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DXC Technology has appointed Cameron Art (pictured below) as General Manager of its UK&I and Americas regions, effective 1st May 2024. In his new role, Art will report directly to CEO, Raul Fernandez, and will be responsible for developing the growth strategy for the UK&I and Americas, building client relationships, go-to-market and sales. Art will also lead DXC Technology's global strategic deals team, focusing on complex, multi-year deals.
Prior to joining DXC Technology, Art held a number of senior roles withing IBM, including General Manager of the Americas region. During his long career with IBM, Art was also previously General Manager of Industry Markets, Managing Director and Managing Partner, Enterprise Cloud Applications and served on the Board of Directors for IBM Japan. Art holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Colorado State University.
Art is third senior appointment to DXC Technology's leadership team in recent weeks and follows hot on the heels of the news yesterday that Patrick Thompson has joined the company in the role of Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation (see: DXC calls in transformation expert Thompson).
Art looks to be an experienced global leader, with a broad background that encompasses sales, corporate, technical and transformation roles. As DXC Technology strengthens its top table under the stewardship of its new CEO, the latest recruits appear to be equipped with impressive resumes. Fernandez and DXC Technology’s shareholders will of course be hoping that they also possess the ability to lead the company into profitable growth.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 15:49
Tags: ibm DXC
Cambridge-based medical technology company Endomag (Endomagnetics Ltd) hasn’t featured in UKHotViews previously – its innovative surgical guidance tech for breast cancer not fitting within our usual software and IT services remit. But Endomag’s acquisition by US rival Hologic for $310m earlier this week struck a chord as yet another promising UK-headquartered tech company ‘falls into US hands’.
The news comes hot on the heels of high-profile UK cyber security provider Darktrace – described by our very own Richard Holway MBE as ‘perhaps the last really exciting, large UK listed tech company’ - being acquired and taken private by US private equity fund Thoma Bravo in a $5.3bn deal (see Richard’s Dark Day for UK tech and Simon’s article, Thoma Bravo to acquire Darktrace.)
Although different in nature, both deals are clearly success stories for the two Cambridge-based businesses providing a healthy return for their investors and a secure future for the team and the tech.
Founded in 2007, Endomag is a spin out from University College London (UCL) and the University of Houston and generated revenues of c$35m last year, suggesting the sale price is c10x revenues.
Founded in 2013, Darktrace’s sale price represents a 44% premium over its average stock price for the past quarter and the deal provides it with growth funding and a strong PE partner.
Despite this, we know we are far from the only ones lamenting the fact that two more exciting UK tech businesses no longer have UK ownership. It is, sadly, a trend that we’ve been talking about for many years.
According to our data, in 1986, nine of the top 10 software and IT services providers to the UK tech market were headquartered in the UK. By 2023, our rankings only had one, Capita. Will there be any in our 2024 top 10?
There are many reasons why I would love to see more UK tech companies stay owned and headquartered here as they scale to become global tech giants, not least the positive impact it has on the tech ecosystem and the UK economy. And there are things that could be, and are being, done to help encourage this – from the government’s plans to drive more investment by UK funds into UK companies, to the idea of a UK or European ‘Nasdaq’.
Whilst there is no escaping the fact that we operate in a global economy, and a trend that has lasted some four decades is not going to be reversed easily, it will be worth the effort if it means that we end up growing and sustaining more global tech champions here in the UK (see also How can we supercharge UK scaleups?).
Posted by: Tola Sargeant at 10:07
Tags: acquisition M&A healthcare
Computacenter’s trading update this morning shows the firm is on-track to hit expectations for the first quarter.
No surprises, but worth noting a few points. Things are still challenging for the UK business, while Germany and North America are highlighted for their solid underlying performances. As was expected, Services in Q1 came in below the prior year with a continuation of the pattern: continued growth in Professional Services weighed down by the expiration of Managed Services contracts. Furthermore, the pipeline for Professional Services opportunities looks “encouraging”.
