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SmallBiz.ai Launches to Help Small Businesses Turn AI Into More Sales, Lower Costs and Simpler Operations

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Built on ToolsInfo.com technology intelligence and AICost.ai cost and governance intelligence, SmallBiz.ai helps businesses reuse existing software, connect workflows, reduce tool clutter and deploy affordable AI and automation to accelerate their business growth

Book a $49 Automation Consult at smallbiz.ai/services and leave with a workflow automation plan customized to grow your business today.

IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SmallBiz.ai, launched today by Irvine-based CloudIntelligence.ai, is designed to help small businesses use AI and technology to increase sales, reduce repetitive labor and simplify operations, without adding another layer of disconnected software. The platform starts with the business outcome, then uses intelligence from ToolsInfo.com and AICost.ai to identify the most cost-effective combination of existing tools, integrations, open-source components, open-weight models and AI automation that delivers that outcome for the small business, with governance of data, privacy and intellectual property built in from the start.

SmallBiz.ai helps small businesses turn AI into more sales, lower costs and simpler operations with AI-powered automations for 500 small business types, backed by 275+ workflows, a 67K-tool knowledge base and 120+ AI cost decision engines. It is the automation destination for small business owners looking to accelerate growth in the AI age.

Twelve of the most requested small business automation centers at SmallBiz.ai:

Automation for HVAC contractors

Dental Practice Automation Center

Law Practice Automation Center

Automation for Accounting & bookkeeping firms

Automation for Property management companies

Restaurant Automation Center

Automation for Auto repair shops

Automation for Med spas

Real Estate Automation Center

Solopreneur Automation Center

Automation for Marketing agencies

Automation for the Gig Workers and Digital Economy

AI powered workflows for Small Business – automations for sales, marketing, daily operations, accounting, customer relationships, support & more are giving small businesses the critical competitive edge they need in today’s economy and even more so for future.

AI adoption for small business automation is becoming an integration problem. Industry research through 2026 tells a consistent story: roughly 80% of small businesses now use AI regularly, but fewer than one in five call it core to operations, and about a third cite lack of integration between their digital tools and systems. Only a small fraction, less than 10% of AI-using workers at small businesses, use it to automate workflows with minimal human involvement.

The question small business owners are left with is the one SmallBiz.ai was built to answer: what should I automate, with what, and how do I make it work safely?

The workflows are live. One of 275+ small business workflows on SmallBiz.ai, Turn Voice Notes Into Job Reports (https://smallbiz.ai/w/post-service-note-automation), turns a spoken post-service note from a nurse, plumber or technician into a structured record routed to its existing systems, modeled to save roughly 20 staff hours a month under its stated assumptions. The same workflow appears in two different SmallBiz.ai Automation Centers, the family clinic (smallbiz.ai/b/family-physician) and the plumber (smallbiz.ai/b/plumber), each mapping its workflows, tools and playbooks. All 275+ small business workflow blueprints and 500+ SmallBiz.ai Automation Centers are free.

The problem is familiar. A customer calls while everyone is on a job; nobody follows up. An estimate goes unchased and an invoice unpaid, while the business pays for a CRM, scheduling, accounting and AI subscriptions that do not work as one system. Small businesses do not need more technology; they need what they already have, and whatever they add next, to work together and produce an outcome they can measure: more sales, lower labor cost, faster service or simpler operations.

It starts by asking what kind of business you run, what you do in it and what you want to accomplish, then works backward, reusing existing software and deploying focused automation only where it pays for itself.

“Small business owners ask us one question: what should I automate that actually moves the business needle?” said Subramanyam Vdaygiri, founder of CloudIntelligence.ai. “Behind it are three more: will it grow sales or protect my margins, will it work with the tools I already run, and is my data safe?”

“So we built the answer: 275+ workflows across 500 small business types, on top of our vast tools knowledge base and the AICost.ai platform. To avoid tool clutter we build just the features a business needs as custom middleware rather than adding another subscription, and use proven open source where it fits, priced to implement and maintain for years, with security and governance built in. The phone gets answered, the lead followed up, the invoice paid.”

The whole small business automation knowledge base is free at SmallBiz.ai: the workflows, nearly 5,000 tools guides, checklists and comparisons, the tools integrations and the AvatarVA semantic chatbot that answers whatever an owner asks. SmallBiz.ai is a destination for every small business interested in implementing AI powered automations.

