Gushcloud is a force to reckon with in the influencer marketing space. Starting in Singapore as a social sharing platform in 2011 by Althea Lim and Vincent Ha, Gushcloud grew into a leading digital talent and media company with operations in 11 countries.

Over the 13 years of its existence, the company secured investments from GDP Ventures, Golden Equator Capital, KB Investments, Korea Investment Partners, and Kejora Ventures.

In this interview, Gushcloud Co-Founder and CEO Althea Lim discusses trends in the influencer marketing space, social media and digital marketing world, and the role of generative AI in this industry.

Edited excerpts:

Gushcloud positions itself as a connector between brands and influencers, but how do you ensure transparency and authenticity in influencer marketing, especially considering recent controversies surrounding fake followers and engagement?

At Gushcloud, strict policies ensure we only engage influencers with legitimate following and engagement. We run through these profiles via our own proprietary technology platform and cross-check them with various third-party platforms we have active partnerships with. Following that, we share their profile and statistics with our clients to check who amongst our talent roster best fits their brand.

Most importantly, we do not encourage nor help our influencers buy, engage, and interact with fake followers. Authenticity is critical in this business, and it is what drives the audience’s trust. Hence, our advice to all influencers we work with is to refrain from doing anything to disrupt that trust with their audiences.

With the increasing number of influencer marketing agencies in the market, what sets Gushcloud apart from its competitors? How do you maintain a competitive edge?

While we provide influencer marketing strategies and solutions for brands because we hold onto an exclusive roster of creators, Gushcloud is beyond an influencer marketing agency. In the last few years, we have pivoted to become a content and brands management group powered by the creator economy. We manage and finance content and brands alongside exclusive creators we work with.

Hence, our competitive edges are our network of 11 offices globally, allowing us to serve both brand and talent clients. Secondly, our content and intellectual property unit co-produces, licenses, and distributes content globally across platforms. And lastly, we co-develop and distribute our brands alongside creators via our commerce unit.

Trends and platforms constantly evolve in the fast-paced social media and digital marketing world. How does Gushcloud stay ahead of the curve and adapt its strategies to ensure maximum client reach and impact?

In the last few years, we have developed two units within the organisation, called Global Brands Solutions and Global Talent Solutions. Both are growing units where we place some of our best minds – to analyse key market trends, to project where this industry is headed alongside key platform players, and to keep testing out various new technologies to implement them into the company. By integrating these two units, we can give brand clients a substantial reach and impact based on their needs.

Can you provide examples of successful brand-influencer collaborations facilitated by Gushcloud that resulted in tangible business outcomes and return on investment?

Recently we launched V of BTS as the ambassador of Sinarmas (an Indonesian securities company). Gushcloud brokered that international partnership with the help of our Korea and Indonesia offices.

With V of BTS, the brand encouraged more young people in Indonesia to be an investor. It launched the partnership in March with an advertising campaign in Indonesia and followed it with a fan-meet called “Siminvestival Goes To Korea” in Seoul last June.

Also Read: Gushcloud raises US$11M to expand its digital celebrity representation biz into US, China

The TVC production resulted in a lot of buzz through capturing the aesthetic side of talent, and the tagline, including the brand name “Hey Sim” became viral among the audience.

During the launch, the brand achieved 550 per cent growth in social media (from 23,000 to 130,000), trending no.1 worldwide.

Gushcloud claims to co-create significant IPs in the content and event spaces. Can you elaborate on the IP creation process and share some notable examples of successful IP developed by the company?

We have a unit in the company under the content management department. Currently, our IPs are focused on entertainment and education –two areas that can help reshape how future generations can feel and think for the better.

Two of our IPs were on exhibition in Singapore. The first is Sneakertopia, the world’s largest sneaker exhibition, previously at the ArtScience Museum. It first opened in Los Angeles before the pandemic, and we licensed it and worked with a production company to reproduce it in Singapore. The exhibition did extremely well, and we are now on track to opening it up in Jakarta, Taiwan and Japan.

The second offline experience is Escape @ Science Centre, where we have three STEM-themed escape rooms now open for mystery solvers. It is open from Thursday to Sunday, 10:00 AM to 10:30 PM. We worked closely with the development team at the Singapore Science Centre for this project and are currently working towards licensing it out of Singapore. Beyond that, we are also working with owners of beloved IPs to license their IPs to recreate them into Escape Rooms.

Influencer marketing often involves navigating complex legal and ethical considerations, such as disclosures, endorsements, and privacy. How does Gushcloud ensure compliance with relevant regulations and industry standards?

We do not compromise on legality, especially because we have a lot of cross-border contracts. Accountability is key for us and our influencers, especially for paid collaborations and sponsored partnerships.