As previously highlighted, adjusted profit before tax for H1 is expected to be down on last year. Looking further out, Computacenter believes it will see growth in its Technology Sourcing business weighted towards the second half of 2024 and therefore “further progress” for FY24.
Also of note is that the start of Q2 (i.e., April) saw Computacenter begin delivery of an unnamed “large four-year public sector contract” – signed at the beginning of the calendar year. This one, perchance? This is excellent news for the Public Sector team and the UK business more broadly, but there is more work to be done to infuse a good – and sustainable – performance that matches the other geographies.
Computacenter’s FY23 showed the firm grew Gross Invoiced Income (GII) in its Technology Sourcing business by 13.1% (constant currency) to £8.44bn. GII is a key metric for resellers, with Computacenter’s total GII breaching £10bn in the year to hit £10.08bn. Revenue from Services was +3.1% to £1.6bn.
CEO, Mike Norris, recently won the plc CEO of the Year Award and has been central to the evolution of the firm and its culture – and one of the key drivers of much of its success.
TechMarketView members can read our piece out later this month following our recent catch up with Mike.
Posted by: Kate Hanaghan at 10:00
Tags: results
Mastek’s FY24 results (to end March 2024) reveal strong year-on-year revenue growth for the 12 months of 19% to Rs3,054.8 Crore, representing 13% growth in constant currency.
However, the company experienced a Q4 slowdown. Following robust growth in Q3, of 19.1% year-on-year, and 2.4% sequentially (see Mastek maintains momentum | TechMarketView), Q4’s year-on-year growth was in the single digits, at 9.9%, and sequential quarter-on-quarter growth dipped into negative territory at -0.6%. The EBITDA operating margin for the full year was 16.0%, down from 17.0% in FY23.
The story in the UK & Europe, however, was in contrast to the global view. Now representing 56.9% of total revenues, compared to 61.9% in FY23, the region put in the a robust performance over the full year, with total growth of 10% to Rs 2,077 Crore. The US business grew more strongly (at 33%) but was boosted by the acquisition of BizAnalytica in July 2023. In addition, the UK & Europe returned its sequential quarter-on-quarter growth to positive territory in Q4 (at 5.0%), highlighting an improvement as the year ended. In contrast, the US business had a quarter-on-quarter decline of 18%.
We understand that, driving this positive story in the UK, was a return to stronger activity in the central government market after a fallow period. Mastek won a couple of significant contracts, including a deal that will see it transform the project approval processes for one Government department by deploying an Intelligent Customer Team (ICT), specialising in architecture and requirements.
Also in the UK, Mastek’s private sector business was boosted by a strong growth in BSFI & Retail; we understand that growth in the private sector, quarter-on-quarter, in Q4 was in the double digits in percentage terms. Interestingly, success in this space included qualifying for frameworks at both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England, both of which sit ‘on the edge’ of Central Government.
Looking ahead, at the global level, Mastek is bullish about its prospects for its FY25. CFO, Arun Agarwal, states that Mastek is “confident to deliver industry leading growth”. That view is backed up by a record 12-month order backlog, and comes despite Mastek highlighting continuing macro uncertainties and customer delays.
In the UK, there are, in our view, a few areas where Mastek has the opportunity to boost its FY25 growth. For example, in the healthcare sector, we have seen Mastek appoint a new Healthcare leader, and bolster its Consulting capabilities, allowing it to open new conversations in the wider Healthcare market. It has also identified the Healthcare market as a key bet for its Gen AI offering (see Mastek partners with Microsoft to harness GenAI for industries | TechMarketView). Already, last quarter, it had success winning a role as Digital Data and Technology partner for the Department of Health and Social Care. In a similar vein, we expect the investment in its Consulting capabilities over the last two years will also positively impact its prospects as part of the Ministry of Defence DIPS framework (see Long-awaited Defence DIPS framework begins | TechMarketView).
Posted by: Georgina O'Toole at 09:58
Tags: results offshore retail IPP healthcare financial+services public sector
Amazon reported total revenues increased 13% to $143.3bn in Q1 2024, driven by growth across both its retail business and AWS, as cloud modernisation picks up pace.
