By Sydney Price ( January 16, 2025, 5:27 PM EST) — A California federal judge has ruled financial data aggregator Yodlee must face some customers’ allegations that it unlawfully collected user data, saying the remaining plaintiffs have plausibly established their invasion of privacy claims…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

Australian cybersecurity professionals can expect threat actors to exploit artificial intelligence to diversify tactics and scale the volume of cyberattacks targeting organisations in 2025, according to security tech firm Infoblox. Last year, cyber teams in APAC witnessed the first signs of AI being used to execute crimes like financial fraud, while some have linked AI to a DDoS attack in the financial services sector in Australia. This year, Australia’s cyber defenders can expect AI to be used for a new breed of cyber attacks: AI cloning: AI could be used to create synthetic audio voices to commit financial fraud. AI deepfakes: Convincing fake videos could lure victims to click or provide their details. AI-powered chatbots: AI chatbots could become part of complex phishing campaigns. AI-enhanced malware: Criminals could use LLMs to spit out remixed malware code. Jailbreaking AI: Threat actors will use “dark” AI models without safeguards. Infoblox’s Bart Lenaerts-Bergmans told Australian defenders on a webinar that they can expect an increase in the frequency and sophistication of attacks because more actors have access to AI tools and techniques. 1 New Relic Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Analytics / Reports, API, Compliance Management, and more 2 Wrike Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Medium, Large, Enterprise Features 24/7 Customer Support, 360 Degree Feedback, Accounting, and more 1. AI for cloning Adversaries can use generative AI tools to create synthetic audio content that sounds realistic. The cloning process, which can be done quickly, leverages data available in the public domain, such as an audio interview, to train an AI model and generate a cloned voice. SEE: Australian government proposes mandatory guardrails for AI Lenaerts-Bergmans said cloned voices can exhibit only minor differences in intonation or pacing compared to the original voice. Adversaries can combine cloned voices with other tactics, such as spoofed email domains, to appear legitimate and facilitate financial fraud. 2. AI deepfakes Criminals can use AI to create realistic deepfake videos of high-profile individuals, which they can use to lure victims into cryptocurrency scams or other malicious activities. The synthetic content can be used to more effectively social engineer and defraud victims. Infoblox referenced deepfake videos of Elon Musk uploaded to YouTube accounts with millions of subscribers. Using QR codes, many viewers were directed to malicious crypto sites and scams. It took 12 hours for YouTube to remove the videos. More Australia coverage 3. AI-powered chatbots Adversaries have begun using automated conversational agents, or AI chatbots, to build trust with victims and ultimately scam them. The technique mimics how an enterprise may use AI to combine human-driven interaction with the AI chatbot to engage and “convert” a person. One example of crypto fraud involves attackers using SMS to build relationships before incorporating AI chatbot elements to advance their scheme and gain access to a crypto wallet. Infoblox noted that warning signs of these scams include suspicious phone numbers and poorly designed language models that repeat answers or use inconsistent language. 4. AI-enhanced malware Criminals can now use LLMs to automatically rewrite and mutate existing malware to bypass security controls, making it more difficult for defenders to detect and mitigate. This can occur multiple times until the code achieves a negative detection score. SEE: The alarming state of Australian data breaches in 2024 For example, a JavaScript framework used in drive-by download attacks could be fed to an LLM. This can be used to modify the code by renaming variables, inserting code, or removing spaces to bypass typical security detection measures. 5. Jailbreaking AI Criminals are bypassing safeguards of traditional LLMs like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot to generate malicious content at will. Called “jailbroken” AI models, they already include the likes of FraudGPT, WormGPT, and DarkBERT, which have no in-built legal or ethical guardrails. Lenaerts-Bergmans explained that cybercriminals can use these AI models to generate malicious content on demand, such as creating phishing pages or emails that mimic legitimate services. Some are available on the dark web for just $100 per month. Expect detection and response capabilities to become less effective Lenaerts-Bergmans said AI threats may result in security teams having intelligence gaps, where existing tactical indicators like file hashes may become completely ephemeral. He said “detection and response capabilities will drop in effectiveness” as AI tools are adopted. Infoblox said detecting criminals at the DNS level allows cyber teams to gather intelligence earlier in the cybercriminal’s workflow, potentially stopping threats before they escalate to an active attack. source

By Allison Grande ( January 16, 2025, 5:16 PM EST) — The Federal Trade Commission took the rare step Thursday of revealing its referral to the U.S. Department of Justice of its complaint alleging Snap Inc. deployed an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that harmed young users, prompting incoming Republican Chair Andrew Ferguson to slam the allegations as an “affront to the Constitution and the rule of law.”… Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