At Gushcloud, we work closely with the brand to ensure that there could be little or no miscommunication and misrepresentation of intention. We also stay away from paid influencer gigs that could have the possibility of being mistaken to be propaganda. At the same time, we also handle the due diligence of incoming brand clients on behalf of our talent today.

Building long-term relationships between brands and influencers can be challenging due to changing market dynamics and shifting audience preferences. How does Gushcloud cultivate sustainable partnerships and ensure continued success for its clients?

At Gushcloud, we believe in long-term partnerships. When we think about long-term partnerships for our brand clients and talent – it has to be a “win-win” situation.

The brands we work with must gain awareness that turns into engagements and conversions. The talent we work with must align with the brand and develop those results for the brand such that the brand becomes a long-term partner to the talent. That’s how we think about packaging and performance.

Beyond that, we also believe in providing high-quality service to talent and brand partners. At Gushcloud, we always say, “everyone wants to fly business but pay economy and Gushcloud aims to be the SQ of the creator economy”.

And lastly, at Gushcloud, we constantly innovate in the space with the data we are collecting, developing more sticky services such as content publishing and content commerce, creating more cross-border and platform solutions and creatively investing in more performance for our brands and talent.

Content creation and media production have become increasingly democratised with the rise of user-generated content. How does Gushcloud adapt its services to leverage the power of user-generated content while still providing value to its clients?

We have a unit within the company called Gushcloud Unscripted Content division. This is where we hire some of the industry’s top film producers and directors to co-develop and co-produce high-quality content alongside the content creators to be acquired by the streaming networks and studios.

Also Read: Influencer marketing strategies: Driving engagement and reach in Indonesia

We also have another division called Content Publishing, providing content optimisation, licensing and publishing services to multiple platforms. This allows the talent to produce a single piece of content but is distributed on multiple platforms, hence allowing the content to monetise more efficiently.

Measurement and analytics are crucial for evaluating the effectiveness and impact of influencer marketing campaigns. How does Gushcloud track and measure the success of its campaigns, and how do you ensure accurate metrics reporting to clients?

The measurement varies depending on client needs or requirements. We look into social media engagement and reach, hashtag performance, critical message awareness, and, most important, sales and conversion performance.

In the case of the partnership we brokered between Sinarmas and V of BTS, we also indicated our success with the number of new investors and the number of investments they received during the launch phase.

As the influencer marketing landscape becomes saturated, how does Gushcloud navigate the challenge of finding and working with authentic and influential content creators amidst the noise and competition?

We have built an internal data platform, which has effectively given us data on follower authenticity and the creator’s engagement rates, allowing us to know if the creator will have the ability and power to convert. The platform also informs us on which notable creators follow that particular creator and the data on them. We found huge success in making such informed decisions alongside the brands.

How does Gushcloud leverage advanced technologies like Generative AI to stay ahead of the curve?

Three ways:

1. By implementing AI in our operations and processes: we started using AI to increase our team efficiency and productivity and predict market trends. We also use AI to scout for new creators and will be using AI next to execute and develop campaigns.
2. Virtual Influencers: we have huge hopes for the Virtual Influencers industry and are using AI to bet big in the space. AI assists us with character and story development.
3. Licensing of rights: Imagine using generative AI to develop Snoop Dogg’s voice and have it sing nursery rhymes to your children. We are also big betters in that space.

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Image Credit: Gushcloud.

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Amidst the AI revolution, e27 presents a new series showcasing how organisations embrace AI in their operations.

Nick Eayrs serves as the Vice President of Field Engineering for Asia Pacific and Japan at Databricks.

Joining the company in January 2019, he currently leads the technical team of Data Engineers and Solutions Architects across the region. In his role, Eayrs offers thought leadership and guidance for implementing data and AI strategies at the C-level with major global customers.

In this edition, Eayrs shares how Databricks has embraced Artificial Intelligence.

Edited excerpts:

How do you perceive the AI revolution and its potential impact on your industry and workforce?

ChatGPT set off an awareness revolution last November when people could see and interact with AI, when it was already very much in our everyday lives – think Siri and your program recommendations on Netflix, among many others.

This sudden growing interest in Artificial Intelligence and large language models (LLMs) is reflected in what we have seen. The Databricks State of Data and AI report showed that the number of companies using LLMs has surged by 1,310 per cent between the end of November 2022 and the beginning of May 2023.

I’m excited about the AI revolution and its immense potential to make businesses and the workforce worldwide more productive and efficient. There is potential to discover lifesaving drugs quicker than ever with the help of AI; grocery retailers can reduce fresh produce wastage by correctly predicting the amount of fresh produce to stock up for different periods.

These are among the many other impactful AI use cases that improve our daily lives.

