HighByte has released HighByte Intelligence Hub version 4.2 with an embedded Industrial Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server that powers Agentic AI and new LLM-assisted data contextualization via native connections to Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenAI, and local LLMs. HighByte Intelligence Hub provides the first Industrial MCP Server to expose data pipelines as “tools” to AI agents, including descriptions and parameters. With the Intelligence Hub, AI agents can securely access all connected industrial systems and make real time or historical data requests on them. John Harrington, Chief Product Officer at HighByte said “The Intelligence Hub is an Industrial DataOps solution that contextualizes and standardizes industrial data from diverse sources for diverse targets. Agentic AI clients on the factory floor are a natural extension of this approach. We’re enabling DataOps to feed AI, and AI to assist and scale DataOps.” The latest release also introduces Git integration and OpenTelemetry (OTel) support to scale and manage deployments using DevOps tooling for version control and observability. Users will also have access to new Databricks and TimescaleDB connectors and enhanced connectivity with Apache Kafka and Amazon S3 for cloud-to-edge use cases. Furthermore, the Oracle Database connection has been enhanced to support Change Data Capture (CDC), the Snowflake SQL connection now supports write operations, and the AVEVA PI System connection supports enhanced PI point metadata reads. These capabilities optimize bi-directional connectivity for the many disparate data services found in the cloud, data center, and factory floor.
Bright Data’s AI browser targeted at AI agents runs in the cloud, supports natural language prompts, bypasses CAPTCHAs, scripts, and bot defenses and mimics real user behavior to access and interact with the web at scale
Bright Data, the world’s #1 web data infrastructure company for AI & BI, has launched a powerful set of AI-powered web search and discovery tools designed to give LLMs and autonomous agents frictionless access to the open web: Deep Lookup (Beta): Deep Lookup (Beta) is a natural language research engine that answers complex, multi-layered questions in real-time, with structured insight. Deep Lookup (Beta) allows users to query across petabytes of unstructured and structured web data simultaneously, surfacing high-confidence answers to complex, multi-layered questions, without code. Unlike general-purpose LLMs that hallucinate or struggle with context, Deep Lookup (Beta) delivers verified, web-sourced insights, with links to cited sources, with structured outputs you can immediately act on—across thousands of verticals. Browser.ai: The industry’s first unblockable, AI-native browser. Designed specifically for autonomous agents, Browser.ai mimics real user behavior to access and interact with the web at scale. It runs in the cloud, supports natural language prompts, and bypasses CAPTCHAs, scripts, and bot defenses, making it ideal for scaling agent-based tasks like scraping, monitoring, and dynamic research. MCP Servers: A low-latency control layer that lets agents search, crawl, and extract live data in real-time. Built to power agentic workflows, MCP is designed for developers building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, autonomous tools, and multi-agent systems that need to act in context, not just passively read.
Survey shows 45% respondents use a budgeting app or digital tool; 98% agree that budgeting helps them achieve their financial goals
Academy Bank, a family-owned community bank in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri, has released a white paper titled “Budgeting in the Digital Age: The Role of Apps in Financial Wellness.” The report, based on a survey of over 300 U.S. adults, found that 83% follow a budget to some extent, 45% use a budgeting app or digital tool, 98% agree that budgeting helps them achieve their financial goals, and 86% cite overspending or income fluctuations as the most common obstacles to successfully managing finances. The study highlights the greatest potential value of budgeting apps in helping people manage spending and navigate income fluctuations. Over half of the respondents listed “overspending” as their biggest financial challenge, while 30% said “irregular income” disrupted their budgeting. Lack of financial knowledge (28%) also poses a challenge. By addressing these obstacles, budgeting apps can become powerful tools for long-term financial growth. In response to the survey insights and a growing demand for user-friendly, comprehensive digital money management solutions, Academy Bank launched My Finance360, a personal finance tool designed to help clients better understand their spending, build healthy money-management habits, and reach financial goals. The app offers real-time tracking of income, expenses, and debt, smart budgeting and automated savings, the ability to link external accounts for a full view of finances, personalized transaction categorization, goal setting and bill payment reminders, net worth tracking, an easy-to-use interface, bank-level security, and fully integrated with Academy Bank’s mobile and online banking.
