Japan Cloud and has announced a partnership with Microsoft Azure focused on OneLake. ClickHouse has also held user events in San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, Sydney, and Bangalore, attracting over 1000 attendees and featuring speakers from companies like OpenAI, Tesla, Capital One, Ramp, and Canva, and hosted the AWS re:Invent Chainsmokers customer event for the second consecutive year.

Recent product advancements further strengthen ClickHouse’s position at the intersection of analytics, AI, and observability. The company has made significant investments in data lake support, adding compatibility with Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, and the most widely used data catalogs. The company has also expanded full-text search capabilities, which are increasingly critical for observability use cases, including AI observability. Finally, lightweight updates have been introduced to support more demanding AI-driven applications. The platform continues to deliver industry leading price-performance, exceeding leading cloud data warehouses according to recent benchmarks.

With the Series D financing, the acquisition of Langfuse, and introduction of a native Postgres offering, ClickHouse is positioned to accelerate growth and further expand its role as a unified data platform and AI observability.

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Seela Launches an All-in-One AI Creative Platform for Image Generation and Multi-Model AI Comparison

PRNewswire

January 19, 2026

Seela Launches an All-in-One AI Creative Platform for Image Generation and Multi-Model AI Comparison

Seela announced its all-in-one AI-powered creative platform, integrating text-to-image, image-to-image, and multi-model AI chatbot comparison into a streamlined workspace, enabling users to explore, compare, and create with greater clarity and confidence. Designed for creators, designers, marketers, and teams interested in AI, the platform aims to provide them with creative freedom and informed decision support.

AI chat: Side-by-Side AI Model Comparison in One Conversation

One of Seela AI’s core innovations is its multi-model chat comparison system.

Users simply submit a prompt and simultaneously receive responses from large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek—these responses are displayed side-by-side on the same screen. This allows users to directly compare the reasoning style, tone, accuracy, and creativity of different models without having to repeatedly submit prompts across different platforms.

For professionals who rely on AI for content creation, research, or creative brainstorming, this approach instantly reveals model differences, reducing decision-making friction and improving output quality.

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Flexible AI Image Generation Built for Real Use Cases

Seela AI also offers powerful yet easy-to-use AI image generation capabilities, supporting text-to-image and image-to-image workflows, enabling users to efficiently generate, optimize, and transform visual content. Seela AI also includes commonly used image utilities such as background removal, watermark removal, and popular art styles, usable without additional tools, making it particularly useful for social media teams, designers, and growth marketers who need to produce visual content at scale.

Designed for Speed, Clarity, and Creative Control

Unlike platforms built primarily for AI researchers, Seela AI emphasizes usability and workflow simplicity. Its visual-first interface lowers the learning curve while preserving advanced controls for power users.

“As AI models multiply, users shouldn’t have to,” said the Seela team. “Our goal is to give users control and visibility—so they can focus on creating, not managing tools.”

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What’s Next

Seela AI is currently in its MVP stage, focusing on two core capabilities: multi-model AI chat comparison and AI image generation. In the future, Seela plans to expand to video model support and more creative scenarios, gradually developing into a centralized hub for AI-driven creation and experimentation for creators.

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O3 Solutions Introduces Otto, a Personal AI Assistant for Capital Project Teams

MTS Staff Writer

January 16, 2026

O3 Solutions Introduces Otto, a Personal AI Assistant for Capital Project Teams

New AI capability brings real-time insight, analysis, and AWP guidance directly into project workflows.

O3 Solutions announced the launch of Otto, a new personal AI assistant embedded within its project execution platform. Designed specifically for capital project environments, Otto enables teams to interact directly with their live project data using natural language, transforming how insights are accessed and applied across planning and execution.

As capital projects move into 2026, organizations are facing increasing complexity, tighter resource constraints, and a shrinking pool of experienced talent. At the same time, projects are generating more data than ever before. While data volume has grown, the ability to quickly translate that data into actionable insight has not kept pace.

“AI isn’t going to take your job; the advantage will belong to those who know how to use it effectively,” says Josh Girvin, O3 Solutions CEO. “O3 is committed to helping our clients develop the capabilities needed to confidently apply AI and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.”

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Otto is built to address this gap. Rather than relying on manual report building or specialized analytics expertise, users can ask questions directly within O3 and receive answers, visualizations, and risk indicators derived from their actual project data. The assistant combines live project information with embedded Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) domain knowledge and execution context to support consistent, informed decision-making.