This article is part of VentureBeat’s special issue, “AI at Scale: From Vision to Viability.” Read more from this special issue here. Just seven or eight months ago, when a customer called in to or emailed Baca Systems with a service question, a human agent handling the query would begin searching for similar cases in the system and analyzing technical documents.  This process would take roughly five to seven minutes; then the agent could offer the “first meaningful response” and finally begin troubleshooting.  But now, with AI agents powered by Salesforce, that time has been shortened to as few as five to 10 seconds.  “That’s a big [reduction],” Andrew Russo, enterprise architect at Baca Systems, told VentureBeat. He emphasized that, “for us, it’s not about how do we eliminate headcount, reduce staffing. Our goal is, how do we make sure the customer is back up and running as quickly as possible?” Closing time gaps, delivering faster time to resolution BACA Systems, a Michigan-based robotics manufacturing company, first implemented Salesforce in 2014, eventually adding Service Cloud to replace its “vanilla, or maybe more like strawberry ice cream, basic service cloud,” Russo explained. The company then did a “giant digital transformation” in 2021, bringing on Salesforce’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform.  Team members soon began working with predictive AI for sales and manufacturing forecasts; then the company evolved to AI agents, implementing Salesforce’s Agentforce within the last year.  An initial key use case was service calls. Russo explained that about 57% of questions coming in from customers are hardware-related (for instance, a machine falling or requiring calibration).  Now, instead of having to sift through databases for previous customer calls and similar cases, human reps can ask the AI agent to find the relevant information. The AI runs in the background and allows humans to respond right away, Russo noted.  AI can also support preventative maintenance. For instance, a circuit breaker might be continually tripping, indicating that there’s a short in the wire that should be investigated, Russo explained. This could help eliminate ongoing issues that haven’t been resolved in the past.  “It’s all about how do we deliver faster time to resolution for customers,” said Russo. AI agents generating sales leads, handling customer inquiries Another critical use case is sales, because as a small company, Baca naturally doesn’t have hundreds of sales people or even dozens (in fact they have less than 10).  “We have a boatload of leads that we haven’t had time to actually make a reachout to,” said Russo. “Our goal is: How do we start to engage those?” AI can serve as a sales development representative (SDR) to send out general inquires and emails, have a back-and-forth dialogue, then pass the prospect to a member of the sales team, Russo explained. Bringing on additional salespeople to handle such tasks would require tens of thousands of dollars for salaries, but if AI can develop new deals, its upfront cost is “very easy to justify.” In coming months, the company plans to deploy customer-facing service agents that can interact with human users via text message to open and handle cases without initial need for human intervention. If the AI agent isn’t able to solve a problem, it will escalate the issue to a human rep.  The intent is, “How do we keep delivering more value to customers on the service side and create more deals on the sales side?” Russo noted.  Outside sales and service, Baca is using AI to generate emails, create receivables and craft “very stern collections letters” when required. Russo, for his part, is using the technology for part deduplication checking, leveraging retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) with prompt builders to detect duplicates to prevent bad data from porting into Salesforce.  There’s been little to no pushback from employees, he reports: The company started small, initially giving a select group of users access. Others then quickly began inquiring. “They actually started to beg [us] to give them access,” Russo noted. “No one’s scared of it; they like using it because it helps make their job better.” The company is keeping that deliberate, incremental approach as it further incorporates AI so it can remain agile. “Our goals are not changing, it’s just how we get there and the road we’re taking,” said Russo. “It’s a different road, it’s a better road — it’s the highway.” AI serving up savings for ezCater Corporate catering is more complicated than it might sound. There can be shifts in headcounts, food preferences and dietary restrictions as well as other logistical challenges. This sometimes has organizers at ezCater scrambling.  “Concierge agents have really struggled to keep up with the pace,” Erin DeCesare, CTO of the workplace catering platform, told VentureBeat.  But once the company implements Salesforce’s Agentforce, a customer needing to modify an order will be able to communicate their needs with AI in natural language, and the AI agent will automatically make adjustments. When more complex issues come up — such as a reconfiguration of an order or an all-out venue change — the AI agent will quickly push the matter up to a human rep.  “This is a huge cost savings for us,” said DeCesare, Another intended use case is “restaurant discovery” — that is, AI agents will be able to guide users to the best venue based on inputs about their food preferences, budget, location and other factors. This will be supported by data from millions of workplace food orders. “This is what NLP and AI is perfect for,” said DeCesare.  ezCater is initially incorporating AI agents in-house to assist concierge agents, and the human agents love it, she reports. “We’re giving them tools to be better, and be able to handle more calls.” There’s been a shift in the comfort level of engineers, too, as they are able to conceive of agents more structurally. “They can test and trust in a way that feels like software development,” said DeCesare. “It’s more like what they would expect in the software development lifecycle.”