Living up to its name, SmallBiz.ai makes AI a core automation pillar: integrations now deploy quickly and with fewer resources than ever, and as AI prices fall it is helping small businesses get more customers, convert and keep them, save owner and staff time, improve cash flow, get paid faster, cut costs and labor, run the business better and reduce risk. Backed by AICost.ai, implementations stay affordable across the range: a simple step that turns a voicemail into a written message and a follow-up task, a RAG support assistant answering customers questions from the business’s own documents, or agentic automations running daily operations.

SmallBiz.ai draws on 67,000+ tools, 275+ mapped workflows, nearly 2,800 role guides, 500+ small business types and 88 curated free and open-source alternatives, with AICost.ai’s 120+ cost and governance decision engines evaluating economics, scaling, model choices and governance constraints. Each business type gets its own Automation Center, a living page with its workflows, top tools, playbooks and guides: a solo attorney starts at smallbiz.ai/b/solo-practice-attorney, with all 500 at smallbiz.ai/workflows.

Because the platform is built by practitioners for owners, engagement starts small and stays affordable: a $49 one-hour Automation Consult (credited toward any implementation), a $299 AI Business Blueprint that delivers a written plan with ranked opportunities and a 90-day roadmap, and a $29 per month Automation Advisor retainer. Workflow implementations are quoted after the consult, scoped to business size.

“The next wave of technology decisions will not be made only by people,” said Hanvish Vdaygiri, data scientist and AI engineer at CloudIntelligence.ai. “AI agents will increasingly select and connect tools on a business’s behalf. That requires machine-readable intelligence linking business outcomes to workflows and tool capabilities, then applying cost, privacy, security and governance constraints. We are building those connected intelligence layers across ToolsInfo.com and AICost.ai, with SmallBiz.ai applying them to the needs of small businesses.”

SmallBiz.ai is built on the CloudIntelligence.ai core intelligence platform of ToolsInfo.com (technology and role intelligence), AICost.ai (AI cost, policy and governance decision intelligence) and AvatarVA.com (semantic engine), with vertical applications for healthcare, legal and managed service providers.

Start free at https://smallbiz.ai. Partnership, strategic and corporate inquiries: mailto:partner@cloudintelligence.ai.

Additional Platform and Methodology Background

Five Ways SmallBiz.ai Is Different

Outcome-first, not software-first. Every engagement starts with the outcome and works backward; the answer may be a commercial tool, an integration, an open-source component, a narrow agent, or no new software at all.

Reuse before purchase, small builds over bloatware. Tools the business already owns beat theoretically better replacements, and custom builds stay at two or three features, not two hundred.

Intelligence at the business-type and role level. 500+ Automation Centers give each business type its own workflows, tools, playbooks and guides, and nearly 2,800 role guides do the same for the individual.

Cost and governance built into every blueprint. Every automation carries a cost estimate, scaling projection and human-approval points from the AICost.ai engines below.

Built for people today and AI agents tomorrow. The intelligence layer is machine-readable, linking outcomes to workflows, capabilities, tools, models, costs and constraints, so agents selecting technology for a business can act safely and economically.

The Problem: Work Falls Between the Tools

A company may own every capability it needs and still lose a customer because nothing connects lead, response, qualification, CRM, appointment, estimate and payment.

Independent surveys through 2026 put full integration of AI into core operations at roughly one in seven small businesses, while transaction data shows only about one in eight paying for a dedicated AI tool, and the large majority of those who did keep paying year over year.

And the highest-value automation is often the least glamorous. Industry payment research in 2026 found roughly six in ten small businesses carrying invoices overdue by at least 30 days and nearly half reporting that payment-processing times create cash-flow gaps even after customers pay. Manual processes are the leading cause of delayed payments, and the research associates faster follow-up and automation with fewer overdue invoices.

An automated lead to quote to invoice to reminder to payment to bookkeeping workflow is often worth more than a sophisticated autonomous research agent. A live blueprint, Turn Completed Jobs Into Invoices (smallbiz.ai/w/instant-quote-to-invoice-conversion), sends a payment-linked invoice the moment a job is marked complete, modeled to save roughly 15 hours a month. All 275+ blueprints: smallbiz.ai/workflows.

Methodology: Cost-Effective Workflows That Deliver Business Outcomes

SmallBiz.ai begins with what the business is trying to accomplish, what it already owns and what is missing. This makes it a platform for software consolidation, SaaS sprawl reduction, open-source business software adoption, custom AI agents, workflow integration and cost-effective AI implementation.

The decision chain:

Outcome → Existing Stack → Workflow → Capabilities → Reuse → Integrate → Automate → Measure

Principles applied at every step:

Use what the business already owns. A tool that is deployed, paid for and understood often wins.

Build narrowly. Solve the missing capability instead of buying 200 features to use three.

Let open-source software compete. Commercial software must win on merit, not by default.

