Connect with us

Technology

Housecall Pro Launches Platform Updates to Enhance Growth, Efficiency, and Safety for Home Service Pros

Published

on

New features, driven by feedback from thousands of Housecall Pro customers, help streamline operations and enhance revenue potential even in the slowest seasons.

SAN DIEGO , Nov. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Housecall Pro, the premier software platform serving over 45,000 home service companies, announces today a rollout of new product features and enhancements that spotlight the company’s dedication to providing home service pros with the tools they need to streamline operations, improve efficiency and grow revenue.

“Our primary driver has always been to find and create solutions to the challenges home service business owners are facing, whether that’s daily challenges or even seasonal ones,” said Ian Heidt, President and Co-founder of Housecall Pro. “Thanks to feedback from more than 8,000 pros, we were able to prioritize the products and features that will help them the most. From attracting more loyal customers to getting through the slow season, our updates are designed with their needs in mind.”

Ongoing updates are intended to help users grow revenue, manage jobs, get paid and run their businesses more efficiently.

Several features have been added or updated, including but not limited to:

New and improved online booking tool: Customers can now book from any device, day or night, with the all-new free online booking tool, to help increase the number of bookings for contractors. This feature also simplifies recurring appointments with new integrations featuring Reserve with Google and Customer Portal.Dashcam + Vehicle GPS tracking: The latest update features 24/7 video monitoring for vehicles, allowing contractors to see what’s happening inside and out of their trucks. This feature also promotes driver safety by automatically recording clips of unsafe behavior and disturbances.Improved price book: Housecall Pro has introduced a new collection of common industry services to their price book featuring homeowner-friendly descriptions, giving service technicians a clear way to communicate the value they offer homeowners.Offline viewing for scheduling: Poor cell reception no longer hinders technicians from accessing scheduling data with the new offline feature. This feature allows technicians to access stored job data with minimal interruptions, even in areas with no Wi-Fi or cell reception.Pipeline improvements: Contractors can set up both text and email automations to ensure no customer or opportunity falls through the cracks. This improves efficiency and consistency by automating routine tasks, such as follow-ups and notifications, and ensures that communication with leads and jobs happen on a regular schedule. The bulk archive feature is another addition designed to reduce clutter by allowing contractors to quickly clear out completed or outdated items from their list.

The latest round of updates comes on the heels of Housecall Pros’ AI Team launch in May, which gave home service pros the opportunity to expand their capacity, thanks to on-demand artificial intelligence team members.

As Housecall Pro continues to evolve, more updates are scheduled including:

Housecall Pro Accounting.Optimized and segmentable invoice reporting.Improved interactive voice response (IVR) that assists in blocking spam

“Home service pros are some of the hardest working people on the planet,” Heidt said. “That’s why we continue to offer solutions that will help them streamline their operations, work smarter, provide for their employees and grow their businesses. Everything we do is to help home service businesses not only succeed but thrive. At the end of the day, that’s how we measure our success.”    

For more information about Housecall Pro, visit https://www.housecallpro.com/.

About Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro is a top-rated comprehensive platform that empowers home service professionals to save time, sell bigger jobs and provide best-in-class service. With tools for scheduling, dispatching, invoicing and more, Housecall Pro empowers businesses to focus on what they do best. Founded in 2013, Housecall Pro has been championing Pros to success through innovative product solutions and strong community support.

MEDIA CONTACT: 
Heather Ripley
Ripley PR
(865) 977-1973
hripley@ripleypr.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/housecall-pro-launches-platform-updates-to-enhance-growth-efficiency-and-safety-for-home-service-pros-302293475.html

SOURCE Housecall Pro

Continue Reading

Technology

commercetools Named a Leader in 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce as AI Reshapes the Market

Published

on

By

commercetools is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce for the seventh consecutive year.commercetools has been driving AI innovation on how enterprises build, operate and sell, including capabilities like Sphere, Commerce MCP and commercetools for Builders.commercetools is helping global enterprises modernize complex commerce operations and prepare for a future where both people and AI agents discover, shop and transact.

