announced yesterday
WhatsApp that it will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like feature, months after adding an unnecessary floating AI button to the main chat interface. In response, Signal president Meredith Whittaker has promised 'no AI clutter, no surveillance ads — whatever the rest of the industry does' for the independent nonprofit messaging app.
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Forbes
11 minutes ago
- Forbes
AI's Role In Shaping A Unified Online Presence
Akram Atallah is CEO of Identity Digital, a global leader in next-generation top-level domains and digital identity. The rise of generative AI has sparked widespread interest in its impact on many industries and businesses. For the domain name industry, AI's growing influence signals a shift that could bring exciting opportunities. Why? In today's fast-paced digital world, a brand's online identity and user experience are often the first impression a customer has. That journey begins and ends with a unified digital experience driven by domain names. And AI is here to help with that. A Unified Online Presence Is Key A seamless digital experience extends beyond launching a new website—it requires a cohesive and consistent presence across all platforms. To fully capitalize on a unique digital identity, brands must ensure uniformity across digital touchpoints, creating a streamlined and recognizable experience for their audience. To achieve this, centralizing a brand's online presence under a single, unique domain name—or multiple related domains for larger brands—is essential. This approach consolidates content—whether blog posts, product pages or customer service portals—into one authoritative hub. It also grants brands greater control over their content by reducing reliance on third-party platforms. This, in turn, mitigates the risks of brand disruption associated with these platforms' ever-changing algorithms and policies. Maintaining consistency across digital channels strengthens brand recognition and fosters deeper relationships with audiences. This, in turn, enhances customer trust and drives higher engagement. From an SEO perspective, a unified online presence is equally valuable. Consolidating all content under one domain improves search engine visibility, boosts organic traffic and enhances search rankings. This strategy is particularly advantageous for emerging businesses and startups seeking to establish a strong market presence and attract new audiences. AI's Role In Domains Now, AI has entered the domain picture, and its future looks promising. We are witnessing a new chapter in which AI empowers brands to unlock greater business opportunities through domain names. Advances in AI-powered tools are helping streamline many domain processes for brands, helping them launch and optimize their digital identities for customers faster and more effectively. For instance, AI is redefining the domain registration process, especially for younger businesses and brands looking to quickly and effectively establish a unified digital presence. By providing businesses with intelligent, AI-driven domain name suggestions, these tools help companies quickly identify the most effective domain names for their brand and audience. This speeds up the initial phase of establishing a digital identity, allowing businesses to get off the ground faster. Once a domain is up and running, advanced AI tools can help monitor activity, flagging potential issues and providing alerts about security threats and more. This type of domain management automation helps save time and reduce the risk of costly oversights or breaches. This is particularly critical for more established brands since they may have multiple domains to manage and oversee. AI can even help brands enhance their marketing strategies by analyzing user behavior, search patterns and sentiment on websites. By understanding what resonates with their target audience, businesses can improve their SEO efforts and fine-tune their content strategy. This allows brands to better engage with their audience and enhance their visibility online, ensuring they remain competitive in their space. AI Considerations And Key Challenges As we embrace these benefits, we must also stay mindful of potential AI pitfalls in the domain space. For example, transparency in AI processes is significant to understanding how decisions are made, fostering trust and accountability. Brands should look for AI tools that offer transparency in their processes, so they can feel confident in how domain decisions are being made. Businesses also need to consider the potential for data bias, as AI models can sometimes reflect the biases present in the data they are trained on, affecting their outputs. This could lead to skewed results that impact domain name suggestions or content recommendations. The age of the data is an important factor here, too. If the data is too old, AI may ignore recent trends in the data and output inaccurate information. The same goes for the possibility of false positives and negatives. While AI can help detect domain threats, there's still a chance that it could misidentify an issue or overlook one, impacting accuracy. Keeping an eye on these areas ensures we can harness AI's full potential for domains while managing its risks responsibly. The integration of AI in the domain industry marks an exciting shift toward greater efficiency, engagement and new opportunities for brands. We're only scratching the surface of what AI can do in this space. With these advancements, businesses can look forward to a future where they not only stay ahead of the curve but also thrive in an increasingly digital-first world. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ingram Micro says ongoing outage caused by ransomware attack