The Two Intelligence Layers Behind SmallBiz.ai

ToolsInfo.com, the tool graph:

67,000+ evaluated tools across 5,700+ categories

275+ mapped business workflows with the tools and steps behind them

Nearly 2,800 role guides and 5,000+ tool selection guides, checklists and comparisons

88 curated free and open-source alternatives evaluated for deployment

A substitution principle: a tool the business already runs beats a better tool it would have to adopt

AICost.ai, the cost and governance graph:

120+ deterministic decision engines, from RAG to agentic AI to physical AI, with assumptions, confidence and dated evidence on every result

Agentic cost realism: retries, loops and growing context are priced before deployment; budgets, caps and kill switches make an automation stop at a cap, not at an invoice

Model strategy on evidence: frontier, open-weight and self-hosted models from global providers compared on capability, total cost, data boundaries, licensing and jurisdiction; no vendor pays for placement

A 20-module, 200-question governance framework covering data handling, privacy, intellectual property and human approval

Vendor evidence, not guesses: 39,531 documented governance facts across 4,148 vendors, kept as stated, not stated or contradictory

AvatarVA.com is the semantic engine of the CloudIntelligence.ai fabric: a multi-tenant knowledge engine on LanceDB vector stores powering hybrid semantic search and guided chat across SmallBiz.ai, ToolsInfo.com and AICost.ai, and semantic chat over 3 million research papers at AIPapers.ai.

Role-Based Intelligence: Every Role Has Its Own Best Stack

Most technology advice stops at the company level. SmallBiz.ai and ToolsInfo.com go one level deeper: nearly 2,800 roles, each with its own workflows, tools and guides, browsable at toolsinfo.com/roles. A hospital makes the point: a radiologist, a pharmacist and a nurse work in the same building but need entirely different stacks; role-level intelligence improves each person’s productivity while keeping every role current with AI.

One Intelligence Layer, Very Different Businesses

Cost figures marked * are illustrative, modeled with AICost.ai decision engines; actuals depend on volume.

A family clinic (healthcare). Two nurses lose hours daily to phone tag, intake and no-show follow-up; the outcome is intake done before the visit.

Booking in the existing EHR triggers an SMS confirmation and open-source digital intake; one custom AI component summarizes intake for the nurse, drafts reminders and flags non-responders to the front desk, where a human decides. Total added cost runs roughly $60 to $120 per month in AI and messaging.*

Governance is treated as part of the implementation, not an afterthought: intake text is PHI, so the blueprint keeps summarization inside BAA-covered or self-hosted infrastructure, verifies vendor evidence on retention, training use and BAA coverage, and requires a human before any non-templated patient message. Clinic Automation Center: smallbiz.ai/b/family-physician; healthcare-specific governance at healthitcost.com.

A 12-person managed service provider (MSP). Its clients adopt AI faster than it can track; the outcome is turning AI oversight into recurring managed revenue.

Per-client AI inventory, the 20-module governance assessment, findings pushed into the PSA the MSP already runs, cost attribution through its existing gateway, and a monthly branded report. Per-client budgets, turn limits and kill switches are set with CostWall engines before deployment, so a runaway client agent becomes a capped, explained line item, not a surprise invoice. Vendor questions are answered from the documented evidence base, never guessed. MSP playbooks: mspcost.com.

A small law firm (legal). Four attorneys want AI drafting speed without putting privileged material at risk.

Conflict check runs in the existing practice management system, intake and document assembly on Docassemble, an open-source legal platform, then a small custom router sends privileged text only to a self-hosted open-weight model while routine text uses an approved cloud model. Attorney review is a non-removable node.

AICost.ai engines answer, in dollars, when self-hosting beats per-token cloud pricing,* and vendor terms are checked for training and retention clauses first. Solo Attorney Automation Center: smallbiz.ai/b/solo-practice-attorney; legal-specific boundaries at legalitcost.com.

An independent journalist or blogger. The outcome: hours back each week and airtight source protection.

Interviews are transcribed locally with open-source Whisper, so audio never leaves the journalist’s machine; a small custom pipeline produces summaries, pull quotes and repurposed drafts, and the human fact-check and byline remain the approval gate.

Any cloud model touching drafts must carry no-training, no-retention terms; sources and unpublished work are the journalist’s most sensitive assets. Journalist role guide with use cases, tool comparisons and workflows: toolsinfo.com/role/journalist.

Across the examples, existing systems are preserved, custom builds stay narrow, and humans keep consequential decisions; how customer data and intellectual property are handled matters more than any feature list, so every blueprint is bounded by AICost.ai’s 20-module, 200-question governance framework.