Alleviate’s AI dashboard helps people visualize their journey out of debt and toward wealth by offering real-time insights into their account status and progress, upcoming settlements, and action steps through intuitive visuals and curated financial wellness content
Alleviate has launched its new Client Dashboard — a breakthrough AI-powered platform designed to help Americans take control of their debt and chart a smarter path toward lasting wealth. The dashboard gives clients real-time insights into their progress, upcoming settlements, and action steps. It’s designed to increase confidence and engagement through intuitive visuals, helpful automation, and a mobile-first experience — all while reinforcing Alleviate’s core promise: to turn paying off debt into a launchpad for lifelong financial transformation. Michael Barsoum, CEO of Alleviate said “Our Client Dashboard helps people visualize their journey out of debt and toward wealth, one milestone at a time. It’s built to give every client confidence, control, and a real chance to move from debt to wealth. Key features include: All New Client Onboarding – Fast, intuitive and customized with AI; Visual Progress Tracking – Instantly see how far you’ve come and what’s ahead; Live Settlement Updates – Real-time visibility into account status and timing; Integrated Financial Wellness Content – Curated articles, videos, and tools to build lasting money habits; AI-Powered Personalization & Payment Optimization – Smart content and guidance tailored to each user’s journey; Access to Exclusive Financial Products – products built for the debt to wealth journey, every step of the way; and Secure Support Access – Direct communication with in-house support teams, built into the platform. Looking ahead, the Client Dashboard will serve as a gateway to a new generation of exclusive financial products and services – accessible only to Alleviate members.
Object First’s plug-and-play solution addresses ransomware threat for Veeam architectures by enforcing immutability policies directly at the storage layer via open API that ensures backups remain tamper-proof through zero access to root
Object First Inc. addresses ransomware threat with its out-of-the-box Immutability solution, delivering plug-and-play, ransomware-proof storage with zero setup hassle, according to Sterling Wilson, Field Chief Technology Officer at Object First. “Ootbi stands for out-of-the-box Immutability, and that is what you get when you buy an Object First secure appliance,” Wilson said. “Threat actors that come in that steal domain admin accounts, that steal the highest level of credentials, go directly for the backup software. We wanted to prevent that. We do that with zero access to root. We provide the security that is third-party tested that the Veeam users today need.” Object First is pioneering ransomware-proof storage for Veeam architectures by combining robust security, simplicity, high performance and broad channel reach. These remedies are achieved through purpose-built solutions, such as Ootbi, according to Wilson. The Smart Object Storage API is pivotal in ensuring seamless integration between Object First and Veeam solutions, especially for ransomware-proof data protection and backup management. By enforcing immutability policies directly at the storage layer, SOSAPI strengthens data resilience and ensures backups remain tamper-proof, according to Wilson. “We have direct integration using the best [application programming interfaces], and even an API that we’ve created together called the SOSAPI, which is the Smart Object Storage API. We leverage it in its full amount, meaning it is an open API that any of the storage vendors can use. We use it intelligently, not to only move the data efficiently, but to also place the data across a clustered environment as data grows.”
KnowBe4’S Just-in-Time training analyses existing security stack and delivers real-time, context-sensitive “nudges” based on users’ current actions to mitigate risky behavior before it escalates by leveraging behavioral science, AI-driven analytics and automation
AI-driven cybersecurity empowers organizations with proactive defenses, accelerated response times and more robust protection. One breakthrough in this space is Just-in-Time AI training, a transformative method that enhances cybersecurity awareness. By delivering real-time, context-sensitive “nudges” based on users’ current actions, KnowBe4 Inc. uses this approach to mitigate risky behavior before it escalates, according to Javvad Malik, lead security awareness advocate at KnowBe4. “The Just-in-Time training or the nudges is where AI can integrate with your existing security stack,” Malik said. “You have firewalls, you have network monitoring controls, you have some [endpoint detection and response], you have some gateway controls, you have a lot of visibility into what people are doing. What AI can do is pull all of that out and analyze it and say, ‘Okay, this user’s now plugged in a USB drive. It’s not a corporate-approved one.’”AI-driven cybersecurity significantly enhances awareness training and user behavior, supporting stronger risk mitigation by leveraging real-time analytics, personalization and automation. KnowBe4 leverages this approach to transform users from potential vulnerabilities into active defenders, greatly strengthening an organization’s human layer of defense against cyber threats, according to Malik. KnowBe4 enables cybersecurity awareness training and human risk management within organizations by leveraging behavioral science, AI-driven analytics and interactive training tools through its comprehensive training platform. This approach transforms employees from potential security liabilities into proactive defenders, according to Malik.
