KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Infobip, the global cloud communications platform, today launched its latest report – The AI Advantage: How Leading Brands Thrive in a 24 x 7 Customer World – providing fresh insights into how Asia-Pacific’s hyper-digital consumers are reshaping expectations for always-on engagement, and how artificial intelligence is fast becoming the only way for brands to keep up.

Across Asia-Pacific, mobile connectivity has moved beyond saturation. Mobile penetration now exceeds 100% in nearly every market, with Hong Kong SAR at 264%, Singapore at 150%, Taiwan region at 145%, Japan and South Korea each at 140%, Malaysia at 130%, and Mainland China at 110%. Even in emerging markets like Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and India, penetration sits at or above 110%. This hyper-connectivity is driving a new kind of customer behavior: consumers move fluidly between super-apps like LINE, WeChat, KakaoTalk, Zalo, Viber and WhatsApp, sometimes switching platforms mid-conversation, and expect brands to follow them across channels with instant, context-aware, and culturally relevant responses.

But while customers never switch off, many businesses are still struggling to meet them where they are. The IDC-backed research underpinning the Infobip report reveals that 43% of Asia-Pacific businesses cite improving customer experience as their single biggest operational challenge, hampered by siloed data, disconnected channel strategies, and the cost of delivering round-the-clock support across dozens of markets, languages, and regulatory environments.

To address these challenges, the report highlights the growing role of AI technologies, including generative AI, agentic AI, and conversational AI, in helping brands simplify operations and deliver connected, real-time experiences across every customer touchpoint.

“The conversation around AI for customer engagement across Asia-Pacific has fundamentally shifted from ‘if’ to ‘how’ — ‘how deeply and how quickly’. The ‘always-on’ customer now has a baseline expectation of instant gratification, which traditional business models cannot simply scale to meet. Hence, the new competitive frontier is not just about having AI but about orchestrating advanced capabilities such as generative AI and agentic AI, to craft proactive customer journeys that build lasting customer relationships,” stated Nikhil Batra, Senior Research Director, IDC Asia-Pacific.

Velid Begovic, VP Revenue, APAC at Infobip, said, “Asia-Pacific isn’t just mobile-first. It’s mobile-saturated. People here live their lives across five or six different messaging apps, and they don’t think twice about jumping between them. They expect brands to jump with them, and that creates a zero-wait mindset where they don’t want to be queued, redirected, or asked to repeat themselves. Unfortunately, the reality is that businesses can’t meet that standard with outdated systems. Even early AI efforts like basic chatbots with no access to customer history miss the mark in delivering the hyper-personalized service today’s customers expect. AI has gone from an experiment to the engine room of customer experience.”

IDC predicts that by 2028, consumers across the region are expected to spend US$32 billion via AI agents that run independently on their smartphones to programmatically shop for goods, services and consider purchases. Businesses are racing to respond, with companies projected to invest over US$30 billion in AI infrastructure and platforms by 2027 to deliver the kind of personalized, always-on service customers now take for granted. According to IDC, enterprise AI investment in customer service and marketing across Asia-Pacific is growing at a compound annual rate of 35% through 2029, reflecting the scale and urgency of transformation. By 2028, 40% of mid-tier B2C brands in the region will be using autonomous AI agents to offer “white glove” levels of service once reserved for luxury customers.

“What we’re seeing now is a step change. AI is more than just an FAQ-answering tool. It’s an agentic AI coordinating a product exchange across messaging channels without a single manual handoff. It’s a generative AI composing a message that feels like it was written for one person, in their language, with their cultural nuance. Our job at Infobip is to take those possibilities and make them real for brands, giving them the infrastructure and local expertise to turn 24/7 engagement from a buzzword into a business advantage,” Begovic added.

Infobip is at the center of this transformation, powering businesses with its Conversational Experience Orchestration Platform (CXOP) – a solution that places agentic AI at the heart of every customer interaction. CXOP unifies messaging, automation, and AI-powered assistance within a single, intelligent platform that adapts to behavior, sentiment, and intent in real time. This solution sets a new standard, one where brands and users engage in intelligent, meaningful, and outcome-driven conversations.

The AI Advantage: How Leading Brands Thrive in a 24 x 7 Customer World report is available at https://bit.ly/40X54uy, offering APAC businesses a practical roadmap for turning AI from a buzzword into a true competitive advantage.

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected to over 9,700+ connections of which 800+ are direct operator connections. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.

