Albertsons Media Collective retail media arm is partnering with shopper engagement solution provider Stratacache to deploy a fleet of digital screens that will support in-store advertising in its stores. The in-store digital display network pilot will launch during summer 2025 in select Albertsons Companies stores in two key regions, featuring large-format premium displays in high traffic areas at selected touchpoints throughout the store, such as store entry and the produce department. Albertsons expects this initiative will enhance the shopping experience for customers while also providing insights through advanced measurement capabilities for brand partners, allowing for proof of play, direct sales attribution and sales lift. In-store digital ads are designed to reach customers throughout their shopping journey, encouraging them to add items to their cart with engaging content on digital screens, including meal or snack inspiration, product usage and lifestyle and health benefits. For a full store immersion, brands can enhance this experience with in-store audio and promotional offers. Albertsons Media Collective participating advertisers can also deploy offsite display and social video campaigns to bring their brand message to life in the store.
Adobe’s new app can detect gaps in brand visibility and suggest improvements across both owned and external channels based on attributes prioritized by LLMs, to optimize content for enhanced discoverability
Adobe announced Adobe LLM Optimizer, a new enterprise application that enables businesses to gain new relevance in an environment where consumers are embracing generative AI-powered interfaces to engage their favorite brands. Now with Adobe LLM Optimizer, teams can stay ahead of shifting consumer behaviors and remain top-of-mind in the AI era. A suite of features will enable businesses to monitor AI-driven traffic and benchmark brand visibility, while receiving recommendations that can be quickly deployed on their digital properties to improve discoverability, engagement and conversion. Adobe LLM Optimizer enables brands to: Monitor and increase AI-driven traffic: LLM Optimizer will be able to identify owned content (details on a website for instance) that is being leveraged by AI-powered interfaces to deliver responses to user queries. Optimize content to improve discoverability: A recommendation engine will detect gaps in brand visibility and suggest improvements across both owned and external channels—based on attributes prioritized by LLMs including high-quality, informative content from authoritative sources. An attribution capability also connects AI visibility to user behavior and business performance, enabling teams to demonstrate the effect on engagement, conversion and downstream traffic metrics.
Nurix Labs AI voice agents offer exceptional interruption handling for complex calls, immediate resolution and 99% accuracy to allow meaningful human-like voice interactions that reflect brand tone
Nurix Labs, the developer of custom AI agents for enterprise customers, launched an interactive voice platform NuPlay that will allow meaningful automated human-like voice interactions using AI agents. NuPlay will bridge the gap between dry business operations and customers by providing meaningful interactions and allowing businesses to scale up automated customer service. According to the company, its voice-enabled AI agents offer exceptional interruption handling for complex calls, immediate resolution, 99% accuracy, personality-driven agents that reflect brand tone, and multiple integrated enterprise software systems such as CRM, booking and support platforms. NuPlay is enabling people to interact with AI agents in the same way they would with a sales rep or customer support team, fostering genuine engagement, gathering information and accelerating decision-making seamlessly within enterprise operations.
Chick-fil-A tops the QSR ACSI customer satisfaction for the 11th year in a row, despite experiencing slow growth amid increased competition
Chick-fil-A is continuing its dominance in the quick-serve sector when it comes to customer satisfaction, topping the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI) Restaurant and Food Delivery Study for the 11th year in a row, with a steady score of 83 out of 100. However, the list-topping performance comes as Chick-fil-A is experiencing slow growth amid increased competition. U.S. sales only grew 5.4% in 2024, providing openings for popular chicken brands like Raising Cane’s and Wingstop. KFC dropped 5% to 77 as it faces competitors who are adapting to shifting preferences more quickly. Popeyes was up 4% to 75. Other notable score changes include Panda Express (up 4% to 80), which jumps into a second-place tie with Starbucks (unchanged). Little Caesars, up 3% to 77, improved its ratings for food and service quality. Five Guys and Sonic both fell 4% to scores of 75 and 73, respectively, in the most recent ACSI report. Last-place McDonald’s dropped 1% to an ACSI score of 70. As a whole, the customer experience for quick-service restaurants is similar to last year’s report, with every aspect receiving a score of 81 or higher. Accuracy of food order and quality of mobile app lead the way at 85, both down 1% year over year. Mobile app reliability is 1% lower at 84, matching beverage quality, staff courtesy and helpfulness, food quality and website satisfaction (the only metric to increase in 2025).
Meta testing new auto-generated video ads- lets marketers use artificial intelligence to turn product pictures into multi-scene video ads
Meta is pushing deeper into AI-generated advertisements in a bid to make it cheaper and simpler for marketers to craft their messages. Meta announced an updated image-to-video ad tool, which lets marketers use artificial intelligence to turn product pictures into multi-scene video ads. Advertisers can upload as many as 20 images to create the videos, which come complete with music and overlaid text. Meta has made AI a key focus of its advertising business, which accounts for roughly 98% of annual revenue. Most of Meta’s advertisers are small businesses, and the cheaper it is for them to produce marketing material, the more money they have to spend promoting those messages on Facebook or Instagram. Generative AI is becoming a larger part of that business. Meta also lets advertisers use text prompts to create ad images, and announced in October that marketers could turn images into AI-generated GIFs for ads. The company is also building a text-to-video tool for general consumers, called Movie Gen, that it debuted for the first time last fall. The new ad features were announced in conjunction with the Cannes Lions advertising festival, which is happening this week in the south of France. TikTok also introduced new AI-powered tools for advertisers, including video generation for ads.