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With Otto, project teams can review upcoming work packages, assess schedule risks, explore system-level delays, find the root cause for issues, analyze RFIs, and surface potential issues earlier in the project life cycle. The introduction of Otto reflects O3’s broader strategy to embed practical AI across its platform. AI capabilities are being developed as core functionality, not experimental features, with a focus on improving decision quality, preserving institutional knowledge, and supporting predictable outcomes.

Otto represents a shift from static reporting toward continuous, conversational insight, helping project teams move from data to decisions with greater clarity and confidence.

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Looper Insights Introduces Advanced Content Type & Genre Filtering to Its Merchandising Platform

MTS Staff Writer

January 16, 2026

Looper Insights Introduces Advanced Content Type & Genre Filtering to Its Merchandising Platform

Looper Insights, the leading CTV merchandising analytics platform, announced the launch of a new Content Type and Genre filtering capability within its Merchandising module, giving customers enhanced visibility into how different types of content are merchandised on the TV screens. As a result, studios, streamers, and broadcasters can conduct more accurate competitive analyses, make strategic decisions more quickly, and measure CTV merchandising more effectively.

The new feature allows customers to filter merchandising placements by Content Type (App, Movie, TV Show) and Sub Content Type (App Bundles, Content Bundles) to isolate how different types of content are promoted on CTV home screens, whether that’s apps vs. movies or individual titles vs. bundles. Users can select a single option, multiple categories, or view all content types at once, enabling highly tailored, comparable analysis of their own and competitors’ placements. This level of visibility is critical in an environment where home-screen real estate directly impacts content discovery, viewer engagement, and revenue.

“Merchandising is no longer one-size-fits-all,” said Lucas Bertrand, Founder & CEO of Looper Insights. “Platforms promote apps, movies, and TV shows very differently, and now our customers can quantify those differences. This feature gives teams a clearer view of how content is surfaced, not just where, turning merchandising data into actionable insights.”

In addition to Content Type filtering, Looper has introduced a Genre dropdown within the Merchandising tab, allowing users to analyze placements by genre with the same flexible single-select, multi-select, or ‘select all’ functionality.

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The platform currently supports 30+ genres across a broad range of content categories. This enables teams to understand how different genres are prioritized across home screens, carousels, and promotional rows and whether execution aligns with audience demand, seasonality, or major content launches.

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“Whether you’re evaluating an app bundle strategy, tracking genre-specific promotion, or benchmarking against competitors, this new feature brings more clarity to how content is positioned on CTV platforms,” added Bertrand. “It’s another step in our mission to make CTV merchandising performance measurable, comparable, and actionable.”

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Parloa Valued at $3 Billion with $350M Series D to Lead Agentic AI for Customer Experience

MTS Staff Writer

January 16, 2026

Parloa Valued at $3 Billion with $350M Series D to Lead Agentic AI for Customer Experience

Parloa, the premier provider of AI agents elevating enterprise customer experience, announced it has raised $350 million in Series D funding, bringing its valuation to $3 billion. The round was led by General Catalyst, with strong continued support from Parloa’s existing investors, including EQT Ventures, Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital Partners, and Mosaic Ventures, underscoring deep conviction in the company’s vision, execution, and market leadership.

Closing just seven months after its Series C, this round brings Parloa’s total raised capital to more than $560 million in less than four years. The company will use the funds to continue its global expansion focused on the U.S. and Europe, enhance its AI Agent Management Platform (AMP) with further industry-defining functionality, and launch the Parloa Promise, a commitment to preeminent agent reliability, relentless innovation, and human-centric responsible AI.

Ascending the ranks

Trusted by leading Fortune 200 companies and global partners, including Allianz, Booking.com, HealthEquity, SAP, Sedgwick, Swiss Life, and TeamViewer, Parloa’s amassed funding situates the company among the most capitalized firms in the customer experience field. Having recently announced multiple financial achievements and product innovations, this round’s results crystallize Parloa’s position atop a highly competitive enterprise AI sector.

“Parloa is setting the standard for enterprise-grade AI throughout the customer journey,” said General Catalyst’s CEO Hemant Taneja, who ranks in the top 10 on the prestigious Forbes Midas List. “Their platform combines innovation and scalability, making them a clear leader in this rapidly evolving space. We truly believe Parloa’s approach to agentic AI will transform how global enterprises engage with customers, and we’re excited to support their vision and continued growth.” Taneja, along with General Catalyst’s President and Managing Director Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, will be added to the Supervisory Board for Parloa.

