Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two distinct but related computing paradigms. Compared to virtual reality, augmented reality occurs in the real world. Augmented reality users have command over their physical presence, whereas virtual reality users are at the mercy of technology.

As of 2023, there are 65.9 million VR users and 110.1 million AR users in the U.S.

Virtual reality and augmented reality are frequently used interchangeably. AR apps, games like Pokemon Go, and VR headgear, like Meta Quest 2 and the Valve Index, are becoming increasingly common. They have a similar ring to them, and as technology advances, they blend in many ways. This is obvious in Apple’s forthcoming Vision Pro headset (release date: early 2024).

However, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are still not the same thing.

What Is AR?

Augmented reality is more effective than virtual reality as a branding and gaming tool since it is accessible to virtually anybody with a smartphone. The camera or video viewer on a smartphone is used to project digital images and characters onto the real world, transforming it into a vibrant, surreal environment. Simply said, augmented reality enhances the user’s current surroundings. To fully use AR, you need to use certain gadgets. For instance, Smart Glasses are often used to get the info through Smart Glasses software.

What Is VR?

The global virtual reality (VR) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.5% from 2023 to 2030

The next level of these components is achieved in virtual reality by creating a computer-generated representation of a different universe. Using technology like computers, sensors, headphones, and gloves, these simulations can transport the player to practically any setting they can imagine.

Virtual reality is all about making a new world seem real. With a VR screen, the person can see and communicate with the digital world. Two lenses must be put between the person and the screen for this to work. They figure out what the eye movements mean and change how the person moves to fit the VR. So, in this case, a lot of gear is needed to cut the person off from the real world.

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Jobs in the VR and AR Industry

It has created innumerable opportunities for businesses and workers. Virtual reality and augmented reality are revolutionizing several fields, including computer programming, graphic design, scientific study, and more.

A bachelor’s degree in computer science might help you learn how the technology works. People who work with AR and VR must know how to use tools like 3D MAX and Autodesk 3D and be familiar with video game creation systems like Unreal and Unity that recreate environments in 3D.

Read: What Is Augmented Reality?

Augmented or Virtual Reality? A direct comparison!

• The two technologies—AR and VR—differ significantly. This striking contrast does not, however, suggest that one technology is superior to the other. Instead, each technology excels in a distinct field of use:
• While VR transports users to an imaginary realm, AR adds digital details to the actual world.
• Virtual reality is 75% virtual whereas augmented reality is just 25% virtual.
• Virtual reality headsets are necessary for use, although augmented reality devices are not.
• Virtual reality (VR) users move in an entirely fabricated environment, whereas augmented reality (AR) users interact with the actual world.
• More bandwidth is needed for AR than VR.
• The goal of augmented reality is to make both the digital and physical worlds better. Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that simulates an alternative environment to improve video games.
• Both AR and VR employ a real-world environment, whereas VR is entirely simulated.
• Users of augmented reality have command over their physical presence, whereas those of virtual reality are at the mercy of the technology.
• While virtual reality headsets are required to experience AR, all you need is a smartphone.
• While virtual reality can only improve upon an artificial reality, augmented reality can improve upon both.

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The Synergy Between Augmented and Virtual Reality

When augmented reality and virtual reality are used together, they form a harmonious system. They each function independently, but when used together, they provide a richer, more exciting experience for the user. The idea is to build a fictitious setting that is open to outside influences.TeamViewer provides excellent software options for integrating AR and VR into your business.

Future-Oriented Thinking

As mixed reality becomes more prevalent among VR headsets, the border between augmented and virtual reality will blur temporarily if not permanently. Over time, advancements in outward-facing camera and environment-scanning technologies will allow you to see more clearly while wearing a headset, transforming any virtual reality headset into a mixed reality headset.

Read: AI and Machine Learning Are Changing Business Forever

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Hi, Arijit. Welcome to our Interview Series. Please tell us a little bit about your journey and what inspired you to start at Aible.