In what ways has your company embraced AI technologies to improve operational efficiency or enhance business processes?

Our company was founded because big data and AI are difficult problems.

Databricks is leveraging LLMs to build chatbots for our engineering teams — by training them with relevant proprietary data and manuals to understand our subject matter. Our internal chatbot is a helpful tool for our engineers to look for solutions that may otherwise take them much longer to solve.

On the creative front, our marketing teams are leveraging LLMs to help draft tweets so that our staff can quickly review the tweets.

Databricks has developed LakehouseIQ, a first-of-its-kind knowledge engine that continuously learns about your business, data, and relevant concepts. Most users will see this surfaced as a new assistant that helps them derive insights from their Databricks Lakehouse platform using natural language queries. It also provides intelligent search capabilities and allows for effective management/troubleshooting of user workflows.

LakehouseIQ also exposes all of these capabilities through an API so that you can build and power your own enterprise AI applications.

Can you share specific examples of how AI has been integrated into your workforce to streamline operations or drive innovation?

Beyond the specific examples that Databricks is using AI internally to make our workforce more productive, we also enable over 10,000 organisations all around the world with their data and AI:

• Financial institutions like Siam Commercial Banks use AI to modernise their loan application process in the financial services sector, offering instant loan approvals based on predictive analytics (transforming the manual evaluation, which used to take weeks).
• Car-sharing platforms like GetGo use AI to help with demand forecasting, fraud detection, and geospatial analytics in the transportation sector, optimising user experience.
• In the energy and utilities space, waste management companies like Cleanaway use AI to plan their route to deliver efficient waste and recycling services daily to millions of households and facilities.

What challenges or concerns did you encounter when implementing AI within your organisation, and how did you address them?

AI’s potential remains boundless. It is beneficial for organisations of all sizes because of its potential to provide value for internal stakeholders like employees and external stakeholders like customers but the key to AI is quality data.

Also Read: The value for biz lies in how humans, AI will enhance each other’s strengths: Mixpanel CEO

Our research with MIT Technology Review reveals that 72 per cent of the interviewed CIOs say that data is the biggest challenge for AI, and 68 per cent say unifying their data platform for analytics and AI is crucial. This reflects our conversations with organisations — the biggest challenge that enterprises struggle with is siloed infrastructure and disparate data platforms and tools, which are incompatible and challenging to integrate.

This is why Databricks pioneered the data Lakehouse, an open and unified data management architecture that combines the best of data lakes and data warehouses — so companies can effectively do both AI and BI on a single platform, maximising the value of AI.

How do you ensure transparency and uphold ethical considerations in using AI technologies within your organisation to mitigate privacy concerns?

Data privacy is a key concern for all companies intending to build their LLMs. Our customers’ first concern is this: ‘how can we build our own LLM models in-house without handing over our sensitive and proprietary data to a third party?’

That is why AI must be democratised so that every organisation — large or small, profit or non-profit — can benefit from the AI revolution while controlling how their data is used and keeping ownership of the value created.

Each organisation sits on a treasure trove — its data. This data only really has value when its business context is understood. This is why many organisations train LLM models in-house rather than handing their data over to third parties. With open-sourced LLM models that are now able to be used
companies can leverage these tools commercially to build their own LLMs on top of their data.

Also Read: AI has its advantages, but it can never fully replace humans: Asnawi Jufrie of SleekFlow

To do this, companies must have all their data in a unified platform like the Lakehouse. It enables businesses to carefully control their company-wide data and Artificial Intelligence development carefully, allowing them to better manage risks on one unified platform.

How do you ensure that AI technologies complement your workforce’s existing skills and expertise rather than replacing or displacing human workers?

AI is meant to enhance productivity and not replace workers. AI is not about job displacement but job augmentation.

In many instances, we will still want a human in the loop to oversee and check the output from AI while having AI do the mundane stuff more efficiently. AI is meant to solve specific business challenges and enhance productivity so employees can focus on their jobs more interesting, creative and high-value aspects.

How do you envision the future collaboration between humans and AI? What role do you see AI playing in augmenting human capabilities?

We partnered with MIT Technology Review and released a report on CIO perspectives on generative AI, and this is one of the many insights from CIOs across the globe:

• “We internally view AI/ML as being a helper, truly helping our people, and then allowing them to spend more time on other value-added activities.” — Cynthia Stoddard, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Adobe.

In many ways, Artificial Intelligence is not meant to perform extremely complicated work that requires a lot of planning fully automatically. Conversely, I don’t think there’s anyone whose job is just the super simple stuff that a language model can do.

What advice would you give to founders looking to leverage AI in their workforce?