Recent award wins include:

• Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) for the third consecutive year. In 2025, positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision (July 2025)
• Infobip named among Top 75 in Fortune’s Europe’s Most Innovative Companies 2025, placing it in the top 25% of all listed organizations (June 2025)
• Infobip ranked as a Leader in the Omdia CPaaS Universe Report for the third time (April 2025)
• Infobip ranked an Established Leader in the Juniper Research Conversational AI Leaderboard (Feb 2025)
• Infobip named a CPaaS Leader for the third time in the IDC MarketScape (Feb 2025)
• Infobip named one of the top CPaaS providers in Metrigy’s CPaaS MetriRank Report (Dec 2024)
• Infobip named number one among Established Leaders in RCS Business Messaging in Juniper Research’s RCS Business Messaging Competitor Leaderboard 2024 (Nov 2024)
• Infobip recognized as the number one provider in the AIT Fraud Prevention market by Juniper Research (Oct 2024)
• Infobip named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (March 2024)

Report highlights strengthened governance, continued sustainable transition,
and diverse initiatives that deliver shared value.

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — TCL Technology has released its 2024 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report (“the Report”), presenting the company’s achievements in governance, sustainable transition, and shared value initiatives. The Report underscores TCL’s commitment to embedding sustainability into its operations, advancing environmental stewardship, and driving positive social impact through innovative technology.

Wei Xue, Vice President and Director of the ESG Office of TCL Technology and Chairman of the TCL Charity Foundation, said, “Our 2024 ESG Report reflects the unwavering commitment TCL places on sustainability by embedding ESG into our core strategy and day-to-day operations. Our dedication to amplifying TCL’s positive impact on a global scale is further demonstrated through our becoming an official Worldwide Olympic Partner, aligning our values with efforts to inspire a better future.”

Continued Sustainable Transition: Digitalization Facilitates Progress in Carbon Reduction

TCL Technology is making significant strides in sustainable transition through a data-driven approach. The company’s newly launched Carbon Footprint Ledger consolidates emission data across its 5 core industries and 42 legal entities, enabling intelligent data collection and real-time performance tracking. The data provided by the platform serves as a solid foundation for achieving its carbon reduction and net-zero goals, and will further expand in the future to incorporate additional ESG core indicators and integrate AI-driven technology to link the platform with the financial system.

Recognizing the urgency of coordinated action, TCL Technology is also actively exploring the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), modeling a pathway toward future net-zero emissions. Importantly, Suzhou CSOT, a subsidiary of TCL CSOT, officially joined the SBTi as the company’s first pilot project in this initiative. With a clear roadmap, Suzhou CSOT is committed to reducing absolute emissions from its own operations by 42% and those from purchased goods and services by 25% by 2030, compared to 2023 levels.

The company also works closely with its partners to champion sustainable supply chains. In 2024, TCL CSOT hosted the “True Vision and Insight to All Global Supply Chain Conference”, engaging 355 suppliers to promote ESG-oriented governance and explore green pathways.

Strengthened Governance: Embedding ESG into Core Decision-Making

TCL Technology has strengthened its sustainability governance with a robust framework, ensuring ESG is seamlessly integrated into its business strategy. A significant milestone in 2024 was the establishment of the Strategy and Sustainability Committee, led by the Board of Directors. This serves as the highest governing body for climate-related matters and is supported by the ESG Working Committee as its executive arm. This tiered mechanism advances TCL’s climate governance to ensure effective ESG risk identification and mitigation.

For the first time, TCL Technology also conducted a double materiality assessment, engaging over 40 representatives including academics, regulators, NGOs, shareholders and employees to evaluate the impact materiality and financial materiality of key ESG issues across its value chain. Based on this transparent evaluation, the Report discloses the company’s first ESG issue matrix and materiality ranking, which further enhances TCL’s ability to effectively address stakeholder expectations.

Driving Social Responsibility: Delivering Value Creation for all Stakeholders

TCL Technology remains committed to a people-centric vision of creating shared value for society across all stakeholder groups. As a company that prioritizes its own talent base, the company has established multi-faceted initiatives to create opportunities for talent from diverse backgrounds. In 2024, TCL Technology hired 346 employees with disabilities, representing a sevenfold increase over 2023.

The company has also advanced its commitment to further empowering female employees through its “TCLforHer” initiative, establishing a women’s advancement framework where women are “seen, heard, and supported.” Furthermore, TCL Technology contributes to global communities through the TCL Charity Foundation, focusing on key areas such as charitable donations and cultural events.