BOSTON, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — commercetools, the digital commerce AI company, today announced it has been positioned as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce. This marks the seventh consecutive year commercetools has been recognized as a Leader in the report.

As AI reshapes commerce, commercetools is expanding how it supports the enterprises who build and operate commerce experiences, and the shoppers who use them. Global enterprises including JD Sports, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Chemist Warehouse and Mirion Technologies are using commercetools to modernize complex digital commerce, accelerate growth and adopt new AI-powered ways of operating and selling.

“Commerce is moving from systems that simply respond to human instructions toward systems that can increasingly understand, decide and act,” said Doug McNary, Chief Executive Officer at commercetools. “We’re proud to be named a Leader for the seventh consecutive year. Enterprises shouldn’t have to choose between the flexibility they need today and the autonomy they’ll need tomorrow. Our focus is giving them the technology to support both.”

Over the past year, commercetools has introduced new products and capabilities designed to bring AI across the commerce lifecycle:

Sphere: Brings together commercetools’ AI-native infrastructure and agent governance through Commerce MCP into a unified platform for enterprises to build, operate and sell with AI.commercetools for Builders: Helps anyone build, extend and evolve enterprise commerce faster with AI.AgentSphere: Lets enterprises build and manage AI agents to run commerce operations and agentic shopping, with appropriate guardrails to do so safely and at scale.Modular commerce offerings: Gives enterprises the flexibility to start with the capabilities they need and expand over time, accelerating time to value without requiring a full commerce transformation upfront.Commerce Integration Layer: Centralizes integration logic behind customer-facing experiences. Storefronts, mobile apps and AI agents connect through a unified layer hosted and maintained by commercetools.Smart Data Modeler: Uses AI to accelerate product data modeling, helping teams build the right foundation faster and reduce time-to-launch.

commercetools’ customers include large enterprises across retail, manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare and telecommunications in markets around the world.

To learn more about commercetools’ position as a Leader, download your complimentary copy of the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant report today.

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce Platforms, Aditya Vasudevan, Penny Gillespie, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Mike Lowndes, 19 October 2026

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About commercetools

commercetools, the global digital commerce AI company, helps enterprises transform commerce for the AI era. Built API-native from the start and AI-first by design, our technology enables agentic shopping experiences, automates commerce operations and gives businesses the agility to modernize faster, innovate continuously and operate more intelligently.

More than 500 global brands, retailers and enterprise companies rely on commercetools to power their digital commerce. Together, they process more than $100 billion in annualized GMV, over 700 million orders and more than one billion customer records on our platform.

Media Contact: comms@commercetools.com 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/commercetools-named-a-leader-in-2026-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-commerce-as-ai-reshapes-the-market-302916761.html

SOURCE commercetools

Continue Reading

Technology

Phylo’s Biomni Lab to expand the use of AI agents in scientific research at Bayer

Published

on

By

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Phylo, Inc. announced today a partnership with Bayer to deploy Biomni Lab, Phylo’s agentic AI platform to accelerate scientific research and evaluation. 

Under the agreement, Phylo will provide Bayer with full access to its agentic platform that helps Bayer scientists bring together scientific literature, biomedical data, and analytical methods in one environment, reducing the manual effort required to assemble and assess evidence. The platform’s inspectable workflows preserve the context behind each result, allowing researchers to review the underlying sources, methods, and execution and apply their own scientific judgment. Bayer scientists will gain access to Biomni Lab for workflows focused on assembling literature and omics evidence for drug discovery.

“This partnership reflects our belief that AI should expand scientific curiosity, not just speed up routine work. Giving our scientists an AI partner that brings rigor to every step lets them explore more ideas, ask bolder questions, and find the insights that move drug discovery forward, ultimately accelerating the pace at which we can bring new medicines to patients,” said Sai Jasti, Senior Vice President, Head of Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Bayer Pharmaceuticals R&D.

