The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced , honoring the businesses, policies, projects and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice or economic inequality.

Persado was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Best World Changing Idea North America category for its Mindful Narratives program, which built language into the company’s Artificial Intelligence content generation and decisioning platform to support the evolving needs of its customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“2020 reminded us how critical it is to understand human emotions, and how they can change almost instantaneously”

In February 2020, the Persado Content Intelligence and Data Science teams began training its AI to understand the context of the evolving pandemic, its impact on language, and how brands needed to evolve their messaging. Through an extensive language audit, Persado’s development team identified both positive and negative patterns emerging as a result of the pandemic. These patterns evolved into the creation of the Mindful Narrative, a deep understanding of the current situation that allows brands to achieve the perfect balance between setting the right, context-sensitive tone, and still getting maximum value out of their communications.

“2020 reminded us how critical it is to understand human emotions, and how they can change almost instantaneously,” said Alex Vratskides, CEO of Persado. “As brands were looking to shift to more emphatic, supportive messages in response to COVID-19, Persado’s Mindful Narrative helped map those changes. And Persado’s AI platform enabled our customers to deliver true personalization across their full range of communications.”

Vratskides continues, “Of course, the Mindful Narrative is only part of the world-changing idea we are founded on and what our technology is built to do—that is deliver the right language for every person. Consumer sentiment and emotions will only continue to evolve and language preferences shift, and Persado’s AI content generation and decisioning platform provides the agility that data-driven, customer-centric companies are seeking to drive their personalization, customer experience, and growth agendas.”

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Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists, and more than 800 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, AI & Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology and more.

Showcasing some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling exigent global challenges, Fast Company’s Summer 2021 issue (on newsstands May 10) highlights, among others, a lifesaving bassinet; the world’s largest carbon sink, thanks to carbon-eating concrete; 3D-printed schools; an at-home COVID-19 testing kit; a mobile voting app; and the world’s cleanest milk.

“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”

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