I came to the U.S. to study artificial intelligence at Stanford University because in those days you could not study AI at the bachelor level in India. Eventually, I went to Harvard Business School where my research led me to create BeyondCore – the first augmented analytics and data discovery company to automate analytics with AI – which was acquired by Salesforce and became Salesforce Einstein Discovery.

Post-acquisition and after completing over 1,000 AI projects throughout my career, I wrote a book called AI is a Waste of Money where I identified common points of AI failure. This led Harvard to bring me in as an executive fellow to co-create and co-teach a course on AI for Market Facing Functions. The course was designed to help MBA students figure out how to get economic value from AI. A concept that I carried over to the creation of my current company, Aible – the only enterprise AI solution that guarantees business impact from AI in 30 days or customers don’t have to pay.

Throughout this journey, my focus has been on how we can empower people through the use of AI. When I started Aible, all of the companies were paying lip service to the idea of the citizen data scientists. But in reality, all of the software was so hard that unless you were an expert data scientist, you couldn’t use it productively. Aible’s tagline is “I am Aible” because we believe everyone needs to be able to create and adjust AI to serve their needs, as opposed to being guided by AI created by others. In a world where only the ones creating the AI have the power, everyone else becomes disempowered. 

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What are your core offerings? How do you incorporate various advanced technologies to create your products for large and mid-sized companies?

Aible is a cloud-based Auto-ML platform with three core offerings. The first one is Aible Sense – an augmented data engineering solution that lets the AI automatically handle all of the data cleansing, feature creation, and data prep work that is typically done manually. The human can adjust it as needed, and the system will learn from it so the human doesn’t have to do it a second time.

The second offering is Aible Explore – an augmented analytics product that automatically looks at millions of questions in your data and shows you the key insights you need to see. In the time a human can ask the analytical system a handful of questions, AI can ask a million and save the answers. Aible gives people the fundamental ability to find the unknown unknowns – the questions they didn’t think to ask – while also massively reducing their analytics costs. For example, we recently did a benchmark with Google where a Fortune 500 company was able to analyze 75 data sets, 100M rows, across 150M variable combinations, for a total cost of less than $80.

The third is Aible Optimize – an augmented data science and machine learning capability that helps users understand what a predictive model would do for their business outcomes such as revenue, costs, churn, etc. It understands the benefit of a correct prediction, the cost of an incorrect prediction, and capacity constraints such as budgets, and uses that information to craft a model that helps the business achieve its goals. Instead of forcing people to speak AI or data science, the product speaks the language of business.

All of these technologies have been used at several of the Fortune 500s – including seven of the Fortune 50 today – and many mid-sized companies.

What is the opportunity for organizations when it comes to utilizing AI and Machine learning in their operations? How does that specifically play out with supply chain optimization? 

We’ve entered a world of uncertainty where the business environment is constantly changing amid supply chain disruption, inflation, and political issues. It is very hard for people to notice and react to change quickly, and traditional AI actually isn’t designed for that either. Traditional AI assumes the future will look like the past and is predicting based on what it has learned, but this can’t help you if the situation is constantly changing.

The main opportunity for organizations in utilizing AI and machine learning is in scenario planning. Imagine an AI model that is optimal for a supply chain disruption out of your facility in China, or another one that is optimal when the exchange rate changes in a certain way. By scenario planning and building AI models that are optimal under different circumstances, you can be more prepared for the future and adjust your AI to the right setting for optimal value when disruptions occur. 

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ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have taken the tech industry by storm. Could you let us know how generative AIs could transform intelligent automation?

Generative AI is a transformative moment for this market and multimodal AI will completely change intelligent automation, but before you get over-excited, understand its limitations. Today, large language models like ChatGPT and Bard have hallucinations, meaning they can literally make up facts out of thin air. This was in full display in both the Google and Microsoft demos of their respective technologies. For instance, a Bing demo was intended to develop a pros and cons list for certain products and create an itinerary plan for a trip to Mexico City, but the product reviews were fabricated and the travel plans didn’t match up to the websites they were based on. 