Operating income was up an impressive 221% to $15.3bn, driven by a c.4bn increase in AWS, and c.$4bn from the North America business. The International business swing from an operating loss of $1.2bn in Q123 to a positive $0.9bn in Q124. A strong focus on driving cost efficiencies across the Amazon/AWS business has clearly paid off.
Amazon said retail customers are shopping but remain cautious, trading down on price when they can and seeking out deals. Advertising is also showing strong signs of growth with ad sales up 24% yoy. Amazon recently added adverts to its prime videos in an attempt to drive higher revenues (though creating a much worse customer experience I might add). A new GenAI AI tool was also launched for sellers, enabling them to to simply provide a URL to their own website, and then automatically create high-quality product detail pages.
AWS sales increased 17% yoy to $25bn, now representing 18% of the total Amazon business. AWS said that companies have largely completed the lion's share of their cost optimisation and turned their attention to newer initiatives. The pre-pandemic push to modernise infrastructure, and shift to the cloud is picking up pace again. AI demand is of course playing a key role in that, as organisations seeking to build strong data and cloud foundations to exploit internal data.
Amazon also continues to add capabilities at all three layers of the GenAI stack. AWS bedrock already has tens of thousands of customers, providing access to a broad range of foundation models from 3rd parties include Claude 3 by Anthropic, Llama 3 by Meta, Mistral AI and Stable Diffusion, as well as its own Titan modes. SageMaker, its platform for AI model training and deployment has also been gaining strong traction. Amazon gave examples of Perplexity AI training models 40% faster, Workday reducing inference latency by 80%, and NatWest reducing its time to value for AI from 12-18 months to under 7 months.
Amazon also announced the general availability of Amazon Q, a GenAI assistant for software development, which can both generate code, test it, debug and transform from one language to another. BT Group provided Amazon Q to 1,200 of its engineers, generating more than 100,000 lines of code in its first four months and automating approximately 12% of the repetitive a work done by software engineers.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 09:39
Despite a second successive hoh revenue decline, flexible workspace SaaS platform provider essensys made a significant improvement in the level of its Adjusted EBITDA loss in H124. This metric reduced by almost 90% yoy to £0.5m as the company’s ongoing focus on operational efficiency yielded £8m of annualised cost savings. essensys remains confident that it will return to run-rate positive Adjusted EBITDA from Q1 FY25 and net cash generation in FY25.
Turnover for the six months ended 31st January was down both yoy and sequentially by 9% and 4% respectively to £11.9m (H223: -4% hoh). The primary drag on essensys’s top line stemmed from a 35% drop in non-recurring set up and installation services related revenue. Continuing pressure on customer capex budgets was cited as the cause of this softness in demand which is expected to persist until the macroeconomic outlook improves.
Better news was to be found on the recurring revenue front during the first half of the current fiscal. On a constant currency based this remained flat yoy at £10.6m helped by the signing of six new strategic customers in period including two blue-chip global landlords. The second half will, however, prove more challenging. The decision by the platform provider’s largest customer, which accounted for 27% company sales last year, to move to dual-vendor solution will both see the loss of up to 90 US sites that are due to renew in September 2024 and an up to £3m reduction in annualised recurring revenue. We had commented on essensys’s vulnerability to any change this relationship in our coverage on the company’s FY23 results (see here).
The headwinds faced by the global office sector look set to remain strong for the foreseeable future. High interest rates and global macro uncertainty will continue to put pressure on capital expenditure and development budgets. essensys believes, however, that it can deliver on its long-term growth strategy. Investors appear more circumspect. At the time of writing, the company’s share price was down by both almost 29% since the start of the week and nearly three quarters over the last twelve months.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 09:24
Tags: results saas software PropTech
The acquisitions keep coming for August-Equity-backed Air IT, the Managed Service Provider (MSP) for UK SMEs. Cementing itself as a company hungry for more growth, we make SoConnect Limited the company’s 13th acquisition (MSP Air IT takes acquisition count to 12 | TechMarketView). And the fifth since James Steventon took the reins as CEO in March 2022 (see James Steventon appointed Air IT CEO | TechMarketView).