新春快到，各大商場也會推出各種優惠吸引人流和顧客，位於觀塘的apm商場召開記者會，當中，新鴻基地產代理租務部助理總經理(推廣)馮穎欣小姐（相中左2）表示，蛇年農曆初一在今年1月底，與聖誕、除夕距離近，料節日消費情緒可保持至農曆新年，為零售業帶來另一波機遇。為把握商機，apm 今年新春投放推廣費逾港幣900萬，較去年增加10%，消費優惠獎賞的投資比例佔4成。 當中，特別針對旅客消費及吸納「一簽多行」帶來的客流，今年加大力度提早1月初開始在大眾點評推出「HK$500旅客大禮包」，鎖定他們來港的消費目標；另又繼續與商戶聯手、年初一起憑指定消費大派過千份價值HK$200的新春賀歲禮袋，商場則在1月中起推出多個新春獎賞，如鼓勵重複消費的印花賞、主打周末高消費的回贈等，消費滿額最高可賺HK$1,080餐飲購物優惠券，讓顧客愈買愈賺。 節日消費最受氣氛帶動，apm今年春節夥拍旅居西班牙藝術家Aleksandr Pushai，在中庭打造1,500 平方呎的「鴻運熊貓屋」，以港人及內地旅客最熟悉的國寶大熊貓為題材，提升觀賞投入度。藝術裝置呈現6隻大熊貓正在熊貓大宅準備過新年，並在6大場景，包括「6呎招財大熊貓」、「俏皮大熊貓爆竹迎春」、「大熊貓順風人力車」等，與顧客互動兼送上無限祝福。而裝置上另設AR拍照效果，顧客只要掃瞄在賀年場景四周的二維碼，即可進入照相館選擇相框，在鏡頭前化身得意的賀年熊貓吉祥物，並下載相片與家人朋友開心分享，同時亦為商場宣傳引流。 新春年宵會擴大一倍規模 此外，為提升場內的節日氣氛，每年一度的apm新春年宵會擴大規模至UC樓層，一站式齊集多個賀年精品、應節美食、潮流利是封品牌等，並增設HK$1慈善開運蘭花換領，方便各類顧客潮逛年宵市集、為蛇年辦年貨。為回應港人的過年餐飲需要，多間新餐飲品牌亦會趕在1月開幕，包括今天開幕的Mister Donut 九龍東首店、主打江浙菜的「綠茶餐廳」首間九龍店及太二老壇子酸菜魚首間九龍店。 多重線上線下優惠及禮遇，配合商場新年特色節日裝飾、主題年宵市集、年廿九晚倒數活動等， apm冀能進一步刺激人流生意，預計新春推廣期間 (1月17日至 2月16日共31天)，人流將較去年同期錄得雙位數升幅 ，生意額較去年升約10% ，當中手提及電子用品、賀年禮盒、特色餐飲及衣履商戶生意最受惠，可望按年有10%增長。 LinkedIn Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp source

Zack Hicks: DTS is a strategic function for our company, and in recent years, we’ve concentrated on moving towards a product and platform strategy that allows us to achieve economies of scale. Kimberly-Clark operates in more than 50 countries, and DTS has IT leaders in our business offices and manufacturing plants, which are typically located near our consumers. We also have several global digital and technology centers in strategic locations, including multiple sites in the United States, as well as Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Poland, the UK, and India. So we truly are a global company, with team members around the world. While we do have people that are regionally focused, the remainder of my roughly 1,400 direct team members are working on a global scope, for global programs. Part of our DTS strategy has involved realignment, with about 200 members of my central team re-focusing to be more aligned with the business functions. Most of those are Data and Insights professionals, to ensure our business can leverage analytics as fast as they need to, particularly around consumer, competitive, and internal data insights. We’re also hyper-focused on modernizing and leapfrogging our supply chain capabilities, with an eye toward potentially extending our supply chain into our commercial partners. That is a game changer in the CPG industry. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Colossal BioSciences has raised $200 million in a new round of funding to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth. Dallas- and Boston-based Colossal is making strides in the scientific breakthroughs toward “de-extinction,” or bringing back extinct species like the woolly mammoth, thylacine and the dodo. I would be remiss if I did not mention this is the plot of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park, where scientists used the DNA found in mosquitoes preserved in amber to bring back the Tyrannosaurus Rex and other dinosaurs. I mean, what could go wrong when science fiction becomes reality? Kidding aside, this is pretty amazing work and I’m not surprised to see game dev Richard Garriott among the investors. The big investor this time was TWG Global, a diversified holding company with operating businesses and investments in technology/AI, financial services, private lending and sports and media. The investor is jointly led by Mark Walter and Thomas Tull. Since launching in September 2021, Colossal has raised $435 million in total funding. This latest round of capital places the company at a $10.2 billion valuation. Colossal will leverage this latest infusion of capital to continue to advance its genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare. “Our recent successes in creating the technologies necessary for our end-to-end de-extinction toolkit have been met with enthusiasm by the investor community. TWG Global and our other partners have been bullish in their desire to help us scale as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said CEO Colossal Ben Lamm, in a statement. “This funding will grow our team, support new technology development, expand our de-extinction species list, while continuing to allow us to carry forth our mission to make extinction a thing of the past.” Colossal employs over 170 scientists and partners with labs in Boston, Dallas, and Melbourne, Australia. In addition, Colossal sponsors over 40 full time postdoctoral scholars