The inaccuracy of LLMs can be extremely dangerous if it’s the human’s responsibility to double-check the facts before acting on them. In reality, people won’t fact-check their results. They’ll expect the technology to work since it works most of the time and act on it until they show up at a resort that has been shut down for several months, or worse.

Instead of placing the responsibility on the human, there is a different kind of AI called information models that can be used to double-check the facts of large language models. Information models are descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive, meaning they have an understanding of what has happened in the data, what is likely to happen, and why. By using information models to double-check large language models, the technology can scale with trust.

What are your views on the future of supply chain optimization with ChatGPT and other AI techniques?

In the past, the supply chain was optimized mainly on cost. The world was stable and we were trying to get every bit of marginal cost out. But one of the most important lessons we learned from COVID-19 and recent political disruptions is that as the world constantly changes some things matter more than just the cost of inventory. We need to balance it with the potential of stockout due to shifting demand or increased transportation costs from route closures. AI is very good at considering multiple, and potentially conflicting, objectives such as balancing inventory carrying vs stockout costs or low-cost vs low-risk providers. By scenario planning and testing the implications of different situations, you can create a more complex and responsive system rather than one that is static and fragile, so you can react to market changes. By using AI in combination with optimization of key business indicators and scenario planning, you’ll build a responsive and resilient system that can balance change faster than people alone.

Do you foresee any challenges brands will deal with as a result of AI based optimization and automation?

The biggest problem that people are going to run into is that they can’t say “the AI told me to do that.” You cannot just magically trust AI. This is why it’s very important to have an AI-first, as opposed to an AI-only, mindset. If you are doing magical thinking and assuming the AI will work without the human in the loop, you’re taking way too much brand and business risk.You could get into a world where your brand and your business might be gone because the AI completely misunderstood one moment in time and did something that a human could’ve obviously noticed and stopped if they were in the loop. 

With an AI-first approach, the AI will recommend what it suggests you do based on all the factors it can consider, and then the human can look at it and determine whether or not to proceed. This approach empowers the person. As Santiago Pino said, “AI will not replace you. A person using AI will.” That is really what is going to be happening, and that is why we must focus on how to empower the person using AI.

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Is there anything else you would like to add?

There is incredible power to AI, but what is really important to see is who can create and adjust it. A world where the few make the AI that affects the lives of the many is not a world I want to be in. That’s a very dystopian world. Think of the Gini Index and the wealth disparity. The AI knowledge disparity world would be far worse than the wealth disparity world. We must empower anyone and everyone to create their own AI and adjust it to their own preferences.

Thank you, Arijit! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

• About Arijit
• About Aible

About Arijit

Arijit Sengupta is the Founder and CEO at Aible – the only Enterprise AI solution that guarantees business impact in just one month. He is the former Founder and CEO of BeyondCore, a market-leading automated analytics solution that is now part of Salesforce.com. Arijit co-created and co-instructed an AI course in the MBA program of the Harvard Business School as an Executive Fellow. He has also guest lectured at Stanford and other universities, and spoken at conferences in a dozen countries. Arijit has held leadership positions at several big Data, cloud computing and e-business industry associations and previously worked at Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, and Yankee Group. He has been granted over twenty patents, and he holds an MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School and Bachelor degrees with Distinction in Computer Science and Economics from Stanford University.

About Aible

Aible is the only enterprise AI solution that guarantees impact in 30 days. The solution meets CIOs, CDOs, and business teams wherever they are on their data-driven journey — from data readiness and guided exploration with augmented analytics, to driving impact with optimized AI recommendations in end-user applications. With Aible, businesses go from raw data to valuable insights in hours and to measurable business impact in 30 days or less – guaranteed.

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Adobe is going full-throttle on its recently launched generative AI – Adobe Firefly. Today, the AI-powered experience and creative cloud company announced expansion of its generative AI capabilities for images and videos. The new AI models would allow artists to generate video, audio, animation and motion graphics using Firefly’s advanced integrations with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro and other Adobe applications. The company chose the ongoing NAB to make the announcement.