SoConnect was founded in 2011 by Campbell Fraser. Its addition takes Air IT into Scotland for the first time, providing it with a regional hub. From its Edinburgh headquarters, and a second office in the Scottish Borders, SoConnect provides managed services to over 500 clients and has “delivered strong year-on-year growth”. With 38 employees, its portfolio of offerings includes on-demand IT support, high performing cloud services, advanced telecoms, and robust cybersecurity solutions. An extensive experience of Microsoft cloud and communications solutions complements Air IT’s own portfolio well.
Posted by: Georgina O'Toole at 09:00
Tags: acquisition M&A msp IT+services
Contact Centre giant Teleperformance has seen its share price tumble in recent months (see Teleperformance shares drop on fears of AI replacement) as investors took fright at the potential impact Gen AI is likely to have in the customer services space. Yesterday’s Q1 results are unlikely to provide reassurance with pro forma growth (at constant exchange rates including the Majorel acquisition) of just +0.9% to €2.54bn.The performance of its large UK business “saw solid growth over the period, reflecting the ramp-up of new contracts in financial services and retail”.
Looking forward, TP expects things to get better in the second half of the year “due to a more favourable basis for comparison and additional new business signed in the recent months.” 2024 financial objectives remain the same of pro forma revenue growth of between +2% and +4%, and an increase in the EBITA margin of between +10 bps and +20 bps. TP Chairman and CEO Daniel Julien points to progress on the Majorel integration with cost synergies confirmed of c.€150m.
Julien tried to put a positive spin on things pointing to progress in the Gen AI space with more than 250 projects underway and like so many other SITS providers is looking to an improved performance in the second half to deliver on FY expectations. However, showcasing how Gen AI can drive the bottom line remains crucial to improving sentiment among investors and moving the share price back into growth territory – still down -53% on twelve months ago.
Posted by: Marc Hardwick at 08:46
Tags: results CX call centre
UK-based loan management specialist, Alfa Financial Software, has issued a trading update highlighting some encouraging operational successes and emphasising the company’s confidence in its prospects for continued strong growth.
Following an excellent set of full-year results that saw annual revenue climb by 9% (see: Strong growth and a positive outlook) Alfa's pipeline has continued to develop strongly in the new fiscal. So far in FY24, the vendor has already converted one large US automotive prospect and one very large European prospect with the wins resulting in a strong boost to TCV, which is currently up 15% to £190m (compared to £165m at 31 December 2023).
Alfa has indicated that it is very confident in the strength of its current pipeline from early through to late stage. The vendor is seeing continued momentum in its late-stage opportunities, with the total pipeline of deals currently standing at ten (including one new prospect).
The statement for the three months ended 31 March 2024 also revealed that the London headquartered asset finance specialist had completed seven successful implementations in Q1. Alfa’s latest update indicated that trading in Q1 was in line with expectations and that the company is expecting mid to high single digit revenue growth for the year as a whole.
Despite the economic downturn, the asset finance and auto loans markets that Alfa operates in have remained relatively robust, as has demand for software in the sector. The vendor is continuing to grow strongly and is also successfuly diversifying its global footprint and client mix. Following a number of recent approaches from Private Equity firms, in the current climate, it is likely that Alfa may continue to attract interest from potential suitors.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 08:36
Tags: financial+services
TechMarketView has selected B2B scaleup tech PR specialist CommsCo as its communications partner in 2024. The partnership will promote TechMarketView and its new leadership’s expertise to technology organisations and the UK public sector. The PR brief will include promotion of regular insights and research, as well as profile for the significant wealth of expertise in the leadership team.
CommsCo specialises in delivering rapid profile PR, content marketing and social media campaigns that drive lead generation and brand awareness for innovative B2B technology startups and scaleups. The agency adopts an agile approach to PR to support companies in challenging their larger industry competitors, and offers a comprehensive service delivery including traditional and digital content and campaigns. CommsCo’s client base is made up of a wide range of AI, fintech, healthtech and climate scaleups, including Lumai, Navenio, First AML, VivaCity, and eflow Global.