“For agentic AI to matter in research, it has to earn the trust of the scientists doing the work. Bayer’s selection of Biomni Lab is a strong endorsement of the scientific rigor and AI capabilities we’ve built into the platform,” said Kexin Huang, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Phylo. “Our vision is an AI-native operating system for biopharma, where every scientist can direct a team of AI agents to pursue complex research questions. With Bayer, we aim to show what becomes possible when AI capabilities meet deep scientific expertise: more hypotheses explored, more discoveries made, and new possibilities for medicine.”

About Phylo

Phylo’s mission is to bring the best agentic intelligence to every biomedical scientist. Its enterprise-grade AI platform, Biomni Lab, is the first Integrated Biology Environment—a unified workspace where scientists collaborate with AI agents across literature research, experimental design, biological data analysis, and scientific decision-making.

Biomni Lab is now used by leading global biopharma, including Bayer, Chugai Pharmaceutical and Ono Pharmaceutical. Phylo is based in South San Francisco, backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Menlo Ventures.

For more information, visit phylo.bio. To learn more about Biomni Lab, visit biomni.phylo.bio.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/phylos-biomni-lab-to-expand-the-use-of-ai-agents-in-scientific-research-at-bayer-302917080.html

SOURCE Phylo, Inc.

Continue Reading

Technology

Sandler Partners Welcomes Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region

Published

on

By

New Hire Announcement | Independent Technology Distributor Sandler Partners grows its Sales Engineering team, adding Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sandler Partners, the leading independent Technology Solutions Distributor, announces the addition of Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region, further strengthening its dedicated sales engineering team and the technical support available to Partners in the West Region.

Bryan brings more than two decades of experience designing and delivering complex technology solutions, including enterprise and Cloud architecture roles at Lumen/Savvis and IBM focused on infrastructure modernization and customer success. His expertise spans automation, edge computing, disaster recovery, application performance monitoring (APM), and DevSecOps. In his role, Bryan will support Partners across the West Region, aligning early with them on strategy and leading thoughtful discovery to help them find the right fit for each client.

For Bryan, strong relationships and solid values guide his life and form the foundation of his professional success, a perspective that fits naturally within the Sandler Partners community. When he is not working, Bryan spends time with his family, including his wife, three sons, and a grandson, RVing, boating, and biking, along with pursuing his passion for freediving.

“Bryan brings the kind of hands-on experience our Partners value: he’s been in the room on complex deals and knows how to turn a customer’s needs into the right solution,” says Justin Marano, Chief Revenue Officer, Sandler Partners. “He came to Sandler for the freedom to work across best-of-breed Providers, and our Partners in the West will feel that right away. He’s collaborative, grounded, and focused on helping Partners win. I’m excited to have him on the team.”

“I’m excited to get to work alongside our Partners, helping them navigate complex opportunities and bring clarity to technical decisions,” says Bryan. “For me, it all comes back to relationships. When you build them on trust and shared values, the results follow for our Partners and their clients. That’s something that the Sandler community really embodies, and I look forward to getting to work with our Partners!”

About Sandler Partners
Sandler Partners helps empower its network of leading independent Sales Partners to deliver a comprehensive range of technology solutions to organizations worldwide, including Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Connectivity, Cloud, Colocation, Mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), and Continuity. Its community-focused approach enables Partners to identify the right solutions for customers quickly and objectively from a diverse portfolio of 220+ Providers. Partner sales agents, VARs, and MSPs gain access to an innovative suite of sales tools within the Sandler Portal—including SCOUT, Solutions Finder, Scout for Solutions, and the Marketing Center—several of which are AI-powered, all backed by a robust support network, dedicated Sales Engineering expertise, and rich marketing resources. Together, these tools and resources empower Partners to focus on what they do best: delivering quality, value, performance, innovative solutions, unmatched expertise, and exceptional service to their clients. Members of the Sandler Partners community also benefit from the industry’s strongest negotiated agreements and a dedicated team committed to ensuring commissions are accurately identified, tracked, and paid. For more information, visit www.sandlerpartners.com.

Sandler Partners – Media Contact
Tina S. Dyksterhouse
tina@sandlerpartners.com
310-861-2295

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sandler-partners-welcomes-bryan-rias-as-director-sales-engineer-west-region-302916413.html

SOURCE Sandler Partners

Continue Reading

Trending