Adobe’s Firefly is high on ethics and governance. Why?

Last month, Adobe Firefly arrived in its beta version here.

The AI algorithm is built and trained entirely on Adobe Stock images. It was a conscious choice to keep the AI algorithm in reins of Adobe’s internal AI ethics team. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the AI world has been flooded with many types of generative tools specifically targeting art creators and media personnel who want to speed up their editing and production processes. A lot has been speculated about the safety and trustworthiness of generative AI tools. Some countries have even banned tools that use generative AI. With licensed content, Adobe Firefly ensures artists get their due and end-users acknowledge the power of artificial intelligence when they interact with the enhanced creatives.

Generative AI for Video Production and Editing

According to Adobe, this is the golden age of video. And, AI is the real game-changer for video creators and artists who can use generative AI for creation of interactive videos and animations for news, social media and cinema. Relevant video-based stories drive more engagement for brands. A well-formatted brand is used for creating enthralling storyboards with a personalized CX at their core.

By bringing generative AI to Adobe Experience Cloud, the company would benefit millions of users across industries and domains such as marketing and sales, recruiters, trainers, IT directors, and next-gen artists.

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The key benefits of using Adobe Firefly for all your high-quality creative work are listed below:

• Text to image generation
• Inpainting and smart portrait generation using a single frame of video or image
• Digitally enhance and re-colorize your old videos using text
• Add soothing music and sound effects that reflect the mood of the occasion and syncs with the scenic background of the image and video
• Add stunning fonts, text effects and logos with AI-powered animations and graphics
• Create personalized co-pilots to assist you in every video creation and image generation

In addition to video editing tools, Adobe also announced it would be celebrating three decades of Adobe After Effects. It also expanded the scope of Frame.io to bring in Text-based Editing and Automated Color Tone-mapping to enable photography and PDF document reviews in a streamlined and collaborative way.

The post Adobe Firefly Adds Generative AI Tools for Videos and Images appeared first on AiThority.

Free for both personal and commercial use, Blippbuilder is the only AR authoring tool that allows users to create and publish projects across any social media platform and website with unlimited free views.

Blippar, the leading technology and content platform specialising in augmented reality (AR),announced that it is making Blippbuilder, the company’s easy-to-use web-based AR creation platform, free to use. The implementation of this free model continues Blippar’s goal of widening global access to the building and publishing of AR content and comes as a response to creators calling for unrestricted access to web AR tools. With 250k existing users, Blippbuilder is the most popular no-code tool on the market and by removing view-based pricing, Blippar will empower even more creators to embrace the opportunity and start building – making Blippbuilder the default AR creation platform for personal and commercial use.

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Blippbuilder is the most powerful no-code AR platform available and the only tool to offer in-browser SLAM capabilities, which are essential to creating more realistic AR experiences. By making the platform free, with no setup, licensing or publishing costs, Blippar ensures that creators from all over the world, be they artists, students and teachers, or brands and agencies, are not limited by the costs typically associated with AR creation.

Blippar has transformed AR from being a medium perceived as inaccessible, once limited to brands with vast budgets, to an accessible self-service tool – with no costs and minimal resources required. This is particularly important due to the rising adoption of augmented reality content and growing consumer demand. If brands do not adopt AR into their strategies now, they risk the consequences of missing out on the 90% higher engagement rates that AR experiences deliver in comparison to non-AR experiences, and being overlooked by the 61% of consumers who prefer buying from brands with AR capabilities*.

Currently a number of the most important AR content creation tools do not allow creators to share projects outside of their walled gardens. By contrast, Blippbuilder enables users to create interoperable web AR experiences, which can be simply accessed from any link, object or QR code using a smartphone camera. Experiences created within Blippbuilder can be shared across the web and social networks, and work on any device including AR glasses.

“Our aim has always been to enable everyone to create unique and engaging AR content and experiences. In making Blippbuilder free, we invite the entire world to play, create and share what they have built with Blippbuilder,” said Faisal Galaria, CEO of Blippar. “We’re confident that this decision will unleash creators and accelerate the development of AR content for end user to experience.”