Tola Sargeant, CEO of TechMarketView, commented: “CommsCo is the right PR partner for us, demonstrating knowledge, passion and agility in the UK tech market. This year is going to be key for TechMarketView and we need an agency who can manage the rapidly evolving landscape with proactivity and seize opportunities for us. We share many common clients as well as a female leadership team, so I’m excited to see this come to fruition.”
Ilona Hitel, founder and MD of CommsCo, said: “I’m incredibly proud to be leading this partnership, working with Tola and her team. TechMarketView has long been a source of information for CommsCo and its clients, it’s a flagship organisation at the heart of UK tech industry issues, so we are passionate about supporting them and are excited for what’s ahead.” Learn more about CommsCo here.
Posted by: TechMarketView at 00:00
The nervousness of the French Government about Atos’ financial situation has resulted in it offering to buy a number of key assets from the Group.
The non-binding letter of intent, which Atos received over the weekend, could see the French Government spending between €700m and €1bn on Product activities of the Advanced Computing, Mission Critical Systems and Cybersecurity businesses. These products, which include super calculators for Quantum Computing, are used across the French Military and other areas of critical national importance.
Of course, Atos, is also integral to the delivery of a successful Paris summer Olympics, so the Government has more than one reason to support the firm (see Atos & its sporting reference | TechMarketView). Notably, it has already, earlier this month, announced it would provide a €50mn short-term loan and create a “golden share” system for the company’s sensitive assets, allowing ministers to block acquisitions of which they did not approve.
The Government’s rising fear is that the current financial restructuring exercise, which is seeking to tackle €4.8bn of gross debt, would see these strategic national assets end up in the hands of foreign investors. It has been reported, for example, that Czech Billionaire, Daniel Křetínský, through his investment vehicle, EPEI, has already submitted a proposal to the Group (see EPEI door closes for Atos | TechMarketView).
On Monday, it emerged that Atos, due to a poorer than expected FY23, as well as a downgraded outlook, needs more cash that it previously estimated. Its short-term cash needs (2024 and 2025) have now been specified at €1.1b up from previous estimate of €600m, and its total funding need is €1.7b, up from €1.2b. It is also now pursuing a reduction in its gross debt of €3.2b (previously cited as €2.4b) by year-end 2026.
Atos has given until this Friday for its top shareholders and creditors to submit financing proposals. In the meantime, the French Government is undertaking due diligence and has said it would potentially make a firm offer by early June. If that happens, the Government will look to get other French organisations, which it is suggested might include Thales or Dassault Systems, to join its bid in a consortium. Indeed, Thales Chief Financial Officer, Pascal Bouchiat, has publicly stated, having previously rejected the idea of bidding for the entire Atos Big Data & Security business, that it might have more interest in buying a smaller subset.
According to a French Government Minister, the assets that the Government is interested in generated €900m in annual revenues in the last financial year, and involve c4,000 Atos employees. That represents around 9% of Group revenues. What's not entirely clear to us, yet, is how crucial this IP is to helping generate the revenues of the wider Group and the potential impact as Atos seeks to differentiate in the market in the years ahead.
Posted by: Georgina O'Toole at 09:29
Tags: acquisition bid M&A corporateactivity financial
Manchester headquartered, Northcoders Group, has delivered a record year of revenue despite downcast market conditions.
The AIM-listed provider of software coding training saw revenue leapt 27% to a record high of £7.1m in the 12 months to end December 2023. Meanwhile, gross profit increased 13% to £4.4m. Investment in infrastructure and the firm’s nascent B2B training division was a drag on profits, taking the firm to a loss after tax of £1.0m.
Of course, there is a correlation between training (and hiring) and tech market conditions (pick through the recent slew of company results published in the HotViews archive by analysts in recent weeks). FY23 saw “subdued technology hiring” meaning Northcoders had to drive growth in specific areas to hit its targets. The company continued to growth its B2C division through geographical expansion and by expanding the range of disciplines it teaches.