Services and Pricing

Start small, prove value, add implementation where the economics make sense.

Service

Price

What it includes

Automation Consult

$49, one hour

Live working session; fee credited
toward any implementation

AI Business Blueprint

$299 fixed

Written plan: AI inventory, 10 ranked
opportunities, top 3 workflows,
integration diagram, risks with
human-approval points, 90-day
roadmap; credited if implemented

Automation Advisor

$29 per month

Ongoing advisory retainer

Workflow Implementation

Quoted after consult

Built-for-you deployment of selected
workflows, scoped to business size

The CloudIntelligence.ai Ecosystem

Core intelligence platform:

ToolsInfo.com provides technology, tool, role and workflow intelligence: the portfolio’s data layer.

AICost.ai provides AI cost, policy and governance decision intelligence through 120+ machine-callable engines.

AvatarVA.com provides the multi-tenant semantic engine behind chat, search and discovery across the portfolio.

Customer-facing applications:

SmallBiz.ai translates that foundation into outcome-first implementations for small businesses.

CostOptimization.ai extends cost intelligence to AWS, Azure and GCP.

ToolsInfo.com determines what technology can do. SmallBiz.ai determines what a business should use. AICost.ai determines what it should cost, what it may do and how the decision is governed. Together, the platforms connect business outcomes to workflows, workflows to technology capabilities, capabilities to tools and AI models, and those choices to economics, policy and governance.

About SmallBiz.ai

SmallBiz.ai is an AI and technology decision-intelligence platform for small businesses, designed to turn outcomes such as answered leads, booked appointments and paid invoices into practical, cost-effective implementations. Built on ToolsInfo.com technology intelligence and AICost.ai cost and governance intelligence, SmallBiz.ai helps businesses reuse existing systems, reduce software clutter, connect workflows, deploy focused AI automation and measure the results. Learn more at https://smallbiz.ai.

About CloudIntelligence.ai

CloudIntelligence.ai, based in Irvine, California, develops semantic technology, workflow, AI cost and governance decision intelligence for people and, increasingly, AI agents acting on their behalf. An NVIDIA Inception member. Partnership and corporate inquiries: partner@cloudintelligence.ai.

Media Contact

[Subu Vdaygiri]

CloudIntelligence.ai

[Subu.Vdaygiri@cloudintelligence.ai]

[(949) 378-7860]

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SOURCE CloudIntelligence.ai llc

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AXA and BytePlus sign strategic MOU Pioneering AI-Driven Transformation across insurance value chain

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44 minutes ago

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September 10, 2026

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Partnership focuses on co-innovating industry-specific solutions, enhancing customer intelligence, and accelerating operational innovation

HONG KONG, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AXA Hong Kong and Macau (“AXA”) announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with BytePlus Pte. Ltd. (BytePlus), a leading enterprise-grade technology solutions provider. The partnership marks a major milestone in integrating BytePlus’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLM) solutions into AXA’s operations, accelerating digital transformation and responsible AI adoption across the insurance value chain.

The MOU outlines a co-innovation framework focused on three key areas:  

Insurance Innovation and Future Capabilities: AXA and BytePlus will combine their respective domain expertise to research, design, and co-innovate pioneering, insurance-specific AI models and applications, intelligent agents, and decision-intelligence solutions. The collaboration aims to explore future-oriented solutions to transform end-to-end operational workflows across the insurance value chain – spanning knowledge management, underwriting support, claims processing, and multi-channel distribution.Customer Intelligence for Personalised Engagement: AXA will leverage BytePlus’s advanced predictive data analytics, consumer persona modelling, and AI-driven decision support, to deepen customer insights to enhance end-to-end customer journey and experience.    AI-Powered Creativity and Marketing Enablement: AXA will harness BytePlus’s advanced multimodal capabilities and generative AI technology solutions to establish a dynamic “creativity hub”. This will transform content creation and optimise time-to-market efficiency, enabling highly interactive, personalised customer engagement at scale.

David Ng, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, AXA Hong Kong & Macau, said: “This partnership represents a major milestone for our AI roadmap. Access to BytePlus’s cutting-edge AI capabilities like consumer persona modelling and predictive analytics directly elevates how we understand, anticipate, and serve our customers’ needs across every touchpoint. Looking ahead, by exchanging our deep insurance knowledge with BytePlus’s technology expertise and talent, we aim to co-innovate specialised, insurance-specific AI models that drive industry-wide transformation and further strengthen AXA as a regional centre of excellence for trusted digital innovation. As we continue to scale AI across our enterprise, we maintain the highest standards of Responsible AI – ensuring strong governance and customer protection at every step of our innovation journey.”