and research programs in 16 partner labs at some of the most prestigious universities around the globe. Colossal’s scientific advisory board has grown to include over 95 of the top scientists working in genomics, ancient DNA, ecology, conservation, developmental biology, and paleontology. Together, these teams are tackling some of the hardest problems in biology, including mapping genotypes to traits and behaviors, understanding developmental pathways to phenotypes like craniofacial shape, tusk formation, and coat color patterning, and developing new tools for multiplex and large-insert genome engineering. “Colossal is the leading company working at the intersection of AI, computational biology and genetic engineering for both de-extinction and species preservation,” said Mark Walter, CEO of TWG Global, in a statement. “Colossal has assembled a world-class team that has already driven, in a short period of time, significant technology innovations and impact in advancing conservation, which is a core value of TWG Global. We are thrilled to support Colossal as it accelerates and scales its mission to combat the animal extinction crisis.” “Colossal is a revolutionary genetics company making science fiction into science fact. We are creating the technology to build de-extinction science and scale conservation biology particularly for endangered and at-risk species. I could not be more appreciative of the investor support for this important mission,” said George Church, Colossal cofounder and a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In October 2024, the Colossal Foundation was launched, a sister 501(c)(3) focused on overseeing the deployment and application of Colossal-developed science and technology innovations. The organization currently supports 48 conservation partners and their global initiatives around the world. This includes partners like Re:wild, Save The Elephants, Biorescue, Birdlife International, Conservation Nation, Sezarc, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Aussie Ark, International Elephant Foundation, Saving Animals From Extinction. Currently the Colossal Foundation is focused on supporting conservation partners who are working on new innovative technologies that can be applied to conservation and those who benefit from the development and deployment of new genetic rescue and de-extinction technologies to help combat the biodiversity extinction crisis. Tracking Progress on Colossal’s De-Extinction Projects Ben Lamm is CEO of Colossal Biosciences The first step in every de-extinction project is to recover and analyze preserved genetic material and use that data to identify each species’ core genomic components. In addition to recruiting Beth Shapiro, a global leader in ancient DNA research, as Colossal’s chief science officer, Colossal has built a team of Ph.D experts in ancient DNA among its scientific advisors, including Love Dalen, Andrew Pask, Tom Gilbert, Michael Hofreiter, Hendrik Poinar, Erez Lieberman Aiden, and Matthew Wooler. With this team, Colossal continues to push advances in ancient DNA through support to academic labs and internal scientific research. All three core species – mammoth, thylacine, and dodo – have already benefited from this coalescence of expertise. As an example, Colossal now has the most contiguous and complete ancient genomes to date for each of these three species; these genomes are the blueprints from which these species’ core traits will be engineered. The path from ancient genome to living species requires a systems model approach to innovation across computational biology, cellular engineering, genetic engineering, embryology, and animal husbandry, with refinement and tuning in each step along the de-extinction pipeline occurring simultaneously. To date, Colossal’s scientists have achieved monumental breakthroughs at each step for each of the three flagship species. In the last three years, Colossal’s first major project to be announced, the woolly mammoth project, generated new genomic resources, made breakthroughs in cell biology and genome engineering, and explored the ecological impact of de-extinction, with implications for mammoths, elephants, and species across the vertebrate tree of life. Woolly Mammoth De-extinction Project Progress The mammoth team has generated chromosome-scale reference genomes for the African elephant, Asian elephant, and rock hyrax, all of which have been released on the National Center for