For co-founder and CEO Malte Kosub, the Series D is proof positive Parloa’s mission is exacting needed change, for enterprise teams as well as consumers: “This funding marks a pivotal moment for Parloa as we expand globally, advance our approach to reimagine customer experience, and help enterprises to build meaningful relationships with their customers.” said Kosub. “Our commitment to these organizations is clear: to enable exceptional, hyper-personalized customer journeys through agentic AI that deepen loyalty, responsibly and at scale.”

What Parloa provides

The preferred platform among native agentic AI solutions, AMP gives enterprise CX teams a clear, intuitive way to design, manage, and evolve AI agents that transform every customer interaction into a meaningful relationship. No heavy coding necessary; just powerful, natural language used to build bespoke agents that adapt fluidly across dialects, contexts, and changing customer needs.

With AMP, experience teams can simulate agents at scale while evaluating conversation performance, gaining actionable insight into behavior and ensuring every customer interaction meets rising expectations. Real-time dashboards provide transparency into what agents are doing and why, offering clear visibility into system behavior while meeting the world’s most rigorous standards for built-in compliance, safety, and enterprise-grade data security.

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What’s next for Parloa

Parloa’s plan for geographic expansion is focused on key markets in North America and greater Europe, with offices scouted in metros like San Francisco and Madrid, a localized team in London, and a recently established U.S. HQ in midtown Manhattan.

Investors on why Parloa

Carolina Brochado, Head of EQT Growth US and Head of EQT Ventures: “Parloa is contributing to redefine what customer relationships look like at scale. Their ability to combine enterprise-grade AI with real-world intelligence, built on a strong foundation of safety and reliability, helps to set them apart in a crowded market.”

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Apoorv Agrawal, Partner at Altimeter Capital: “Parloa combines a leading agentic AI platform with the enterprise DNA to deploy it at scale – forward-deployed engineers on the ground, Fortune 500 customers in production, and a world-class go-to-market team armed with fresh capital to capture the global CX market.”

Henry Ellenbogen, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Durable Capital Partners: “We believe the next generation of category-defining companies will be built on relationships, not transactions. Parloa is leading that shift by making AI personal, contextual, and enduring.”

Mona Gindler, Partner at Senovo: “The CX market is crowded with automation tools, but very few players are pushing the frontier of truly agentic AI. Parloa stands out by moving the industry from scripted workflows to adaptive, relationship-driven agents that learn and improve over time. That’s what category leadership looks like at this stage of the market.”

Jens Rassloff, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Parloa: “This investment marks a defining moment for Parloa. The scale of commitment and trust from our investors reflects not only the strength of our technology and execution, but also our conviction that agentic AI in customer relationships is entering a decisive phase. With this capital, Parloa is uniquely positioned to be a global category leader.”

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Wiland™ Launches MarketSignals™ Custom Personas: Data-Driven Segmentation to Find, Keep, and Grow High-Value Customers

Business Wire

January 16, 2026

Open Source AI News and Analytics Platform Launches

MarketSignals™Custom Personas powered by real spend data—built to help you find, keep, and grow your most valuable customers.

Wiland™, the leading provider of data-driven marketing intelligence, announced the launch of MarketSignals™ Custom Personas, a new custom segmentation solution that uses proprietary consumer spend data to help brands and agencies precisely identify, understand, and activate their best customer segments.

“MarketSignals Custom Personas give marketers the missing piece in their personalization and growth strategies.” – Mike Gingell, CEO

With MarketSignals Custom Personas, marketers can go beyond “one size fits all” traditional, survey-based persona models or generic canned segmentation systems to gain an accurate view of their customers—based not on assumptions, but on real-world spending behavior. By combining each client’s first-party data with Wiland’s vast transactional spending dataset, MarketSignals Custom Personas create behaviorally rich, actionable audience segments across marketing channels.

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“MarketSignals Custom Personas give marketers the missing piece in their personalization and growth strategies,” said Mike Gingell, CEO of Wiland. “Our clients want more than just insights—they want segmentation they can actually use. By grounding personas in real purchase behavior, we’re helping them find the right prospects, keep their best customers, and grow their business with precision.”

