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TECHx
2 days ago
- TECHx
UiPath Names David Popovici Global Ambassador
Home » Tech Value Chain » Global Brands » UiPath Names David Popovici Global Ambassador UiPath, agentic automation, has announced Romanian Olympic swimming champion David Popovici as its new Global Ambassador. The company revealed that Popovici will attend and speak at several UiPath events worldwide. The four-year partnership will support his preparation for major European and international swimming competitions, including the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. David Popovici, a freestyle specialist born in Bucharest, gained global attention at the 2022 World Championships. At just 17, he became the first male swimmer in 49 years to win both the 100m and 200m freestyle events at the same championship. He also became the second-youngest swimmer to win the men's 200m world title. In the same year, Popovici won gold in both freestyle events at the European Championships. He broke the 100m freestyle world record and set a new junior record in the 200m. In 2024, Popovici improved on his fourth-place finish from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. He won gold in the 200m freestyle and bronze in the 100m at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Currently, he is training for his third consecutive Olympics and will next compete at the Singapore 2025 World Aquatics Championships. UiPath Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Dines commented on the partnership, saying it reflects the synergy between human excellence and technological innovation. 'What makes David a champion isn't just raw talent it's his ability to bring together every element that drives excellence,' Dines stated. He compared Popovici's precision, discipline, and perseverance to UiPath's vision of integrating people, AI agents, and robots through agentic orchestration. Popovici also shared his thoughts on the collaboration. He highlighted UiPath's commitment to innovation and global impact. 'UiPath is a place where innovative ideas are supported,' said Popovici. 'It feels natural to partner with a strong brand that has stayed true to its roots.' The company also announced that between September 29 and October 1, 2025, it will host the first edition of UiPath FUSION, a high-tech event for the global UiPath community. Popovici will join CEO Daniel Dines on stage at the event. Key highlights: Popovici will represent UiPath at global events for four years. He aims to compete in the 2028 Olympics and 2025 World Aquatics Championships. UiPath continues to align its brand with top global talent to showcase its values of innovation, discipline, and excellence. Image Source: Wikipedia
Arabian Post
4 days ago
- Arabian Post
Trump's Tariff Bombs Often Fail To Explode; Latest 500% May Also Fail To Fire
By K Raveendran President Donald Trump's latest volley in the global economic battleground — a proposal to impose a 500 percent tariff on countries that do business with Russia — marks the continuation of a pattern that has come to define his trade diplomacy: bold, blustering declarations followed by strategic backpedalling. The move, targeted at nations like India and China that have maintained significant trade ties with Russia, particularly in the energy sector, has raised eyebrows for both its sheer magnitude and its potential ramifications. But the most striking aspect of this announcement may not be the policy itself, but the growing predictability of its eventual unravelling. Trump's tariff manoeuvres, more often than not, start with a bang and end in a whimper. While he sells them as economic nukes, they tend to behave more like firecrackers — noisy, momentarily dazzling, but rarely resulting in lasting damage or transformative policy shifts. At the core of Trump's approach is a belief that tariffs are not just an economic tool, but a geopolitical weapon with near-limitless deterrence power. Much like how nuclear weapons were once seen as the ultimate equalizer and enforcer of peace through mutually assured destruction, Trump appears to view tariffs as a way to enforce American dominance by threatening economic devastation. His narrative is simple and characteristically combative: trade partners have been taking advantage of the U.S. for decades, and now it's time for them to pay up or face the wrath of an uncompromising American president. This weaponization of tariffs has not only disrupted decades of carefully negotiated trade agreements but also upended the norms of diplomacy, turning global trade into a game of high-stakes brinkmanship. The efficacy of this tactic, however, has always been questionable. While it's true that Trump has managed to extract some concessions from U.S. trade partners — including Japan's agreement to increase American agricultural imports, and a limited Phase One trade deal with China — these victories often came at a high cost. American farmers, manufacturers, and consumers have borne the brunt of retaliatory tariffs and supply chain disruptions. More crucially, Trump's tendency to dramatically announce tariffs only to retract or modify them under pressure has undermined his credibility as a negotiator. A Forbes report chronicling 22 such reversals paints a vivid picture of a president who relishes the drama of trade war more than its actual implementation. The 500 percent tariff proposal is a textbook Trumpian gambit — shocking enough to dominate headlines, vague enough to avoid immediate scrutiny, and flexible enough for a later walk-back. It is designed less to be enforced than to serve as a warning shot, a way to jolt countries like India and China into reevaluating their oil deals with Russia. However, the flaws in this strategy are manifold. For one, such a tariff would be nearly impossible to implement without causing collateral damage to the U.S. economy. India, for instance, is a major defence partner of the U.S., a huge market for American technology, and a crucial player in the Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at counterbalancing China. Imposing a crippling tariff on Indian goods would not only alienate New Delhi but also complicate U.S. strategic interests in the region. China, meanwhile, is too economically enmeshed with the United States to be bullied into compliance by tariffs alone. The 2018–2019 trade war, one of Trump's signature confrontations, illustrated the limits of tariff pressure. Despite rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs that disrupted global markets, the underlying issues — intellectual property rights, market access, and technology transfer — remained largely unresolved. What's more, the U.S. trade deficit with China continued to balloon even after tariffs were in place, suggesting that punitive duties did little to change structural imbalances. Beyond the practical difficulties of imposing a 500 percent tariff lies the deeper issue of Trump's inconsistency. His repeated flip-flops on tariff threats have eroded trust among both allies and adversaries. Trade policy, especially one as drastic as the one proposed, requires not just boldness but also predictability and consistency. Trump's track record offers little of either. His erratic tariff diplomacy creates confusion in markets, triggers unnecessary panic, and leaves trade partners skeptical about the durability of any agreement reached. The problem is not just that Trump wields the tariff like a sledgehammer, but that he rarely follows through when the real hammering begins. Initially, Trump's tariff threats were taken seriously — global markets tumbled, central banks scrambled, and foreign governments rushed to negotiate. But over time, as these threats routinely failed to materialize or were quietly rolled back, the international community has become more desensitised. The 500 percent tariff now risks being viewed not as a serious policy but as political performance art — a gesture more aimed at the domestic audience, particularly Trump's base, than at the global players it ostensibly targets. There's also a moral and strategic incongruity in punishing countries for buying Russian oil when the U.S. itself continues to engage in various economic activities with questionable partners for its own strategic or economic reasons. Attempting to enforce a one-size-fits-all moral compass through a blunt tariff instrument not only reeks of hypocrisy but also invites a backlash. Countries like India have made it clear that they will pursue their national interests, including energy security, with or without American approval. Threatening them with economic ruin only reinforces the perception of U.S. high-handedness and may push them closer to rival blocs, precisely the opposite of what American foreign policy aims to achieve. Moreover, the idea that tariffs could be the modern geopolitical equivalent of nuclear deterrence is, at best, flawed. Nuclear weapons, for all their horrors, have a certain strategic clarity: their very existence changes the calculus of war. Tariffs, on the other hand, are messy, slow-moving, and laden with unintended consequences. They rely on complex supply chains, market psychology, and domestic political tolerance for pain. Unlike a nuclear strike, a tariff war doesn't create immediate shock and awe; it unfolds in economic reports, unemployment lines, and inflation indexes. The damage, while real, is diffuse and often politically self-defeating. The 500 percent tariff is likely to go the way of many other Trump proclamations: a tweetstorm, a few fiery interviews, a week of market jitters, and then a quiet disappearance from the headlines, supplanted by the next attention-grabbing announcement. It is, in essence, economic theatre dressed up as grand strategy — a dramatic performance whose actors are growing weary, and whose audience has begun to leave before the final act. (IPA Service)
Campaign ME
4 days ago
- Campaign ME
The future is unified: marketing at the speed of experience
Picture a customer zipping through a brand's universe: spotting a post on Instagram, clicking on a website, placing an order while chatting with a bot about express delivery, and later tweeting about a delayed order – all in one day. Every interaction is make-or-break, and a single misstep could send that customer packing. As marketers, we're juggling a million touchpoints to deliver seamless, unified and personalised experiences that keep up with today's demanding buyers. Deloitte's 2024 research tells us 78 per cent of consumers want personalisation that delivers real value – think discounts or exclusive deals, not just generic suggestions. Unified Customer Experience Management (Unified-CXM) is the linchpin for turning this complexity into loyalty by helping brands keep up with today's channel-hopping, expectation-heavy consumers. The consumers today are a restless bunch, oscillating