There is a saying, ‘Garbage in, garbage out’, underscoring a vital principle in AI — that the quality of the given data determines the quality of AI’s output. The resulting AI models will likely be defective if the data is flawed, biased, or incomplete.

More importantly, if data is stored in silos and in disparate systems that aren’t compatible, companies will not be able to unlock the potential of the data and Artificial Intelligence fully.

This is where Lakehouse architecture comes in, an open and unified platform for data, analytics and AI.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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Atome Financial, a Singapore-based buy-now-pay-later company targetting unbanked and underbanked consumers, has renewed its US$100 million debt facility with HSBC Singapore.

The funds will help the fintech firm to expand its services in the Philippine market and develop new consumer financing products.

Atome entered the Philippine market in end-2021 by partnering with over 50 online and offline retailers across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and home & living. The Philippines presents enormous opportunities for the fintech firm as 34.3 million adults are unbanked (as of 2021).

Also Read: How BNPL can provide lower-income households with new opportunities

Launched in December 2019, Atome is a digital platform providing consumers across the region with flexible deferred payments through its mobile app. In addition, it offers digital consumer loans in Indonesia through the Kredit Pintar mobile app.

Cumulatively, Atome claims it has over 40 million app downloads and disbursed more than US$4 billion in loans.

Andy Tan, Head of Funding, Atome Financial, said, “The HSBC investment will help us expand especially in the Philippines, a key strategic market for us, in providing unbanked and underbanked consumers with easier, simpler, and more affordable access to digital-first consumer financing products.”

In May 2021, Advance Intelligence Group, the parent of Atome, announced over a US$400 million raise as part of its Series D round of financing. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus co-led the round, with participation from Northstar, Vision Plus Capital, Gaorong Capital, and EDBI.

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Image Credit: Atome

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Singapore-headquartered SaaS platform Boost Capital has secured US$2.5 million in a seed funding round from Village Global, Iterative Ventures, Hustle Fund, Epic Angels, Xcel Next, Insitor, and other prominent angel investors.

The firm will use the funds for market expansion, enlarging its product team, and initiating partnerships with new banks.

Founded in 2018 by Gordon Peters and Lucinda Revell, Boost Capital provides a platform that enables financial institutions to digitally onboard applicants for loans, savings, credit cards, and insurance quickly.

It utilises technology to bridge the gap between the informal channels, such as chat, preferred by emerging market customers, and the stringent requirements that financial service providers enforce for assessing the risk and return of each newly onboarded customer.

Also Read: Is fintech in SEA changing its focus for further development?

Utilising chat channels like Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp, the company’s technology provides services, including collateralised and uncollateralised loans, to clients with salary or business income, without requiring an app download.

Already in use by multi-market banks and e-wallets, Boost Capital claims that its technology has facilitated the digital application process for over one million loan and savings applicants.

Boost Capital was one of the ten finalists in the Top100 startup category at e27‘s Echelon Asia Summit this year.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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In the ever-evolving world of business, economic downturns are an inevitable part of the cycle. When bear markets cast shadows over traditional funding avenues, entrepreneurs and startups find themselves navigating through challenging waters.

However, amidst the uncertainties, a shining beacon of hope emerges — accelerators. These programs, designed to foster growth and provide support to early-stage companies, have increasingly become a strategic choice for startups in bear markets.

The bear market landscape: Challenges and opportunities

Bear markets are notorious for their dampening effect on investor sentiments, leading to reduced funding availability and heightened risk aversion. During these periods of economic decline, traditional financing channels such as venture capital may become scarce, making it challenging for startups to secure the much-needed capital to fuel their growth.

This shift in the funding landscape presents a unique set of challenges for early-stage companies looking to scale their operations.

However, with every challenge comes an opportunity. Bear markets provide fertile ground for innovation and disruption. As economic conditions change, consumer behaviours and market demands also evolve, creating new opportunities for startups to address emerging needs.

Techstars has shown that it can thrive in both upswing and downturn markets, recently announcing a US$150 million raise, further adding to the 3,500-strong portfolio. In such an environment, accelerators step in as an attractive option for entrepreneurs seeking mentorship, funding, and networking opportunities to propel their ventures forward.

Also Read: Acing in hackathons: What every tech enthusiast needs to consider

Accelerators: A catalyst for growth

Accelerators are programs that offer a structured and intensive approach to nurturing startups with the aim of accelerating their growth and success. Typically, these programs span several weeks to a few months, during which selected startups receive mentorship, access to resources, and funding in exchange for equity.

An estimated 4.5 per cent of companies going through Y Combinator have reached unicorn status. The accelerator experience is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the tools and guidance they need to build and scale their businesses successfully.

In bear markets, accelerators play an instrumental role in bolstering startups against the headwinds of economic uncertainty. By providing a structured support system, accelerators help entrepreneurs navigate through the storm and identify new avenues for growth.