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MarketSignals Custom Personas are designed to be easily integrated into marketing strategies across industries, offering:

Tailored personas based on actual spending behavior
Appended persona data directly to the client’s customer file
Use of personas for personalization, retention, and acquisition
Expansion audiences for prospecting across digital platforms

MarketSignals Custom Personas offer businesses and nonprofits across industries a smarter path to segmentation—bridging strategy with real-world execution at scale.

“Don’t settle for generic segmentation that gives you mediocre results in your marketing efforts. Our MarketSignals Custom Personas are built specifically for you and provide unmatched performance,” said Gingell.

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Quantiphi Granted Patent for Dociphi’s AI-Powered Three-Way Comparison Screen, Marking Breakthrough in Enterprise Document Intelligence

PRNewswire

January 16, 2026

Quantiphi Granted Patent for Dociphi's AI-Powered Three-Way Comparison Screen, Marking Breakthrough in Enterprise Document Intelligence

Quantiphi, an award-winning AI-first digital engineering company, has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the AI-driven three-way document comparison capability embedded within Dociphi, Quantiphi’s generative AI-powered intelligent document management platform.

The patented capability, titled “Validation system and method for concurrent visual validation of two or more electronic documents,” powers Dociphi’s Comparison Screen, a feature that intelligently compares extracted entities across multiple versions of any document type and offers smart recommendations, enabling users to view all input documents on one side and an AI-generated comparison on the other, instantly locate where each value appears within its contextual location on the original file and resolve discrepancies through a secure Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) workflow. This capability is particularly valuable for insurance workflows such as quote comparison, policy review and discrepancy detection in claims, where accuracy and version control directly influence operational speed and customer experience.

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“Receiving this patent is a testament to the sophistication and depth of Dociphi’s core AI architecture,” Quantiphi Product Owner of Dociphi Arunima Gautam said. “The comparison screen is designed to handle the real-world variability of enterprise documents. It surfaces differences across versions and shows exactly where every value appears in its contextual location. Combined with dynamic HITL and continuous learning, Dociphi delivers unmatched transparency, control and accuracy for mission-critical processes across insurance and financial services.”

“This patent reinforces Dociphi’s position as a foundational platform for enterprise-wide document automation,” Quantiphi Global Head of BFSI Srikant Venkatesh said. “For insurers and financial institutions, it translates into faster turnaround times, reduced cost of operations, fewer downstream errors and significantly improved compliance. Whether it’s underwriting intake, claims adjudication, bordereaux processing or regulatory reporting, Dociphi’s comparison capabilities bring consistency, audit readiness and scalability across the entire document ecosystem.”

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The patent grant further strengthens Dociphi’s position as an advanced, template-free, AI-powered platform built to manage document variability at scale, delivering consistent, high-accuracy outputs while continuously improving through user-driven learning loops.

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MahaloHub Launches the Predictive Resonance Score™, the First Video-Based Metric to Predict Creative Performance Before Launch

PRNewswire

January 16, 2026

MahaloHub Launches the Predictive Resonance Score™, the First Video-Based Metric to Predict Creative Performance Before Launch

In an industry where 70% of CMOs lack confidence in creative performance before launch, MahaloHub introduced the Predictive Resonance Score™ (PRS), a new AI-powered metric that helps marketing teams understand how strongly a message or concept will resonate with its audience before investing in production or media.

PRS is built into MahaloHub’s Clarity platform and gives marketers a fast, cost-efficient way to identify which content is most likely to land, without the expense and delays that come with traditional focus groups or research studies.

Using short video or audio reactions, PRS analyzes real human responses and delivers a single score that reflects how deeply content connects across emotional impact, clarity, trust, and likelihood to share. The platform then provides specific, actionable recommendations to revise messaging to increase the PRS score and maximize audience connection.

Replacing “We Think” With “We Know”

Global research shows brands lose up to $245 billion each year on advertising that fails to capture attention or drive resonance [Source: Kantar/WARC]. PRS gives marketers access to validated, pre-market insight that increases confidence in campaign decisions, protects marketing investment, and accelerates ROI.

“Creative decisions used to be driven by intuition: ‘we think this will work,'” said Patrick Rooney, Founder & CEO of MahaloHub. “The Predictive Resonance Score gives teams an independent, third-party resource to more accurately understand how people react to their message – before they launch, commit budget, or lose the chance to adjust. That’s the difference between launching campaigns with the confidence they’ll be successful, versus hoping they will.”

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A Single Score Designed for Decision-Making

PRS evaluates facial expressions, vocal tone, emotional signals, and language patterns to measure how strongly a message connects, and why. Instead of asking audiences how they feel, PRS measures how they respond, making it a fast and scalable alternative to slow, expensive qualitative research.