LendingClub’s new checking account targets individuals with high income of about $125,000 to $130,000 and high FICO score and offers 1% cash back for everyday spending with debit card; allows customers to pay all their credit card debt from a single interface
LendingClub’s newly launched LevelUp Checking is designed to help consumers move away from reliance on credit cards, especially given record-high credit card debt, by incentivizing the use of debit. The target customer for LevelUp are individuals with a high FICO score, typically around 725, and a high individual income of about $125,000 to $130,000. It gives members 1% cash back for everyday spending with a LevelUp debit card on grocery and gas, among other key categories. Members who have LendingClub personal loans can also receive 2% cash back for making on-time loan payments from the LevelUp accounts. Additional features include early paycheck access. The goal of the LevelUp Checking product is to help reward members for responsible financial habits through the use of debit rather than credit. LevelUp Checking accounts will also integrate with DebtIQ, a feature accelerated by LendingClub’s acquisition of Tally. This allows customers to pay all their credit card debt from a single interface, eliminating the need to log into multiple bank accounts. The integrated nature of the product portfolio creates a flywheel effect, as LevelUp Savings users engage with LendingClub almost twice as often as customers with standard high-yield savings accounts. He expects the same, if not more, engagement with the LevelUp Checking product, which he views as part of a broader ecosystem play.
ElevenLabs’s tool helps control various aspects of AI-generated speech including timing, rhythm, and emphasis by using audio tags and transforms monotonous AI speech into dynamic, performative content
ElevenLabs has introduced v3 Audio Tags, a tool designed to refine the delivery of AI-generated speech. This innovation allows users to control various aspects of speech, including timing, rhythm, and emphasis, transforming monotonous AI speech into dynamic, performative content. By using tags like [pause], [rushed], [stammers], and [drawn out], content creators can direct the emotional and rhythmic flow of speech with precision, enhancing the impact of the spoken word. Delivery control in AI speech refers to the ability to manipulate the pace, pauses, and emphasis within a speech, essential for conveying different tones. Eleven v3 eliminates the default pacing of delivery, allowing creators to adjust the speech to suit the narrative’s needs. This advancement is particularly beneficial for content creators looking to enhance their audio content with more nuanced and engaging speech patterns, aligning with the growing demand for personalized and immersive audio experiences in various media.
OpenAI’s open-source agent toolkit mirrors real-world use cases using domain-focused, workflow-aware AI agents and shows how guardrails function in production and how decisions and handoffs unfold in real time
OpenAI has released a new open-source demo that gives developers a hands-on look at how to build intelligent, workflow-aware AI agents using the Agents SDK. This agent example demonstrates how to route airline-related requests between specialized agents — like Seat Booking, Flight Status, Cancellation, and FAQ — while enforcing safety and relevance guardrails. The release is designed to help teams go beyond theoretical use and start operationalizing agents with confidence. The release includes both a Python backend and a Next.js frontend. The backend leverages the OpenAI Agents SDK to orchestrate interactions between specialized agents, while the frontend visualizes these interactions in a chat interface, showing how decisions and handoffs unfold in real time. Importantly, the demo also shows how guardrails function in production: a Relevance Guardrail blocks out-of-scope queries like asking for poetry, while a Jailbreak Guardrail prevents prompt injection attempts, such as requests to expose system instructions. The architecture mirrors real-world airline support flows, showing how organizations can build domain-focused assistants that are responsive, compliant, and aligned with user expectations. OpenAI released the code under the MIT license and encouraged teams to customize and adapt it for their own needs. By offering transparent tooling and clear implementation examples, OpenAI is pushing agentic systems out of the lab and into everyday use—whether in customer service, operations, or internal governance. For organizations exploring intelligent automation, these resources provide not just inspiration, but a working playbook.
UpEquity secures warehouse facility from Silicon Valley Bank for buy before you sell loans- makes a guaranteed offer on your current home; Equity Advance unlocks the equity stuck in your old home to make a new down payment
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has provided a warehouse facility to UpEquity, an Austin-based mortgage technology company that offers solutions for home buyers to purchase a new home before selling their current one. The facility will provide up to $200 million in financing capacity and is expected to support $1 billion in originations over the next two years. UpEquity’s revenue tripled annually since it began offering its ‘buy before you sell’ solutions in October 2023. The new facility will help more customers with a smoother transition from their old home to the next. UpEquity’s innovative financing solutions and platform help real estate professionals close significantly more transactions by solving the challenge of buying and selling a home simultaneously. Setpoint Capital’s Managing Director of Investments, Kendall Ranjbaran, expressed enthusiasm for deepening their partnership with UpEquity as they enter this next chapter of growth. Trade Up gives you a guaranteed offer on your current home, allowing you to shop contingency free and make a stronger offer on your new home. Equity Advance unlocks the equity stuck in your old home to make a new down payment and helps you avoid carrying the cost of two mortgages.
Promos embeds rewards management directly into engagement engine, allowing marketers to segment users, automate campaigns, personalize, deliver real-time incentives, and measure effectiveness effortlessly
CleverTap has launched Promos, an industry-first customer rewards management platform designed to revolutionize the way brands create, manage, distribute, and optimize rewards, promotions, and loyalty programs. Powered by rehook.ai technology, Promos offers a comprehensive, API-first solution for managing all aspects of customer incentives, including coupons, loyalty points, cashback, vouchers, and gamified rewards. It replaces fragmented systems, providing marketers with a seamless, scalable, and deeply integrated alternative for driving retention, repeat purchases, and maximizing customer lifetime value. Promos embeds rewards management directly into CleverTap’s engagement engine, allowing marketers to segment users, automate campaigns, personalize, deliver real-time incentives, and measure effectiveness effortlessly.