The general direction of travel in the market (i.e., digital transformation being front of mind for many organisations) combined with long-term government funding commitment both help to provide reassurances that market demand will remain resilient. However, as Northcoders has demonstrated, growth will not be ‘handed on a plate’ and for anyone in UK tech, position and offerings are everything.
Posted by: Kate Hanaghan at 09:20
A further weaking in sales to clients in the Financial Services (FS) and Telco, Media & Technology (TMT) sectors took Capgemini deeper into negative growth territory during Q124. Year over Year top line declines of 7.3% and 11.1% in these two industry verticals, which together account for almost two fifths of global turnover, dragged firm-wide revenue for the three months ended 31st March down by 3.3% yoy (Q423: -0.2%) at constant currency to €5.53bn.
The company believes that the first quarter marked the low point in the curremt demand trough . Revenue guidance for whole of 2024, which anticipates that group revenue will increase organically at constant currency by between 0% and 3%, remains unchanged. Capgemini expects that yoy sales growth will have returned to the mid to high single digits come Q424.
The increasing softness of the FS and TMT sectors took a particularly heavy toll on the company’s North America region in Q1. Turnover in this territory was down 7.1% yoy to €1.53bn. The headwinds from these verticals also buffeted Capgemini UK and broke an uninterrupted quarterly growth streak which started at the end of 2020. Despite continuing resilience in Public Sector and Energy and Utilities segment sales, first quarter revenue in this geography shrank by 3.2% yoy to €684m.
On the results call this morning, Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat would not be drawn on the specifics of the outlook for the next couple of quarters. He is confident that the market dip has now bottomed-out and an above company historical average Q1 book-to-bill ratio of 1.02 supports this optimism. Whether FY24 ends flat or ahead against the prior year rests largely on how fast and how materially buyers loosen their purse strings on discretionary expenditure in the months ahead.
Posted by: Duncan Aitchison at 09:07
Tags: results IT+services
AIM listed cybersecurity services provider Smarttech247 again grew double digits in H1, driven by continued growth of its customer base in the UK, Europe and the USA. As per our various coverage of UK tech stocks recently (See - UK Tech Investment Trusts and their lack of investment in UK Listed Tech), it seems even regular double digit growth is not enough to attract investors to smaller UK tech providers, with Smartech247 (AIM: S247) only valued at a market cap of c.23m, with the share price down 34% from its IPO in Dec 2022.
Revenues increased by 17.4% to €5.4m (for the six months to 31 January 2024), with an operating loss of €579m (up from €372m in H1 2023). The business holds a significant cash balance of €4.5m to fund future growth.
In October 2023, the company won a contract from an existing Government of Ireland department customer, worth €400k over two years. As part of this contract, Smarttech247 is leveraging its strategic partnership with IBM to provide its IBM QRadar Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution. AutoNation, an existing client of Smarttech247, the largest automotive retailer in the United States, extended its existing partnership for a further three years. Other wins included a €900k win with a US based pharmaceutical organisation to deploy its AI-enhanced VisionX MDR platform.
H2 is also shaping up nicely with a €1m deal to deploy its VisionX platform and email security tool NoPhish with a global packaging company, as well as a €2.1m 3-year deal with an existing pharma client. As well as a steady pipeline powering growth, Smarttech continues to grow its strategic partnerships, including listing its VisionX platform on the AWS marketplace, and a partnership with Abnormal Security, a behavioral AI-based email security platform.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 08:36
DXC Technology has recruited Patrick Thompson (pictured below) to the role of Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation to help lead the company’s ongoing drive for growth. Thompson is experienced at leading corporate transformations and has held similar roles with US energy company Albermarle, US care provider, Amedisys and US steel company, The Shaw Group. Thompson holds a degree in Accounting with Computer Science from Louisiana State University.
At Albermarle, Thompson led IT, business and digital transformation and is credited with helping the company to achieve multi-billion-dollar growth. Thompson, whose appointment was effective 29 April 2024, will lead DXC Technology’s Enterprise Transformation Office and report directly to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Brady. Thompson currently also serves as Executive Advisory Board Chair Member at Workboard Inc.
