In an episode of the Certified Skills in AI and Tech Podcast, we interviewed Jake Athey, VP of Sales and Go-to-Market at Acquia, to explore how the company is revolutionizing digital experiences with AI. Jake shares insights on Acquia’s innovative strategies, their focus on Drupal, and how they are helping businesses streamline website management, enhance content personalization, and drive engagement through advanced AI technologies.
If we were to think of the world in terms of problems and solutions and technology as a solution to a problem in the world, what does your company have to offer when it comes to solving the world’s challenges?
Acquia is a cloud-based hosting platform, also with a set of tools and solutions designed for building, managing, and optimizing digital experiences. We have a particular focus on Drupal, which is an open-source content management system. Acquia delivers the universal platform for the world’s greatest digital experiences, making it possible for dreamers and doers to craft the digital world. While we’re known as the Drupal company specializing in content management and digital experience platforms, we also offer several other specialized marketing technology solutions. Acquia provides a user-friendly platform that simplifies website management from deployment to updates, allowing both technical and non-technical users to really maintain their Drupal sites more efficiently.
Acquia also specializes in multi-site management with organizations having multiple Drupal sites or a network of sites. Our Site Factory solution enables users to manage multiple sites from a single dashboard, streamlining the administration and coordination of a suite of sites. Acquia provides workflow and content management capabilities to facilitate collaboration and make it easier to manage those complex content strategies as well as personalization. Acquia offers personalization and customer journey tools that offer businesses the ability to tailor that user experience to various audience needs to really drive engagement and conversion. Acquia prides itself on being an open platform with APIs and integrations with other marketing technology solutions, enabling a more unified digital experience and the measurement of those experiences across tools and channels.
Acquia provides a specialized set of content management capabilities that Acquia added with its acquisition of Widen in 2021. DAM is that digital curator and the place to organize and share media files from that single source of truth and that will help to alleviate the digital chaos. PIM keeps all of those technical product specs along with the marketing content and digital assets all tidy and consistent everywhere that your customers shop and buy your products online and across channels. Acquia helps customers really turn up the volume on their engagement, ensuring the teams from their creative to the marketing to the sales really stay in tune with each other within one platform to help craft and create those captivating experiences.
When companies come to you, with XYZ challenge and you know you have the tools for it. What are the common challenges that you see on a regular basis?
The challenges we work to solve with customers include simplifying their Drupal website management, streamlining content workflows to help them accelerate time to market by reducing the manual tasks in the error-prone processes. Going from scattered assets or scattered information across many different systems to centralizing content assets and product information and digital experience creation and management within that one source of truth. Publishing brand-approved content across all channels to help propagate brand consistency and build brand equity. Monitoring content effectiveness across channels to understand how digital assets and product experiences are used and consumed.
When you think about AI, your services, and your product, where does AI fit into the picture And what was your sort of immediate reaction to the emergence of AI?
We have made investments in AI with our own technological capabilities also in the way that we organize as a company and the partners for which we align ourselves. Areas that we’ve been focused on with regards to AI in the last year include content creation and workflow optimization, content organization and content management, and content distribution and content personalization. We have integrated Open AI and ChatGPT to help generate and tag new content. We have integrated computer vision and AI-powered auto-tagging to make assets more searchable. We have integrated AI assistance to help support asset creation with the review, editing, and proofing and approval of digital content.
What kind of training are you expecting your clients to have? What are you experiencing now out in the marketplace with your client base now that AI is prominent?
Acquia harnesses AI to help ramp up digital experiences, speed up content creation, increase and improve ROI, and help drive more personalized engagement responsibly and ethically. We have developed a set of responsible AI principles, including inclusivity, transparency, safety, and human accountability. We are working with customers and partners to train and educate, as well as to co-innovate with practical application against real-world use cases. We help customers integrate their tech and find ways to automate with AI and data integration. We help customers integrate and innovate in their process. We focus on education and change management, which includes risk management.
What are the kind of things that Acquia is doing internally to upskill your employees?
Acquia is making a considered investment in this area to help all employees embrace AI. Each function has looked at the AI priority or initiative that we want to bring into our annual and quarterly objectives and key results. The company has been supportive and encouraging of various education and certification programs. The company has provided a safe AI sandbox, the AI playground, providing access to ChatGPT and other specialized tools for various functions. We are hosting an internal AI hackathon across the whole company.
If you have one piece of advice to give out to all the world, to the world out there, especially executives in all industries on AI, what would your message be?
Dive in, try it, start to learn it, identify the use cases, and get familiar with the capabilities because it’s a game-changer. It is the greatest technological advancement of our generation and will become a mainstay in our space for producing more highly personalized content that provides content experiences that are more relevant and compelling for the various audiences we serve. Approach it with a level of practicality and real-world value to how AI can help you achieve your desired outcomes as a professional, a business, and a consumer.
Kryterion’s Approach to AI-integrated Test Development and Delivery
At Kryterion, we clearly see the opportunities and disruption that AI is bringing to our industry. Our top priority is to provide clients with the best mix of security, innovation, service, and value in our tools for test development and delivery. AI is quickly becoming an integral technology in our products and direction. The path we are on with AI encompasses the immediate benefits it provides while maintaining a sharp awareness of its evolution allowing us to ensure our products continue to meet or exceed the needs of our clients.
Please contact us to set up a meeting so we can further discuss how important AI is to our future and our clients.
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