Through strengthened governance, continued sustainable transition, and shared value initiatives, TCL Technology continues to fulfil its mission of “Building a Sustainable and Connected Future with Advanced Technology,” helping to create a greener planet for all.

About TCL

Founded in 1981, TCL—short for “The Creative Life”—embodies creativity in every aspect of life. As a leading technology company, TCL is dedicated to delivering innovative solutions—including TVs, smartphones, audio products, smart home devices, display technologies, and clean energy—that enhance customer experiences through TCL Industries and TCL Technology.

As of now, with 46 R&D centers and 38 manufacturing bases globally, TCL operates in over 160 countries and regions, cementing its position as a globally competitive smart technology brand. To further inspire greatness, TCL has become an official Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner in the Home Audiovisual Equipment and Home Appliances category.

Local innovations include the launch of AI Contract Agents and a new integration with IDVerse

SYDNEY, Aug. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Docusign (NASDAQ: DOCU), the Intelligent Agreement Management company, has today announced the upcoming plans for a local data centre, slated in the fourth quarter of this year.

Allan Thygesen, CEO of Docusign, speaking at Momentum25 in Sydney.

This strategic expansion will provide Australian customers with faster access to Docusign’s suite of end-to-end agreement solutions, enhanced performance and reliability – and offers customers the ability to store and process their agreement data within Australia, and to support customer compliance needs under local privacy laws and industry regulations.

The new data centre will host its Intelligent Agreement Management platform (IAM), empowering organisations across the public and private sectors to keep critical data onshore while accelerating their digital transformation ambitions.

Allan Thygesen, CEO of Docusign, said: “Regulated Australian businesses and government agencies are asking for strong data protection and compliance as they increasingly move to digital platforms. Our local data centre will give customers greater confidence that their information is secure and managed according to local standards, while enabling them to access innovation and productivity gains faster than ever before.”

Agreement management has long hindered business growth through fragmented tools and inefficient processes. Deloitte identifies poor agreement management as a A$3.13 trillion problem, with new research showing 77% of high-performing organisations attribute their success to mature, AI-enhanced contract management systems.

With poor agreement management impacting Australian businesses, the launch of the Australian data centre marks just one aspect of Docusign’s commitment to innovation. Today it has also unveiled significant enhancements to its Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) platform, introducing AI agents and an integration with IDVerse – a trusted identity verification method.

AI Contract Agents: A Smarter Way to Manage Agreements End-to-End
In Australia, Docusign is introducing the industry’s first purpose-built AI contract agent designed to accelerate workflows, reduce risk, and achieve better outcomes across the entire agreement lifecycle. Instead of contracts sitting in a queue waiting for manual review, Docusign AI contract agents can analyze agreements in seconds, flag risks, and surface issues requiring human expertise — transforming administrative bottlenecks into streamlined workflows that unlock opportunities for growth.

IDVerse
Docusign’s integration with IDVerse’s Digital ID service is a significant advancement for the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) market, delivering a powerful solution for identity verification (IDV). This partnership will enhance the Docusign platform by embedding a trusted identity verification method directly into the digital agreement workflow for use across every organisation and industry.

“Last year Docusign made a major pivot from being an electronic signature company to launching a new AI contracting platform, Intelligent Agreement Management. Since then, IAM has become the fastest growing product in our company’s history. With it we’ve created purpose-built AI that understands the language of agreements like nothing else in the market. It’s a leap forward in business technology that helps organisations reclaim lost value by transforming agreements into strategic levers for growth, risk mitigation, and smart decision making. Now with AI contract agents and IDVerse, we’re taking that potential even further, bringing automation to the entire agreement management process,” added Thygesen.

To find out more about Docusign’s latest agreement management solutions, visit here.

About Docusign
Docusign brings agreements to life. Over 1.7 million customers and more than a billion people in over 180 countries use Docusign solutions to accelerate the process of doing business and simplify people’s lives. With intelligent agreement management, Docusign unleashes business critical data that is trapped inside of documents. Until now, these were disconnected from business systems of record, costing businesses time, money, and opportunity. Using Docusign’s IAM platform, companies can create, commit, and manage agreements with solutions created by the #1 company in e-signature and CLM. Learn more at www.docusign.com/en-au. 