Back in May 2023, DXC Technology had been confidently forecasting that the company was expected to move into organic revenue growth by the end of the fiscal. Guidance now indicates that revenue is actually likely to decline again in FY24, by somewhere around 4% on an organic basis. With the company having been forced into a shock downgrade, in December 2023 the DXC Technology Board replaced CEO and Chairman Mike Salvino and appointed Raul Fernandez (see: Time runs out for Salvino).
DXC Technology will be hoping that the advent of Thompson will help the company to sharpen its execution and improve its overall performance. The tech giant is still searching for the secret ingredient that will help it to achieve the profitable growth that has so far eluded it, since the company was first created (from the merger of CSC and HP Enterprise Services) in 2017. On paper at least Thompson appears to have the right credentials,
Thompson is the second senior appointment to DXC Technology's leadership team since the appointment of CEO Raul Fernanadez was made permanent. In March, Matt Fawcett was appointed as the company’s new Executive Vice President and General Counsel.
Posted by: Jon C Davies at 08:13
Tags: DXC
Back in January, several media companies including The New York Times threatened legal action against the use of its content to train OpenAI’s foundation models, fearing significant lost revenues and infringement of their proprietary journalism (See - NYT sues OpenAI and Microsoft). The NYT is not the only ones to go down the legal route, with a number of authors including George R.R. Martin and image hosting site Getty images among those seeking financial redress. However, OpenAI is but one company in a broad AI ecosystem and financial reparations are not going to be a long-term solution. Many media organisations are realising it is far too late to stem the tide of GenAI.
Instead, others are embracing the technology, the latest of which is The Financial Times, who has signed a deal with OpenAI to license its content for the development of AI models and allow ChatGPT to answer queries with summaries attributable to the newspaper. Financial terms of the agreement were not however disclosed. It follows similar deals by OpenAI over the past few months with the Associated Press, global news publisher Axel Springer, France's Le Monde and Spain-based Prisa Media. The latest deal will help enhance the ChatGPT chatbot with archived content from the FT and the firms will work together to develop new AI products and features for FT readers.
Generative AI ultimately poses a huge risk to media organisations and those relying on advertising from internet search. If readers will get answers to their questions (including possibly the important news of the day) all in one place, why go to multiple different sites? For now, using AI tools like ChatGPT in this manner is a way off mainstream use, but you can see the direction of travel. It certainly feels like a ‘Blockbuster’ moment for the media industry, embrace AI and find new ways to add value and generate revenue, or fall by the way side.
Posted by: Simon Baxter at 17:33
Tags: media
New Jersey-headquartered Business Process Services (BPS) specialist Conduent has become the latest SITS provider to announce a Gen AI partnership with Microsoft as it looks to use Azure OpenAI services to enhance its digital BPS offer for clients.
Conduent’s Gen AI strategy will focus on a range of partnerships with “best in class providers” so we anticipate other relationships will materialise in due course. Initially, services will be geared towards “augmentation”, in other words assisting and enabling Conduent agents rather than replacing them on mass with bots. The value add is expected to come from Gen AI helping improve the quality-of-service delivery as well as increasing contract productivity via faster processing.
Conduent has looked at several potential use cases within its service portfolio starting with three main areas, with pilots now underway in each. Firstly, in the Document Management space where Conduent is using Gen AI in understanding and translating text, as well as extracting information from banks of documents and images. The initial use case is focused on using Azure AI Document Intelligence and its OpenAI Service to improve the healthcare claims adjudication process by increasing the quality of data extracted from claims forms, improving the classification of information or in identifying missing information.
The second use case is in the contact centre where Conduent is using Azure AI Language Service, Azure AI Speech Service and its OpenAI Service to enhance the overall user experience. This is seeing virtual agents and agent assist capabilities added to call centers designed to increase accuracy and speed of query resolution, thus boosting agent productivity.