Ingram Micro, a U.S. technology distributing giant and managed services provider, said on Monday a ransomware attack is the cause of an ongoing outage at the company. The hack began on Thursday, after which the company's website and much of its network went down. Late on Saturday, the company said in a brief statement that it was working to restore systems so it can begin processing orders again. Ingram Micro on Monday alerted shareholders to the breach before markets opened in the United States. California-based Ingram Micro is one of the world's largest technology distributors, shipping tech and hardware to companies around the globe. It is also a managed service provider for its customers' clouds, effectively acting as an outsourced IT department for smaller corporate customers. The outage is reportedly affecting software licensing, preventing Ingram Micro's customers from using or provisioning some products that rely on Ingram's systems. No major ransomware group has taken credit for the breach yet, but Bleeping Computer reports that the hack was caused by the SafePay ransomware gang. It's not uncommon for ransomware gangs to name hacked companies and publish portions of stolen data in an effort to extort victims into paying ransoms. Ingram Micro spokesperson Lisa Zwick did not immediately return a request for comment. Do you know more about the ransomware attack at Ingram Micro? Are you a corporate customer affected by the disruption? Securely contact this reporter via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Summer gas prices are headed even lower, as Saudi Arabia accepts the 'lesser evil' of cheap oil
OPEC+ is boosting oil output, tanking prices as US summer travel peaks. OPEC leader Saudi Arabia is aiming to regain market share amid US shale competition and slow Chinese demand. Oil prices could stay lower for longer on OPEC's production ramp up, analysts say. Gas prices at the pump could get even cheaper just as Americans hit the highways for summer travel. Over the weekend, OPEC+ jolted markets by announcing it would flood the market with even more oil. Eight producers, including heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Russia, plan to ramp up output by 548,000 barrels a day in August — handily beating the 411,000-barrel increase analysts were expecting. The move sent oil prices tumbling on Monday, a sharp contrast to the surge in prices last month caused by heightened Middle East tensions. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were 1.4% lower at $66.05 a barrel at 12:08 a.m. ET, while international Brent crude futures were 0.7% lower at $67.83 a barrel. The price slump lands right as peak summer season kicks in, with millions of Americans hitting the road, and when demand for air conditioning soars. Gas averaged $3.16 a gallon in the US on June 30, down 11% from the same time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. About half the cost of a gallon of gas comes from crude oil. A $1-per-barrel drop in the price of crude oil would translate into a decline 2.4 cents per gallon of gas, according to the EIA. OPEC+ said it's lifting output thanks to "a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories." But analysts see something bigger at play. The output ramp-up is widely viewed as a bid by the oil cartel to claw back market share in the face of stiff competition from US shale and tepid demand from a prolonged slowdown in China. De facto OPEC leader Saudi Arabia, in particular, appears willing to stomach lower oil prices to preserve its dominance. This stance comes even as the International Monetary Fund estimates Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to be over $90 a barrel to balance its budget. But "softer oil prices may be the 'lesser evil' for Saudi, OPEC+, and arguably for the global economy, all things considered," Vishnu Varathan, Mizuho's head of macro research excluding Japan, wrote in a Monday note. Lower prices may help Saudi Arabia reclaim lost market share, score political points by answering President Donald Trump's calls for cheaper oil, and cement Riyadh's influence within OPEC and the broader Middle East. "To that end, softer prices in the interim is a palatable enough (albeit a tad bitter) trade-off, that is facilitated by inherent advantage of comparatively lower cost of production," Varathan added. Saudi Arabia's strategy for OPEC+ could keep a lid on prices for a while. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect another production boost of 550,000 barrels a day of oil for September. The bank is keeping its Brent forecast of $59 per barrel average in the fourth quarter of 2025 and $56 a barrel in 2026. Commodity strategists at ING wrote that oil supply would tip into surplus should OPEC+ boost production by the same amount in September. "This supports the view that there's further downside for oil prices," the ING strategists wrote. Read the original article on Business Insider