The mentorship and expertise offered by seasoned industry professionals guide startups in making strategic decisions, adapting to changing market conditions, and capitalising on emerging opportunities.

Embracing innovation and adaptation

Bear markets are an ideal breeding ground for innovation. With traditional market dynamics disrupted, startups are forced to think outside the box, explore new solutions, and adapt their business models to thrive in changing environments.

Accelerators facilitate this process by encouraging startups to question the status quo, experiment with new ideas, and iterate rapidly.

Moreover, accelerators often foster a collaborative environment for new technology shifts, such as AI and Web3, bringing together startups from diverse industries and backgrounds. This diverse community of entrepreneurs fosters cross-pollination of ideas, allowing startups to learn from one another and gain fresh perspectives.

In a bear market landscape where uncertainty prevails, this collaborative spirit can lead to the creation of novel solutions and groundbreaking innovations.

Mitigating risk and building resilience

Startups in bear markets face heightened risks, as market dynamics can be volatile and unpredictable. Accelerators help mitigate these risks by providing startups with the tools to identify and address potential challenges.

Through mentorship and guidance, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions and develop robust strategies to weather the storm.

Also Read: The GEAR: A new accelerator programme for early-stage startups in the built environment sector

Furthermore, accelerators often offer access to a broad network of industry experts, investors, and potential partners. This is especially critical for underserved founders. This network provides startups with valuable opportunities to forge meaningful relationships and secure new business opportunities, even amidst challenging market conditions.

By building a strong support system, accelerators empower startups to become more resilient and adaptable, enabling them to navigate through the ups and downs of bear markets.

Paving the way for sustainable growth

Beyond the immediate benefits of mentorship and funding, accelerators play a crucial role in positioning startups for long-term success. By instilling a culture of innovation and providing startups with the necessary tools and knowledge, accelerators equip entrepreneurs to build strong foundations for their businesses. 

The learnings and experiences gained during the accelerator journey serve as a stepping stone for startups to achieve sustainable growth. The Open Campus Accelerator, a bold initiative by Animoca and NewCampus, represents a new generation of accelerators looking to back great companies in downturn markets. 

The relationships formed within the accelerator ecosystem, including connections with mentors, investors, and fellow entrepreneurs, continue to yield dividends long after the program concludes. In this way, accelerators offer startups not just a lifeline in challenging times but a path towards a thriving future.

In bear markets, the journey of startups can be riddled with uncertainties and obstacles. However, with the right support and guidance, these challenges can be transformed into opportunities for growth and success.

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Kopi Kenangan is now a popular brand in Indonesia.

What started in 2017 in Indonesia with a single product is now a unicorn with multiple products, including ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages, sweet bread, cookies, and fried chicken.

The F&B retail unicorn struggled to scale the business during the COVID-19 pandemic and had to shelve its geographic expansion plans. But it made some great moves to navigate the crisis, including opening grab-n-go stores at petrol stations. The company is now present in two more countries, Malaysia and Singapore and is eyeing more markets with US$333 million in its coffers raised from the likes of B Capital Group, Horizons Ventures, Kunlun, and Falcon Edge Capital.

e27 spoke with Rahmat Budiardjo, CFO of Kenangan Brands, to learn how the company’s strategies around packaging helped it manoeuvre the pandemic crisis to make it a strong brand.

Edited excerpts:

How hard was it for Kopi Kenangan to establish the brand? What unique strategy did you adopt to make it a well-recognised brand?

There are mainly two strategies.

I- We utilise cheeky lines and branding themed love, ex-boyfriend/girlfriend and lingering feelings with them. This caught on with the consumers, who found it engaging, interesting, and relatable, enabling us to attract new consumers.

Also Read: Kopi Kenangan joins unicorn club following a US$96M Series C fundraise

II- Excellent product taste, positioning and pricing:
1) we are one of the first movers of coffee milk with gula aren
2) we used the same full-sized coffee machines as Starbucks
3) we use premium brand ingredients, e.g., Greenfields for fresh milk and Monin for syrups (same as Starbucks)
4) affordable pricing: around half of what Starbucks would cost for a similar cup of coffee.

How many products does Kenangan currently have? Does the company plan to add more F&B products in the future?

We have a few brands now at our company:

i. Kopi Kenangan: Our original brand, with mostly a grab-and-go store concept with a smaller store footprint but delivering the highest quality cup of coffee at a very affordable price.

ii. Cerita Roti (bread) & Kenangan Manis (Cookies): delicious selection of ready-to-eat old-fashioned bread with locally inspired flavours and modern soft cookies with modern and internationally inspired tastes.

iii. Chigo x Flip: fried chicken (boneless, wings, and bone-in) served with rice and/or fries topped with sambal; an existing up-and-coming yet famous brand known for selling high-quality burgers that we acquired; later merged with Chigo into Chigo x Flip.

iv. Kopi Kenangan Hanya Untukmu: our latest expansion towards the ready-to-drink market, packaged in PET bottles and sold in modern trade & general trade nationwide in Indonesia.