PRS analyzes video responses across six scientifically validated dimensions, each grounded in behavioral research:

Cognitive Resonance – Message clarity and processing ease
Emotional Intensity – Depth of emotional response
Authenticity & Trust – Credibility and believability
Intent to Amplify – Likelihood to share or recommend
Engagement & Interest – Attention capture and hold
Emotional Valence – Direction of emotional response

The result is a single 0-100 composite score that predicts resonance, with dimension-level diagnostics showing exactly where to optimize.

Unlike text-based surveys, PRS uses multimodal AI to analyze what people say, how they say it (vocal tone, energy, hesitation), and how they show it (facial expressions, gestures, engagement cues).

Teams can compare creative concepts, prioritize messaging, and benchmark performance across audiences and campaigns. Diagnostic sub-scores highlight opportunities to strengthen tone, simplify language, or improve emotional impact.

Built for Speed, Scale, and A/B Insight

The Predictive Resonance Score™ replaces slow focus groups, synthetic panels, and text-only sentiment tools with video-based quick insight from real respondents. Using multimodal AI models, PRS interprets visual, vocal, and linguistic signals and provides actionable recommendations on tone, clarity, narrative, and emotional appeal.

Teams can run side-by-side comparisons of:

Message variations
Creative directions or cuts
Headlines and hooks
Employer branding and EVP statements
PR, crisis, and executive communication
Product marketing positioning

“Surveys tell you what people say. The Predictive Resonance Score™ shows how they react,” Rooney said. “That is the difference between guessing and knowing.”

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A Competitive Edge for Agencies and Brands

MahaloHub designed PRS to give both brands and agencies measurable pre-launch clarity.

For brands:

Validate messaging before investing in production
Reduce wasted media and content spend
Align creative direction with stakeholders
Accelerate time-to-market with insight in hours

For agencies:

Win pitches with data-backed creative concepts
Differentiate with measurable predictions
Monetize pre-market insight services
Strengthen client trust with validated data

Use Cases Across Marketing and Communications

Message testing and validation
Creative concept refinement
Go-to-market narrative testing
Crisis and corporate communication testing
Employer brand and EVP development
Culture and recruitment content optimization

Setting a New Standard for Creative Confidence

PRS gives marketing and communications teams a measurable way to understand how likely it is messages will connect with target audiences before going live, a capability that has never existed at scale.

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Long-time TEGNA leader and News-Press & Gazette CRO Nicki Harkrider-Probey will spearhead local media growth and expansion while former Cox Media Group executive Mindy Buckalew will lead omnichannel operations

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New real-time signal identifies and intercepts emails classified as synthetic, random or automated

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Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the deployment marks e&’s move beyond traditional chatbots to enterprise-grade agentic AI.

Powered by IBM watsonx Orchestrate, agentic AI is embedded into mission-critical governance and compliance systems across e&.

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New AI‑powered consulting service delivers a secured platform, shared standards, and reusable AI assets to help organizations accelerate growth and drive innovation

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What Defines a Modern RMN?

Which B2B Players Are Entering the Game?

Staples:

Uber for Business:

Marriott:

Chase Media:

Why Does Purchase Data Beat Intent Signals?

How Can You Target Buyers Off-Site?

What Technical Hurdles Will You Face?

How Should You Launch a Pilot Strategy?

Select Niche Partners:

Allocate Experimental Budget:

Focus on Sponsored Products:

Request Transparent Reporting:

Can You Accurately Measure Your ROAS?

Final Remarks

The Freeduhm.com and AdPlunge alliance strengthens programmatic capabilities and unlocks scalable revenue growth for publisher partners worldwide.

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Summit highlights AI-driven execution, partner leadership and platform evolution across its unified UC&C platform

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Two AI-powered solutions redefine how 2,000+ specialist medical publishers and healthcare advertisers connect

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Company acquires Langfuse to enter LLM observability and introduces a native Postgres service to unify transactional and analytical workloads

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New AI capability brings real-time insight, analysis, and AWP guidance directly into project workflows.

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Ascending the ranks

What Parloa provides

What’s next for Parloa

Investors on why Parloa

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MarketSignals™ Custom Personas powered by real spend data—built to help you find, keep, and grow your most valuable customers.

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***New real-time signal identifies* *and intercepts emails classified as synthetic, random or automated***

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