Articles by Jack M. Germain

The customer experience (CX) outsourcing industry was built on a simple equation: more agents, more tickets handled, and lower operating costs. But that equation is collapsing. The new currency is efficiency: fewer agents, smarter automation, and seamless integration. Yet here’s the rub: while AI promises to improve CX operations, many organizations are struggling to implement it effectively...

Live shopping platform Whatnot integrates directly with Shopify to help sellers expand into new channels and manage inventory and operations more efficiently Live commerce is becoming one of the fastest-growing channels in e-commerce. Last year, Whatnot surpassed $8 billion in live sales. The platform is adding more than half a million new users ev...

Many organizations delay commercial AI initiatives because their CRM data is incomplete, inconsistent, or poorly maintained. According to consultants at Blue Ridge Partners, waiting for perfect data often means waiting indefinitely The firm's research suggests that commercial teams can often generate value from AI without first fixing every data qu...

A startup called Uare.ai is betting that the next phase of artificial intelligence will center on individuals owning AI models trained on their own expertise, rather than relying solely on AI services controlled by major technology companies Rob LoCascio, founder of Uare.ai and former CEO of LivePerson, launched the company in 2023 to help users bu...

AI agents are moving beyond assisting with purchases to making them, raising new questions about trust, marketing, procurement, and customer experience in both B2C and B2B commerce As AI takes a more active role in purchasing decisions, company leaders must answer important questions about how they should rethink generative engine optimization (GEO...

Ghosting, mixed signals, and cold responses are not only deal-breakers in social settings. They also negatively impact the customer experience (CX) A recent e-commerce shopping report from business process outsourcing (BPO) company SupportNinja found that many brands unknowingly display CX red flags that push customers away long before they complai...

Earlier this year, eBay updated its user agreement to explicitly ban third-party "buy for me" agents and AI chatbots from interacting with its platform without permission. The move highlights a broader question facing online marketplaces as AI shopping agents become more capable: Who controls the transaction when software acts on the buyer's behalf?...

Pipeliner CRM relaunched in April as Coevera, reflecting the company's effort to reposition itself beyond traditional customer relationship management software The company says its redesigned platform combines CRM functions with training, professional development, and AI-assisted sales support. The goal is to place greater emphasis on salesperson d...

As resale marketplaces grow, a platform's ability to process and verify visuals at the point of upload is becoming increasingly important for maintaining buyer trust and listing quality According to the AI-driven visual e-commerce platform Photoroom, the U.S. second-hand market is approaching $73 billion this year. Two-thirds of consumers bought or...

Could visual avatars flip the traditional customer experience (CX) script by providing a more human-like exchange? Research from AI-powered CX firm Cyara shows a psychological shift in consumer attitudes toward AI, making customers more comfortable interacting with AI than with chatbots. According to the report, more than one-third (36%) of consume...

Early findings from Project Glasswing suggest AI could significantly change how tech companies and cybersecurity teams respond to vulnerabilities in open-source software. The initiative aims to counter AI-powered cyber threats by giving open-source maintainers access to advanced defensive tools AI research and safety company Anthropic introduced th...

Many digital catalogs still prioritize visual design over shopper behavior, limiting their ability to drive conversions Digital product catalogs have evolved far beyond static online brochures. What once mirrored print layouts can now support interactive shopping, analytics, and even in-catalog purchasing. Yet many brands still approach catalogs wi...

As AI agents begin handling more online transactions, many e-commerce systems still assume a human is behind every interaction. That disconnect is creating new challenges for fraud prevention, authentication, and personalization as businesses struggle to determine who — or what — is actually initiating a transaction That challenge is pushing so...

Law firms are confronting the reality that while artificial intelligence (AI) can draft a brief in seconds, it can also hallucinate legal theories convincing enough to pass traditional review filters undetected As generative AI becomes a staple in legal drafting, a new risk has emerged: fabricated legal reasoning rather than merely fabricated facts...

Open-source security experts say the recent GitHub Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw, CVE-2026-3854, may be patched, but it exposes a much bigger problem: implicit trust in the software supply chain The vulnerability is not an isolated incident. Some security experts regard it as a warning sign for the collapse of perimeter-based trust. It serves as...

Digital advertising can track nearly every click, but connecting ad exposure to real-world sales remains difficult. Even in an era defined by big data, many businesses still cannot reliably measure when digital campaigns lead to store visits, appointments, or offline purchases Adtaxi is helping brands connect media exposure to real-world outcomes t...

The friction between high-performance AI and traditional security boundaries is emerging as a major challenge in open-source development The software industry views agentic AI sandboxing as the answer to safely deploying autonomous systems. However, current approaches are fundamentally incomplete and fail to work when businesses run them at scale i...

E-commerce platform Minty has launched an AI-powered shopping companion that delivers deals and cashback offers in ChatGPT The move highlights how commerce features are starting to appear inside generative AI platforms. The company is addressing how products are surfaced in large language models (LLMs) by adding a transactional layer to the interfa...

I've had a love/hate relationship with productivity apps for years. Programs that claimed to help me master time tracking, project organization, or task management worked for me for a while — until they didn't. No single task manager, to-do list, scheduling tool, or project planner is a solid fit for all users Over time, I tested stand-alone and ...

As robots move into shared spaces, coordination failures can quickly become safety risks and operational bottlenecks. For these systems to operate safely at scale, they need a shared way to communicate location, intent, and behavior To address this need, Andrew Singletary, CEO of 3Laws, is leading an industry working group with Daniel Theobald, cre...