between social media platforms, websites, apps, and peer reviews, expecting brands to match their pace. They might discover you on TikTok, check reviews on Reddit, compare prices on Google Shopping, and then buy through Amazon. One delayed response here and one impolite exchange on X, and they're gone. Social media has become the new storefront, with 40 per cent of Gen Z kicking off product searches there instead of Google. In the U.S., social commerce pulls in upwards of $70 billion a year, and platforms like TikTok alone rake in $1 billion monthly. Customers are discovering and purchasing in one fluid motion, and brands must meet them in the midst of this whirlwind: Everything Everywhere All at Once. So what's the catch? Way too many brands are grappling with a tangle of disconnected tools – CRMs, social platforms, analytics- that leave them with disjointed information and frustrated customers. Multiple Forrester and McKinsey studies show brands with unified customer data grow revenue faster than those wrestling with silos. Unified-CXM fixes this by pulling data from social, web, and CRM systems into one view, letting brands craft interactions that feel intuitive. Say you're rolling out a luxe, eco-conscious fashion brand aimed at a niche crowd who value sustainability. You connect your digital channels to spot someone eyeing your summer collection on Instagram, then hit them with personalised offers via email or in-store. That kind of smooth, tailored experience hooks those selective shoppers, building loyalty and setting your brand apart in a crowded market. Then there's AI, the game-changer making these experiences possible. It's not just about automating tasks anymore; it's about real, human-like connections. For example, a beauty brand that lets customers virtually try on makeup through AI-powered tools or generative AI, which can handle entire customer journeys – from understanding a chatbot query to pulling up past orders and guiding them to checkout with a custom deal. Conversation is the new interface, the new way to shop, replacing click-based workflows for something that feels more natural. To make this work, brands need AI-native tools designed to optimise every step of the journey, from sparking interest to sealing the sale. Speed is another non-negotiable. Customers expect brands to move as fast as they do, whether it's resolving a complaint on X or jumping on a trending topic. Standard Chartered, for example, can streamline its customer service by integrating social platforms like WhatsApp, allowing agents to resolve enquiries in minutes with full context from past interactions. Or look at McDonald's, who noticed a social media buzz around plant-based diets. By quickly analysing real-time data, it rolled out targeted campaigns for a new vegan option, keeping it relevant to health-conscious diners. These brands show how real-time agility lets you seize opportunities and turn potential detractors into advocates. Trust is what seals the deal in this decentralised world. Customers don't just believe your ads anymore; they trust what they hear from peers, family, or influencers. Brands like Patagonia prove this, winning loyalty through transparent supply chains and zero traditional marketing, relying instead on authentic word-of-mouth. Your brand's narrative isn't just on your website; it's scattered across every touchpoint, shaped by voices you don't always control. Unified-CXM helps you monitor and steer these conversations, ensuring every interaction builds trust and reinforces your story. For marketers, this is a wake-up call. You're not just running campaigns anymore – you're steering the ship for growth. Today, 62 per cent of marketers say customer experience is now marketing's domain, not sales', putting you at the heart of how customers connect with your brand. Plus, 88 per cent of marketing leaders are on the hook for revenue goals. That means unifying data to predict what customers want, leaning on conversational AI to make interactions feel human, and moving fast on real-time insights. Case in point, Sephora. Since launching its AI-powered Sephora Virtual Artist chatbot in 2016, the beauty retailer has shifted from traditional sales to interactive, customer-focused experiences. This embrace of AI and digital innovation expanded its customer base, boosted brand loyalty, and grew e-commerce net sales from $580 million in 2016 to over $3 billion in 2022, a fourfold increase in six years. The old marketing playbook is gone, and that's not a bad thing. Fragmented tools and siloed efforts won't cut it in a world where billions of customers drop breadcrumbs of intent daily. Sticking with disjointed systems risks broken experiences and missed opportunities. Smart brands are moving to unified ecosystems that activate data across touchpoints, power AI-driven automation, and deliver consistent experiences. This is marketing's new frontier. As marketers, we've got to tear down walls between teams, ditch those one-off tools, and let tech work its magic. It's about leading with a clear plan, staying nimble, and tying it all to the company's big picture. We're at a turning point, and the future belongs to those who unify data, humanise experiences through AI, and respond in real time to turn marketing into a growth powerhouse. Choose transformation and turn the chaos of today's customer journey into loyalty that lasts. By Arun Pattabhiraman, Chief Marketing Officer at Sprinklr.