What roles does the packaging plan play in a product’s wide acceptance? What was the thought process behind the design?

For RTD (Kopi Kenangan Hanya Untukmu), the bottle’s packaging plays a vital role in attracting consumers to look at and eventually buy our product from the shelf. We design our packaging with broken white background to stand out above all other products, mainly dominated by chocolaty colours. We believe that once consumers try our product, they will continue buying it.

As for the Kopi Kenangan brand, our packaging also plays a vital role in continuously building brand equity. Every cup sold contains our brand identity and style, further reinforcing our brand in the consumers’ minds.

Opening grab-n-go outlets at petrol stations during the pandemic was a terrific idea. How well did the new strategy work for the company during lockdowns? Do you continue to sell via petrol stations?

During the pandemic, we focused on opening stores in petrol stations, which resulted in an increase in petrol stores’ composition to 20 per cent of our total store portfolio (vs 6 per cent in 2019). The strategy went well during the pandemic:

i. Store productivity for gas station format was higher compared to pre-pandemic level by around 30-40 per cent,

ii. During the pandemic, petrol stations outlets generated 80-100 per cent higher productivity compared to other formats in malls and offices,

iii. Due to its light CAPEX investment, it generated a much shorter payback period.

Do you have plans to introduce more technologies like AI to enhance the customer experience and overall efficiency?

We need to embrace AI as we grow. While we don’t have set our eyes on what will be the best implementation, we are in the early stage of exploring the use of AI for picking locations for new store openings.

What are your long-term plans?

Kenangan Brands have a long-term plan to be one of the largest coffee retailers in the world. When the time comes, we want to expand in Southeast Asia and other regions.

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Image credit: Kopi Kenangan.

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CHOYS, a SaaS insurtech platform for corporate employees in Southeast Asia, has closed a US$1.1 million seed funding round with investors, including Wing Vasiksiri, Foremast, Antler, and Fintech Nation Fund. 

The company will use the money for its go-to-market strategy across Southeast Asia and to bolster its product development initiatives.

Founded by Sharon Li and Vanessa Chen, CHOYS aims to make work life more meaningful and humanised. To achieve this, it empowers organisations with well-being tools and a platform to make a “bigger impact” through better understanding of and connecting with their people. The firm uses data analytics to create customised employee benefit experiences. 

Also Read: We’ll start to see more solo-GP VCs emerge in SEA: Wing Vasiksiri of WV Fund II

Lead investor Vasiksiri said: “As CHOYS onboard more companies and employees, their ability to track healthy behaviour through qualitative and quantitative means will increase, improving their well-being scoring mechanism.”

Rufus Sorsa, Associate Partner at Antler, said, “Recognising the undeniable link between employee wellbeing and company prosperity, CHOYS offers a comprehensive suite of innovative solutions designed to nurture the relationships between modern workforce and organisations.”

CHOYS’s partners include Glints, Hook Coffee, Singlife, WhiteCoat, and Classpass.

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Image Credit: CHOYS 

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As generative AI becomes more popular, various industries begin to explore different use cases for the technology including e-commerce—an area where it has many potentials.

For e-commerce and digital solutions provider Intrepid, one example of how it leverages AI includes individualised product recommendations feature in chat, based on a consumer’s personal inputs, according to CEO Jasper Knoben.

“Other examples include optimising written content on marketplaces based on search queries, and generating very appealing key visuals like campaign banners or product images at scale. In general, it is an amazing productivity driver if harnessed properly,” he writes in an email interview to e27.

“You could argue that the personalised homepage content and product recommendations that you encounter on e-commerce marketplace apps is also a form of AI, as it is powered by algorithms that take large quantities of data into account, like your demographics, your previous browsing and shopping history and many other factors.”

Examples of brands that have utilised this greatly include beauty brands which offers features to enable instant, personalised and professional skin analyses and matching product recommendations without the customer having to visit a physical store.

There are certainly many untapped opportunities here.

Also Read: How Transparently.AI uses Artificial Intelligence to detect accounting manipulation, fraud

“The more data an AI model has at its disposal and the more advanced the model, the more sophisticated it’s outputs can be. We have only scratched the surface of how far AI can go, which is an exciting and a bit scary prospect at the same time,” Knoben says.