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It is not only consumer industries that are leveraging the benefits of Blippbuilder. With this free model, which is also available through our partnership with Microsoft Teams, enterprises, architects, schools and universities can explore and experiment with self-build augmented reality across training, 3D visualisations, interactive learning, group projects and presentations. Blippbuilder quickly enables the creation of this content through drag and drop functionality, while also allowing for advanced customisation.

While Blippbuilder is a free, accessible and time-efficient entry point into AR creation for millions of users, for developers, agencies and studios looking to create more complex, code-based AR experiences, Blippar’s WebAR SDK is the solution. Blippar’s SDK offers the most advanced implementation of SLAM and marker tracking, alongside integrations with the popular developer frameworks, including A-Frame, PlayCanvas, and Babylon.js. The Blippar WebAR SDK is free to download, with costs associated to hosting and views.

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[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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HeadsUp Entertainment International Inc.  has now completed a major milestone in the acquisition of Spinola Gaming, a leading Global Lottery software provider.

This step in the acquisition process of Spinola has now been completed with the buyout of all previous 3rd party shareholdings of the group of Spinola companies. This step now allows for HeadsUp to complete and finalize definitive agreements for the full acquisition of Spinola and its related companies. The buyout of these shares was imperative for HeadsUp to acquire 100% of the company and its assets which includes Licenses to operate across various European, Latin America and other regulated markets.

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The full acquisition of Spinola and its related assets is an integral part of HeadsUp’s global strategy across the Charity, Lottery and Gaming space and the takeover of Spinola will not only enable it to expand into new global markets but also execute on its existing strategies with its full range of Lottery, Instant Win and charitable fundraising solutions.

Independent valuations completed by HeadsUp concluded that the value of the agreements currently in place have the potential to generate more than $150m in revenues with further room to expand on this with new contracts currently in negotiations. The value of the Spinola acquisition is substantial with management of HeadsUp engaging 2 independent valuations during the Due Diligence process that came in at $65M and $72M USD.

Spinola’s current contracts span from Key market operations in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and other Latin American markets These regions represent the strongest growth for lotteries and one of the biggest opportunities for Spinola/HeadsUp. In addition to Latin America, Spinola has new Projects scheduled for Release in Q4 2022 in 6 African Nations and a first time National Lottery product in The United Arab Emirates which is set to launch the World’s Biggest Lottery Jackpot across the globe.

The recent acquisition of LotteryHUB partnered with Spinola’s products and services will now see LotteryHub become the World’s first global Lottery Marketplace solution with key partnerships being sought for various European, Asia Pacific and US based operations.

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The global lottery industry is currently generating approx. $300billion in annual revenues and 95% of these transactions still take place through physical retail outlets. With the increase in online and ecommerce activity globally, this represents an exceptional growth opportunity as more state and national operations move into the online space as a natural progression to their existing business models. It is expected that the value of online activity across the global to reach 15-20% over the coming years thus representing a potential market share opportunity of approx. $45-60billion in annual online lottery transactions.

HeadsUp is now excited to begin to announce a substantial number of contracts through the Spinola deal that represent the previously announced anticipated revenues and earnings plus additional contracts that management has closed over the past 45 days.

With respect to the corporate finance roadmap and public market strategy, this deal takes the fundamental step towards closing the reverse triangle merger that management has previously announced.  HeadsUp Entertainment International will now be facilitating it requirements of filing fully audited financial statements and then filing a Registration Statement with all information required by the regulators including the Alberta Securities Commission to remove the cease trade order and allow for the consolidation of these and other assets soon to be announced through acquisition into a fully reporting vehicle which is expected to have the required assets and revenues to qualify for a full NASDAQ listing.

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[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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HyperX Provides Gaming Peripherals to Fully Equip Esports Arena and Gaming Center.