Media Relations Contact
Stephen Maher
PR Director
Docusign
stephen.maher@docusign.com

Aprille Lim
Senior Account Director
Sefiani
alim@sefiani.com.au

Photo – https://laotiantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/docusign_ceo_allan_thygesen.jpg
Logo – https://laotiantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/docusign_logo_2.jpg

Latest report shows user experience driving digital migration

SINGAPORE, Aug. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Visa, a world leader in digital payments, today announced results from its annual Money Travels: 2025 Digital Remittances Adoption Report based on responses from 44,000 senders and receivers across 20 countries and territories. The report tracks remittance trends around the world, including Asia Pacific, a key region in the $905 billion^[i] global remittance landscape.

Key findings in this year’s survey show digital applications as the most popular method for sending and receiving remittances, and ease of use, safety, privacy, and security as the top four user experience benefits driving such preference.

“Remittances have long driven growth across Asia Pacific, uplifting many economies in the region,” said Chavi Jafa, Senior Vice President, Head of Commercial and Money Movement Solutions, Asia Pacific, Visa. “The clear shift to app-based remittances reflects the region’s demographics, the growing prominence of digital payment modes, as well as user preferences for easy, safe and quick ways to send and receive money. This shift is an important one for banks, remitters and fintechs to note as it will shape how they engage and serve evolving consumer expectations.”

Key findings for Asia Pacific

Digital apps remain the most popular and are perceived as the fastest option

• Digital apps are the most preferred channel to send/receive remittances in Asia Pacific, with usage rates reaching its highest in India (74%/76%), the Philippines (74%/66%), and Singapore (70%/75%).
• Japan is also seeing steady growth, with digital app usage rising by 10% (58%/56%) in 2025 compared to the previous year.
• Over half of the respondents in the Philippines (73%/73%), Australia (58%/55%), Singapore (67%/66%), and India (55%/53%) perceive digital payments as fastest way to access funds (73%).
• Most Asia Pacific remittance users surveyed report experiencing no issues with sending/receiving digital remittance transfers across all Asian markets, most positively in Australia (48%/53%), Japan (37%/41%), Singapore (36%/37%), and Mainland China (38%/31%, rising significantly since 2024 at +13%/+8%).

Remittance rationale varies across the region

• Contributing to accounts/investments is a primary reason to send/receive remittances across several markets including Mainland China (45%/36%), Singapore (38%/33%), and Japan (27%/23%).
• Sending for general/specific humanitarian need is a key reason for remittances, cited by respondents in Mainland China (45%/33%), India (40%), Singapore (27%), and Australia (25%).
• Sending remittances for an unexpected need was highest in India (44%), the Philippines (41%), and Australia (31%).
• Receiving regular remittances was cited by approximately a third of respondents in the Philippines (39%), Mainland China (34%), and India (30%).

Security and convenience outweigh pain points such as fees

• Digital apps are viewed as the most secure way to send/receive remittances in Asia Pacific, with top responses from India (50%/53%), Australia (49%/45%), and Singapore (44%/42%).
• Ease of use to send/receive digital remittances was noted most by respondents in Singapore (51%/51%) the Philippines (48%/54%), Japan (47%/42%), and Australia (42%/40%).
• Digital app fees for sending/receiving remittances were highlighted as a top pain point across Asia Pacific, led by the Philippines (43%/30%), India (36%/33%), and Singapore (32%/32%).
• Similarly, high fees were noted as the top pain point for sending physical remittances across all markets, with top responses from the Philippines (45%/29%), India (41%/37%), Singapore (38%/30%), Australia (29%/30%).
• Inconvenience and long travel distances remain key challenges for sending physical remittances, with respondents in India (36%) and Mainland China (27%) citing travel as a barrier. In Australia and Singapore, 29% of respondents each noted the physical remittance process as inconvenient and time-consuming alongside concerns about high fees.
• Across most Asia Pacific countries surveyed, the perceived security of physical remittances was low (3%-6%), with Mainland China reporting slightly higher levels of confidence (10%-12%).

With one billion people relying every year on remittance services and platforms^[ii], Visa continues to innovate and build solutions to enable payments businesses to enhance operational efficiency in money movement and broaden financial access for their customers.

“Remittances have long been a lifeline across Asia Pacific, and they will continue to play a vital role in uplifting communities and livelihoods. At the same time, many small businesses are also beneficiary of remittances driving local growth in local economies,” said Rhidoi Krishnakumar, Vice President, Head of Visa Direct, Asia Pacific, Visa. “At Visa, we recognise the enduring purpose of our role in delivering remittances on behalf of our clients and continue to innovate and build solutions to enable more efficient, reliable and secure ways to move money.”

Visa works in collaboration with global remitters, such as MOIN, WireBarley, Money Chain World Remittance and EzRemit, to help enable efficient money movement through digitised remittances.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.