“With the anticipated advances in AI, could an e-commerce marketplace run semi-autonomously in a few decades from now? With AI powering marketing, demand forecasting, inventory planning, pricing, content optimisation and personalisation of content and recommendations? How will the role and contribution of humans evolve? The changes will be profound and much wider than most people consider today, but what that future will look like exactly and how quickly the advances will be remains to be seen.”

How we are using AI today

In the SEA e-commerce industry, there are are already various case studies on how AI is being implemented for optimisation and personalisation by leading e-commerce platforms.

Knoben sees that some markets are ahead from the rest in this matter.

“For new innovations in e-commerce, Thailand and Singapore are typically leading markets. Thailand because of the size of the e-commerce market and the curious nature of shoppers who love new innovations, and Singapore because it is a small but advanced market with sophisticated shoppers and therefore also a good testbed for innovations before expanding across SEA.”

Also Read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

But this does not mean that AI implementation in SEA is not without challenges. According to Knoben, there are three main barriers of entry for brands in SEA to implement AI in their e-commerce front:

Data quality and availability
“AI models require large quantities of high-quality data to train effectively. Brands need to ensure that they have access to reliable and relevant data sources. Data cleaning, integration, and management can be complex and time-consuming tasks,” the CEO says.

Infrastructure and scalability
“AI implementations require robust infrastructure and scalable systems to handle the computational demands of training and deploying AI models.” 

Talent and expertise
“Building and maintaining an AI team of AI specialists, data scientists, and machine learning engineers with the right talent and expertise can be a significant challenge, and expensive.”

Knoben also predicts that in five to 10 years from now, every global brand will have an in-house AI team.

“It is crucial that they know how to leverage AI as it will be a significant driver of efficiency, consumer experience and commercial performance in the future,” he says.

Also Read: RevComm’s MiiTel, Cloud IP phone powered by artificial intelligence, is changing how businesses engage customers

“The question is what is the most efficient set up to harness AI, where – like in e-commerce – I think a hybrid approach will thrive of having in-house experts that interface with the brands wider organisation and drive adoption and brand-specific innovations to maintain a competitive edge, while working with external partners to develop tailored models for specific use cases (like specific markets or platforms) as these players will have the scale to build the required expertise for each use case across many brands, and therefore should be able to leverage those economies of scale to offer more advanced capabilities at competitive costs.”

While the first wave of AI is still “very much” focused on generative AI, automation, and efficiency, Knoben believes that mass personalisation in marketing and e-commerce across the entire funnel to improve recommendations, user experience, and commercial performance will be the next frontier.

“Brands will want to have their own bespoke AI models, and agencies will increasingly shift from designing and executing campaigns, to developing the AI models that do this for brands. Whatever activities are performed by people at brands, enablers or agencies today to enable e-commerce, people will be developing and training AI models to do those activities for them in the future.,” he closes.

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Image Credit: Intrepid

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If you step back to consider just how big the internet is, it’s easier to understand why search engines lie at the heart of it. For decades, search engines have served as the primary gateway to the internet, enabling users to discover websites, articles, images, videos, products, and services and find the information they need.

The essential role of search has made it indispensable to digital marketing, an industry that is in the midst of being disrupted by generative AI applications for the better. 

Today, brands around the world use search engine optimisation (SEO) as well as search engine marketing (SEM) with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to generate traffic, encourage product discovery, drive conversions and more.

Though still in nascent stages, the integration of generative AI with search is poised to elevate SEO and create new playing fields for SEM — particularly in the diverse and digitally-first APAC region. As industry leaders like Microsoft’s Bing and Google lay the groundwork for this new paradigm, the time for brands to educate themselves on the inherent opportunities of generative search is now. 

A new era of personalised search   

When it comes to AI, innovations to search have been ongoing, with applications like Google’s iterative AI helping marketers drive efficiencies for many years now. But generative AI’s ability to converse with users and be trained on the fly has the potential to fundamentally change the way people use and interact with search. 

For example, Google’s SGE (currently an experiment in Search Labs) now uses AI on search queries to provide an answer. In Google’s case, the user’s entire Knowledge Graph would likely be deployed to ensure that generative AI provides the most relevant information for the user since Google prizes relevancy and trust above all else. SGE also cites sources when responding to the query, allowing users to click through to cited websites to learn more.

While this isn’t too different from current search capabilities, users can now also choose to stay on the search page to ask follow-up questions, continuing their conversation with the AI and narrowing the scope of their research until they find their desired solution. Each question helps the generative AI to build a deeply tailored and unique user journey funnel — all without leaving the Search page. 

Also Read: Rewriting the creation process of ad creatives using generative AI

To understand the opportunities this new search format offers to businesses, let’s consider an e-commerce use case. Say you are trying to decide which ski jacket to purchase for a winter trip; you could start with a broad question about different types of ski jackets, then ask the AI to compare the pros and cons of a particular type of jacket before finally asking it to find a retailer who stocks that jacket, and purchasing on their website. 