HyperX, the gaming peripherals team at HP Inc. and brand leader in gaming and esports, announced it is the leading peripheral partner of SoLa I CAN Technology & Entrepreneurship Center Powered by Riot Games. SoLa Impact is a family of real estate funds with a double bottom line strategy focused on building high-quality affordable housing in Black and Brown communities. The SoLa I CAN Foundation, SoLa Impact’s affiliated, 501(c)3 nonprofit, aims to improve the lives of Los Angeles residents in low-income communities and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by providing opportunities for education and economic mobility.

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HyperX has donated an array of gaming peripherals to support the SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center Powered by Riot Games, including its esports arena and gaming center in South Los Angeles. HyperX gaming headsets, keyboards, mice, mouse pads, microphones, and other products are being used to help SoLa build out the facilities for local students to use while visiting the center. The operation aligns with HyperX’s goals to improve representation for Black and Brown talent to enter the gaming industry workforce as gaming professionals.

“HyperX is proud to help make an impact with SoLa Impact and the SoLa I CAN Foundation by providing tools for learning at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center. The center helps to close the digital divide, promote diversity in tech and change mindsets about gaming. Members of the community that come to the center will have a chance to achieve their dreams and elevate their skill levels in a game-positive environment,” said Wendy Lecot, head of strategic alliances, HyperX. “By having a space to pursue their interests and aspirations based on the shared love of gaming, the residents of South Los Angeles will have a chance to help shape the future of the gaming culture and esports.”

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“HyperX’s donation of equipment to the center helps make this facility a world-class institution able to provide our local youth with an amazing access point for technology education and career training,” said Sherri Francois, chief impact officer of SoLa Impact and executive director of SoLa I CAN Foundation. “The SoLa Technology and Entrepreneurship Center Powered by Riot Games is the first esports and gaming facility of its kind in South Los Angeles, where youth and community members can learn and develop their skills to prepare for tomorrow’s workforce.”

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[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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Hampton to Lead UserZoom’s Financial Operations as it Enters Next Phase of Growth

UserZoom, the leader in Experience Insights Management (XIM), announced that Gregg Hampton has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer. In this role, Gregg will provide financial leadership and strategic direction for UserZoom, leveraging more than three decades of experience with public and private enterprise organizations and rapid-growth technology companies. Gregg joins UserZoom after having most recently served as Chief Financial Officer for Apttus, a Middle Office software platform that automates relationship management processes.

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“UserZoom has experienced tremendous growth across all aspects of our business, from our innovative solutions to our talent to our blue-chip customer base,” said Alfonso de la Nuez, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, UserZoom. “Gregg’s financial leadership experience will be critical as we build on our success and accelerate our growth plans. We’re confident Gregg will be a great addition to our team as we continue to deliver on our mission of helping businesses get the insights they need to deliver better digital experiences for their customers.”

“As digital adoption accelerates across all customer segments, UserZoom’s solutions are addressing a critical need for better digital experiences and Experience Insights Management,” said Gregg Hampton, CFO, UserZoom. “I’m looking forward to working with the team to further capitalize on opportunities presented by changing market dynamics, while also supporting UserZoom’s core values and culture as a people-first, insights-driven organization.”

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Prior to his role at Apttus, Gregg served as the CFO for both Actian and Blue Coat Systems (acquired by Symantec). He also held various positions at HP, including General Manager of Enterprise Software and Vice President of Finance. Gregg joined HP through its acquisition of Mercury Interactive, where he served as Vice President of Internal Audit/Global Compliance and Corporate Controller. Gregg holds a BSC in Accounting from Santa Clara University.

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Datapred, an innovator in direct material procurement software, announced its first institutional fundraising, led by Berlin-based JOIN Capital. Datapred will use these funds to increase the decision augmentation capabilities of its software and expand its base of manufacturing clients.

“We are delighted that we found a growth partner that shares our belief in the potential of machine learning for energy and raw material procurement,” said Thomas Oriol, Director of Datapred. “We are especially thankful for Join Capital’s willingness to stick with the process and pull this investment off in today’s difficult circumstances.”

