Companies need AI to accelerate innovation, assess business conditions and deliver new customer experiences. But today, many organisations have not yet bridged the gap between the promise of AI and real results.

Customers are used to speed and ease online. When an app doesn't load in seconds, this customer loyalty can be lost in seconds too. To deliver a frictionless CX every time and retain hard-won customers, performance testing throughout the development cycle is key.

The theologian William Ellery Channing once described the struggles of human advancement by asserting that “difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage”. He was referring to the attitude one must embody to tackle some of history’s greatest global challenges: slavery, poverty, and war. Despite this sentiment being over 150 years old, I witnessed a similar conviction from modern-day business leaders when faced with extraordinary and unparalleled adversity in the last 18 months.

61% of high-growth brands are shifting to a first-party data strategy. What is a first-party data strategy? It’s a strategy that uses data collected directly with the unambiguous consent of customers. First-party data can come from a variety of online and offline interactions with customers. But in today’s digital world, first-party data often starts with first-party cookies. A first-party cookie is a code that automatically gets stored on a visitor’s computer when they browse a brand’s website. Sounds simple - so why are high-growth brands only beginning to shift to a first-party data strategy? Digital marketers have traditionally relied on a third-party data strategy, underpinned by third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are created by domains that are not from the website that you’re visiting. They can be added to any website that loads the third-party server’s code. This has enabled third-parties cookies to collect vast amounts of data. This broad reach has meant that third-party data has formed the bedrock of large scale digital marketing campaigns in recent years. It’s been transformative for brands because it’s allowed them to market to and re-target more current and prospective customers than ever before.

The past 18 months have fundamentally changed how government operates. Government services, from large central departments to local councils, have had a mission-critical requirement to deliver cloud-first services. This has rapidly accelerated migration to the cloud. But it has not been a journey without challenges and IT leaders in government have innovated at pace to utilise and maximise its potential.

Ann Roberts, Chief People Officer at Flo Health and ex-HR Director of Bumble, shares her lessons on how to effectively scale talent and culture in fast-growing tech businesses.

As we approach 2022, organisations are looking at long-term strategic approaches to enabling remote work. As IT and business leaders plan a vision for this new future, security and risk mitigation are at the top of their agendas. This shift also requires a new approach towards employee accessibility and trust. Nimbus Ninety and Ping Identity sat down with IT and security leaders to discuss their long-term plans of enabling work-from-anywhere and in particular, how their approaches to security and passwordless authentication.

Delivering frictionless CX has never been more important. In the last 18 months, we’ve seen widespread migration to online-first for customers across the globe. As a result, customer expectations online have rapidly shape-shifted. Today the customer experience really matters: 67% of customers claim they have higher CX standards than ever before. Yet simultaneously, 66% of enterprises say their customers demand stronger security and privacy. This presents a tricky question for business leaders. Should they prioritise a frictionless customer experience or a highly secure one?

Tech commentator Benedict Evans asked in 2018, “we hear that Tesla is ‘the new iPhone’ - what would that mean?... How do we think about whether something is disruptive? If it is, who exactly gets disrupted? And does that disruption mean that one company wins in the new world? Which one?”

Earlier this year, Rest of World published the stories of nine workers across the world who turned their homes into makeshift offices during the pandemic. They ranged from a logistics specialist in Kyrgyzstan, a chef in Bangkok, a marketing consultant in Bangladesh and an environmental campaigner in Seoul. Their jobs are varied, but the pain points are similar: distractions at home, less effective team collaboration, connectivity issues, blurred lines between work and personal lives.