This change will have huge implications for Organic and Paid Search. For organic, instead of appearing at the top of the search results page, the objective could be to appear as one of the first sources cited by the AI.

Similarly, for Paid, the objective would revolve around being the first ad to be shown during the conversation, which means an ad would have to be deemed by the AI as being the most relevant to the user’s search experience.

While it’s still too early to tell how ad placements or AI optimisation will work, one thing remains certain — having relevant, rich content that is crawlable by the AI will be the key to “winning” in the era of generative search.

Optimising for generative search in APAC 

As one of the most populous and diverse regions that are leading the world in internet penetration and mobile adoption, APAC’s users and brands have everything to gain from the personalised and localised experience that generative search offers. 

Also Read: How to leverage personalised advertising in 2023

For example, Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine in the world, holding over 85 per cent of the global search market share. But in APAC, localised search engines like Baidu (China), Naver (South Korea), and Yahoo.jp (Japan) play integral roles in the daily lives of users in their respective regions. And some platforms are already ahead in the AI game. 

South Korea’s Naver, for example, integrated AI in late 2021 to support a significant shift in South Korean search behaviours becoming more “exploratory,” with users going deeper into topics that aligned with their interests and search intent. Naver saw a significant increase in these exploratory searches, accounting for nearly 65 per cent of all queries.

As a brand, now is the time to review your SEO and SEM strategies and consider if additional attention to localised content, ad budgets, or search engines will be beneficial to your targeting.

Considering APAC’s high rate of mobile adoption, it is also worth considering how you can optimise your strategies to be mobile-first. Region-specific nuances and search best practices will be key to setting up for success in the new era of generative search.

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Digital transformation in the food services industry in Singapore

Consumer behaviours are always changing and evolving, pandemic or not. Following the recent trends that the food services industry is facing, we look at some of the transformations that companies in the F&B sector have undertaken. 

Robots and machines in kitchens 

The use of robots and machines ensures quality and affordability, driving down the costs of keeping food fresh and increasing productivity. These machines work at a faster pace without getting tired and help ensure safety, for example, by using robots to cut the more difficult meats. 

Usage of operational technology 

Kiosks are fast becoming a common feature in the food services industry, with bigger chains like McDonald’s and KFC using them in most outlets. We even see ordering kiosks sprouting in food courts and confectioneries. These kiosks allow customers to place orders and complete payments. 

Certain restaurants have also deployed automation systems that allow guests to see information about their reservations, orders and promotions all under one platform. This eliminates the need for a human worker to clarify and confirm their booking or order details and allows guests to keep information in check. Such operational systems reduce human error, increase productivity, and reduce the chances of theft. 

Eco-friendly waste and packaging 

As consumers are increasingly focused on healthy meals and sustainability, brands have little choice but to keep up with this trend. F&B businesses in Singapore are highly encouraged to ‘go green’ by using biodegradable packaging or reducing the usage of disposables.

This awareness has been brought to the fore during dining restrictions in the time of the pandemic, where all orders were packed for takeaways or deliveries.  

Support for companies in the food services industry in Singapore

COVID-19 was the catalyst which showed businesses across all industries that digitalisation, innovation, and technology are necessary for survival.

Also Read: Conscious consumption is driving the trend in foodtech: Study

In Singapore, the government saw that it was critical not just to help companies tide over the challenging period but to help businesses emerge stronger from the crisis. To this end, the government played a key role in nudging businesses to digitally transform.  

In food services, for example, traditional hawkers were encouraged to accelerate their digitalisation efforts through on-ground visits by officers, subsidies, and support schemes. As a result, the Singapore F&B industry is now more readily adopting new tech and mobile applications.

Listed below are some of the support schemes that businesses in the food services industry may benefit from.

Hawkers Go Digital Programme 

This collaborative workgroup includes delivery platforms, hawkers associations, community partners, and government agencies, working together to support hawkers by promoting digitalisation, developing a sustainable commercial model, and increasing consumer awareness about delivery platforms. 

Energy Efficiency Grant 

The grant will provide up to 70 per cent support for SMEs to adopt pre-approved energy-efficient equipment in the following categories: LED lighting, air-conditioners, cooking hobs, refrigerators, water heaters and clothes dryers. Grant support for qualifying costs will be capped at S$30,000 per company per year. 

Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) 

The PSG was launched in April 2018 to support businesses in their transformation journey and covers sector-specific solutions such as retail, food, and logistics. Businesses can receive up to $30,000 in funding to improve business productivity through IT solutions and equipment. 

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