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Chief Procurement Officers are increasingly taking advantage of data science and information technology to streamline procurement processes, from sourcing to payment. For energy and raw materials, machine learning solutions like Datapred provide industrial buyers with new opportunities to ‘trade around their assets’ – or purchase based on the real-time combination of market trend predictions and operational cost/constraint optimization.

Datapred is already helping clients optimize over €1 billion in energy and raw material spend across multiple categories, including metals, chemicals and power. The company’s objectives for the next few months are to increase product functionality (e.g. scenario building, risk factor analysis) and expand to geographies with favorable bases (e.g. Germany, Benelux).

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Sebastian von Ribbentrop, Partner at JOIN Capital, will join the Datapred board as part of this funding deal.

“Procurement innovation is a top area of focus for us at JOIN,” Sebastian said. “Managing risk is a key issue for global Chief Procurement Officers, and Datapred has created a proven, AI-enabled optimization platform for procurement leaders. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the exceptional team.”

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U.S. Medical Equipment Consultants, Inc. (USMEDIC), a leading provider of comprehensive equipment maintenance solutions to healthcare and medical research communities, implements Mize Customer Self-Service Portal to deliver Asset Intelligence.

Mize, a leading provider of Connected Customer Experience Platform and Service Lifecycle Management software, announced today that USMEDIC has launched an Asset Intelligence Portal powered by Mize Analytics Solution and Customer Portal.

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USMEDIC has been a leading provider of comprehensive equipment maintenance solutions to the healthcare and medical research communities since 1993. The company’s programs provide protection, cost containment and equipment performance reporting & analytics, tailored to fit each partner’s unique needs.

Mize enables companies to optimize key post-sale customer interaction events, such as product registration, w*******, service plans, parts, support, service, and maintenance, to increase customer satisfaction and retention. Mize Connected Customer Experience Platform and Smart Blox elevate customer experience and engagement with customers, build knowledge about customers and products, and increase revenue from the existing customer install base.

Mize harnesses the Web, Mobile, Cloud, IoT, and analytics technologies to maximize customer lifetime value with better customer experience.

The Asset Intelligence Portal enables USMEDIC to provide its customers with on-demand access to critical data and reports related to service performed on equipment operating within customers’ healthcare facilities.

With Mize, USMEDIC’s customers (Healthcare Facilities) can securely generate on-demand insights into their equipment maintenance and repair programs without the need to wait for periodic reports.

“Our previous reporting system was not efficient to process the extensive amount of service data on the thousands of pieces of equipment we maintain for our high-volume customers. Reports had to be generated periodically and then emailed to the customer,” said Sean Stapleton, CEO USMEDIC.

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“Mize provides a scalable solution that can provide our customers with on-demand insights and information they need to visualize and understand their equipment maintenance service program. This offering will help USMEDIC position itself as a forward-thinking leader in the U.S. Medical equipment maintenance and solutions.”

Mize provides USMEDIC’s customers with on-demand insights and information they need to measure potential equipment downtime, claim amounts, total cost of ownership, equipment service schedules and more. The Mize Customer Portal combined with Analytics gives USMEDIC customers the ability to see key reporting insights at the account or a facility level. OnDemand data is available in both static and dynamic reports as well as charts and tables, giving USMEDIC customers the flexibility in how to view and act on the data.

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“Mize is delighted that USMEDIC has partnered with us to implement the Asset Intelligence Portal in order to provide self-service access to critical information and reporting insights,” said Ashok Kartham, CEO of Mize. “Our solution enables USMEDIC to leverage the value of data they currently track and maintain on their behalf customers.  Helping companies to elevate the customer experience and adding value to their customers by sharing critical business intelligence is key to our mission of Connected Customer Experience.”

U.S. Medical Equipment Consultants, Inc. (“USMEDIC”) has been a leading provider of comprehensive equipment maintenance solutions to the healthcare and medical research communities since 1993. USMEDIC programs provide protection, cost containment and equipment performance reporting & analytics, tailored to fit each partner’s unique needs.

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