The final use case being piloted is in Search and Analytics where Azure Data Factory and Azure OpenAI Service are being used to help increase the volume of fraud detection in the payments space using improved contextualisation and pattern recognition across both structured and unstructured data sets.
The BPS environment is ripe for digitisation and automation of service delivery. Gen AI offers the latest route to accelerating this trend. Conduent is not the first and won’t be the last to take the step, having sensibly started with a small number of relevant use cases with high potential, where it has deep contextual knowledge and experience. Sensibly, Conduent is targeting not only client services but its transformation of its own internal operations.
Posted by: Marc Hardwick at 15:06
Tags: partnership genAI
In the latest episode in TechMarketView's series of Totally Sust podcasts, SustainabilityViews’ lead analyst, Craig Wentworth, interviews Henry Franks (Chief Technology Officer at Climate Policy Radar) about how they're using AI to extract value and meaning from 100,000s pages of climate regulations and data the world over—and what uses this insight is being put to (and by whom).
The discussion ranges around the issues of having data locked up in PDFs (in multiple languages), the tools required to provide interoperability across myriad sources, and how (and why) Climate Policy Radar makes its data, analyses and platform available for others to use and build on.
An edited (12-minute) version of the podcast is available to stream for free now on SoundCloud and Spotify (or you can play it in the widget below).
Subscribers to our SustainabilityViews research stream, however, can get access to the full 30-minute episode.
To understand more about how our new SustainabilityViews research stream can help your organisation understand its sustainability obligations, obstacles, and opportunities, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by: Craig Wentworth at 13:16
Tags: podcast climate data
London-based recycling tech startup Sorted has raised £1.65m in a seed funding round led by Pi Labs with participation from Archipelago Ventures, Circular Plastics Accelerator, Conduit Connect, and Antler.
Founded in 2022, Sorted’s AI-powered tech (leveraging computer vision, spectroscopy, and coloured lasers) helps waste management companies sort their recyclable plastic based on resin and usage. Its solution is designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of recycling operations, reducing the amount of recyclables materials that end up in landfill and incineration (and thereby promoting sustainable practices in the industry).
Customers include waste management and recycling firms in France and the UK, such as Cawleys and Suez UK.
Capturing valuable recyclable materials at end of life is an important component of the circular economy model (easing pressure on natural resources and reducing emissions from plastics manufacturing), use cases from which feature in TechMarketView’s Sustainability Technology Activity Index – our unique take in the sustainability technology landscape.
Subscribers to our SustainabilityViews research stream can download the Index now. If you are not yet a subscriber, or would like to learn more about our sustainability research, please contact Deb Seth for more information.
Posted by: Craig Wentworth at 09:35
Tags: funding recycling circular economy
We have now opened up this piece of research - View from the Chief Analyst - as a 'free-to-view' report. If you'd like to access more in-depth research and analysis from TechMarketView, please contact Deb Seth.
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On 11th April, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a paper updating on its work reviewing the impact of AI Foundational Models on competition and consumer protection.
It has only been six months since it had published its previous paper. Yet, such is the nature of the market, that in that time, a range of developments have altered the shape of the Foundational Model ecosystem. And the CMA is worried that the GAMMAN companies – namely Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Nvidia - have both the increasing ability and the incentive to shape the market in their own interests.
In this latest ‘View from the Chief Analyst’, Georgina O’Toole (pictured), considers whether the CMA is justified in its view of the GAMMAN companies and the potential for their behaviours to negatively impact competition in the Foundation Models market. She also looks at what evidence there is of damaging behaviour to date. And finally, she considers whether, if the CMA decides to pursue enforcement action against the GAMMAN contingent, it really has the teeth to enact change.
In answering these questions, Georgina also obtains fascinating insight – in ‘A Conversation With…’ - from TechMarketView’s Principal Analyst, Simon Baxter (pictured), during which she explores a range of topics including; fears of hyperscaler dominance, market consolidation of AI foundation models, and the competition amongst suppliers across the AI ecosystem.
Posted by: HotViews Editor at 08:47
Tags: AI hyperscalers competition LLM CMA Foundation+Models
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