Congruity360 InfoGov generates higher quality pool of AI-ready data and reduces the amount of AI compute and AI storage by identifying redundant and outdated information through metadata, that eliminates 60% to 70% of the data
Congruity360 InfoGov focuses on helping organizations protect and manage unstructured data through AI-driven cyber resilience tools. Congruity360 helps organizations take the bites out of bytes through a process that leverages the promise and capabilities of data classification. By identifying redundant, outdated and sensitive information, the company helps clients understand the data they have and act on it. CEO Mark Ward said, “In order to get smart data, you have to basically limit the amount of garbage that is potentially available for your AI outcomes. We do that by identifying through metadata what information is redundant. It’s copies upon copies or, as you and I both know in the storage world, snapshots across snapshots.” That process yields a higher quality pool of data that is then fed into AI workloads. This solution results in better outcomes and lower costs, according to Ward. “By eliminating anywhere from 60% to 70% of the data, by eliminating rot, we’re able to reduce the amount of AI compute and AI storage required on the backend. With the cost being the cost, that’s a big, big outcome.” With the rise of AI agents, there is also a risk that autonomous bots will act based on erroneous data. Congruity360 has sought to minimize this issue through a solution called CDM Hub that empowers individual data owners. “The CDM Hub was actually developed from one of our large European customers who was managing their [General Data Protection Regulation] exposure,” Ward explained. “It not only gives the end-user owner[ship] of the data, but it’s actually a hierarchical interface so that the management organization … has ultimate say on what data is being used. This hierarchical approach to making sure that human intervention at the appropriate levels is applied to what the machine learning engine produces.”
KnowBe4’S Just-in-Time security training analyses existing security stack and delivers real-time, context-sensitive “nudges” based on users’ current actions to mitigate risky behavior before it escalates
AI-driven cybersecurity empowers organizations with proactive defenses, accelerated response times and more robust protection. One breakthrough in this space is Just-in-Time AI training, a transformative method that enhances cybersecurity awareness. By delivering real-time, context-sensitive “nudges” based on users’ current actions, KnowBe4 Inc. uses this approach to mitigate risky behavior before it escalates, according to Javvad Malik, lead security awareness advocate at KnowBe4. “The Just-in-Time training or the nudges is where AI can integrate with your existing security stack,” Malik said. “You have firewalls, you have network monitoring controls, you have some [endpoint detection and response], you have some gateway controls, you have a lot of visibility into what people are doing. What AI can do is pull all of that out and analyze it and say, ‘Okay, this user’s now plugged in a USB drive. It’s not a corporate-approved one.’”AI-driven cybersecurity significantly enhances awareness training and user behavior, supporting stronger risk mitigation by leveraging real-time analytics, personalization and automation. KnowBe4 leverages this approach to transform users from potential vulnerabilities into active defenders, greatly strengthening an organization’s human layer of defense against cyber threats, according to Malik. KnowBe4 enables cybersecurity awareness training and human risk management within organizations by leveraging behavioral science, AI-driven analytics and interactive training tools through its comprehensive training platform. This approach transforms employees from potential security liabilities into proactive defenders, according to Malik.
BNY is to give AI-powered ‘digital employees’ who clean up code and validate payment instructions their own logins to access apps and provide them with email accounts
Bank of New York Mellon has given dozens of AI agent ‘digital employees’ their own logins and will soon provide them with email accounts. BNY chief information officer Leigh-Ann Russell tells that the bank’s AI hub has created two worker personas: one that cleans up code and another that validates payment instructions. The agents have direct managers and, because they have their own logins to access apps like their human colleagues, can work autonomously. Each instance of the agent works in a defined narrow team to avoid giving them access to too much information. BNY is planning to give the digital employees their own email accounts and possibly access to Microsoft Teams so that they can contact their human colleagues with issues. The bank also intends to build agents to carry out other tasks but stresses it is still hiring humans.
Sephora is offering Lyft ride credits to shoppers enabling them to be “delivered” to a participating store and receive personalized ‘skin scan’, exclusive sampling and expert guidance from beauty advisors
Sephora U.S. has announced its first-ever “Delivered to Beauty” activation, in partnership with Lyft Media. From July 7-10, the beauty retailer is offering Lyft ride credits (up to $20 off) to shoppers in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, enabling the shoppers to be “delivered” to a participating Sephora location. Once they arrival in the store, shoppers can receive guidance from Sephora’s beauty advisors, along with a personalized “skin scan,” exclusive product sampling and $10 off any order (over $50) at checkout. The activation is part of Sephora’s new “Get Beauty from People Who Get Beauty” campaign, which aims to showcase the value of “trusted and personalized expertise provided by Sephora.” As part of the activation, which was developed in partnership with Lyft Media, select vehicles will be custom wrapped with Sephora branding, transforming the journey into an extension of the beauty experience itself, the company said. “At Lyft, we want to connect people with the places they love, and our partnership with Sephora really leans into that,” said Suzie Reider, executive VP of Lyft Media and Business. “It’s a natural collaboration: a rider steps out of their Lyft, transported by a driver who knows their way around their communities, and enters Sephora’s best-in-class shopping experience that offers expert guidance, too.”