Do You Know What Your Energy Takers And Energy Givers Are? Knowing what your energy takers and energy givers are is an important step in managing your personal energy and productivity. Energy takers are too much screen time, overthinking, clutter and mess, dehydration, sitting for too long, and setting unrealistic goals. Energy givers are sunlight, nourishing food, exercise, fresh air, music, meaningful work, and laughter. Source: Colby Kultgen   What About The Energy Takers And Energy Givers In Your Journey Portfolio? Each time a customer embarks on a journey with you, it can create or destroy value, not only for that customer but for your firm. Just like in our personal lives, some customer journeys are value-positive. They leave customers feeling like they’ve gained more than they’ve given: These are the energy givers of the journey world. Then there are the value-negative journeys — the energy drainers that frustrate customers and diminish their overall perception of your brand.   Optimize Journey Value For Customers And Your Firm: Journey And Journey Portfolio If you see too many value-negative journeys dragging down your overall value equation, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work: Identify the critical pain points, experiment with design changes, and find ways to turn those energy drainers into energy givers. Your customers — and your bottom line — will thank you. You must optimize value for the customer and the business on two levels: 1. An individual journey — what’s the value balance? As you work on journeys, always remember that a customer journey is a lifecycle, not a process: A customer journey is a customer’s paths and perceptions as they pursue a goal. Knowing the value of a journey for you and your customers is the first step in deciding how to manage the journey. Customer journeys are either value-positive, value-neutral, or value-negative. And that goes for your firm and your customers. If the journey is value-negative for a customer (e.g., a lot of extraneous friction), they might not complete it. As a result, you might consider process improvements to make it easier. You’ll most likely make that decision only if you think that the changed journey remains value-positive for you (e.g., higher completion). 2. A journey portfolio — what’s the journey’s role in the value of the portfolio? You must optimize value for the overall portfolio, not just for individual journeys. A journey portfolio comprises all the customer journeys in which your firm plays a meaningful role. Each individual journey can change a customer’s value perceptions of the overall journey portfolio and of your firm. That’s the “piggy bank” we show above. Value-positive journeys are deposits, and value-negative journeys are withdrawals. This also applies to the value for your firm: There are journeys that replenish the overall business value and those that deplete it. For example, a bank optimizing the account-opening journey in isolation might miss that it’s one of the first journeys that customers go on. As such, it sets the tone for the relationship and all following journeys. By considering the portfolio, the bank may invest more in the onboarding journey. Even more than what the bank gets out of it immediately, knowing the long-term benefits will make up for it. Want To Find Out More About How To Assess And Optimize Journey Value For Customers And The Business? If you are a Forrester client, we have two brand-new reports for you to energize your 2025 journey strategy! Reach out for a guidance session or inquiry with my coauthor and colleague, Maxie Schmidt, or with me. We have created checklists to help you assess journey value for customers and your firm. And we are “itching” to get practical and use this with you to energize your journey portfolio and strategy! source

Overview In this fascinating conversation, Harvinder Singh Banga, CIO of CJ Darcl Logistics talks how emerging technology like Generative AI and sound cybersecurity principles are being leveraged to bring their core philosophy of ‘Humanizing Efficiency’ to life. Catch the whole conversation, in this episode of CIO Leadership Live. Register Now source

By Andrew Karpan ( January 15, 2025, 9:58 PM EST) — The U.S. International Trade Commission has cleared a North Carolina solar manufacturer from a patent case, flipping an administrative law judge’s determination that a solar “trunk bus” transmission system infringes a rival’s patent…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source