Elsa Wang, General Manager, BytePlus Hong Kong & Macau, said: “Hong Kong is a vital international gateway for enterprise technology deployment. Partnering with AXA—a global leader with extensive insurance expertise and an expansive footprint—provides the ideal platform to co-innovate high-impact, industry-specific solutions. Insurance is one of the most dynamic sectors for AI adoption, and AXA’s forward-looking strategy makes them an exceptional partner. Together, we look forward to combining BytePlus’s advanced AI solutions with AXA’s deep knowledge to set new standards for AI innovation in the regional and global insurance market.”

About AXA Hong Kong and Macau 

AXA Hong Kong and Macau is a member of the AXA Group, a leading global insurer with presence in 52 markets and serving 92 million customers worldwide. Our purpose is to act for human progress by protecting what matters. 

As one of the most diversified insurers in Hong Kong, we offer integrated solutions across Life, Health and General Insurance. We are the largest General Insurance provider and a major Health and Employee Benefits provider. Our aim is to not only be the insurer to provide comprehensive protection to our customers, but also a holistic partner to the individuals, businesses and community we serve. At the core of our service commitment is continuous product & service innovation and customer experience enrichment, which is achieved through actively listening to our customers’ needs and leveraging and investing in technology and digital transformation. 

We embrace our responsibility to be a driving force against climate change and a force for good to create shared value for our community. Our overall Sustainability Strategy, with emphasis on nature protection, inclusive protection and social resilience, provides a foundation for integrating environmental, social and governance considerations across our business. We are proud to be the first insurer to address the importance of mental health through different products and services and thought leading iconic research. Committed to shaping a sustainable future, we contribute in diverse ways through three distinct roles – as an investor, an insurer and an exemplary company.

THIS PRESS RELEASE IS AVAILABLE ON AXA’S WEBSITE: AXA.COM.HK 

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION AND CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements contained herein may be forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements that are predictions of or indicate future events, trends, plans or objectives. Undue reliance should not be placed on such statements because, by their nature, they are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and can be affected by other factors that could cause AXA’s actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Part 4 – “Risk factors and risk management” of AXA’s Universal Registration Document for the year ended December 31, 2019, for a description of certain important factors, risks and uncertainties that may affect AXA’s business, and/or results of operations. AXA undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise, except as part of applicable regulatory or legal obligations.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/axa-and-byteplus-sign-strategic-mou-pioneering-ai-driven-transformation-across-insurance-value-chain-302874655.html

SOURCE AXA Hong Kong and Macau

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TP Receives Frost & Sullivan’s 2026 Asia-Pacific Customer Experience Management Services Company of the Year Recognition for AI-Led Customer Experience Transformation

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September 10, 2026

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TP is recognized for combining AI orchestration, operational excellence, regional scale, and customer-centric innovation to transform customer experience management services across the region.

SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan is pleased to announce that TP has received the 2026 Asia-Pacific Customer Experience Management Services Company of the Year Recognition for its achievements in AI-led transformation, operational excellence, customer impact, and regional growth. The recognition highlights TP’s ability to evolve beyond traditional customer experience (CX) outsourcing by combining intelligent automation, human expertise, responsible AI, and outcome-focused delivery.

Frost & Sullivan evaluates companies through a rigorous benchmarking process across two core dimensions: visionary innovation and performance, and customer impact. TP excelled in both, demonstrating its ability to align its strategy with evolving enterprise demand while executing with scale, consistency, and market responsiveness.

“TP is helping shape the next phase of CX management by moving AI from experimentation into governed and measurable operations at scale. Its combination of AI orchestration, regional delivery depth, and operational discipline gives enterprises a practical path to transform CX while preserving the human judgment and empathy that remain essential,” said Krishna Baidya, Vice President, ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan.

Guided by a strategy centered on AI orchestration, responsible innovation, regional expansion, and customer outcomes, TP has strengthened its position across the rapidly evolving Asia-Pacific CX management services landscape. TP.ai, the company’s AI framework, orchestrates the hybrid and agentic workforce, bringing together multiple technologies including chatbots, agent assist, analytics, knowledge management, workflow automation, with data services, industry-specific applications and global TP Experts. 

Innovation remains central to TP’s approach. Its pre-built modular capabilities, including TP.ai Connect, TP.ai Assist, TP.ai Growth, TP.ai Collect, and TP.ai Data Services, enable enterprises to integrate AI into customer care and back-office operations while supporting flexibility across technologies, models, and hyperscaler ecosystems. The approach helps clients improve CX including speed and accuracy of support, productivity, automation, compliance, and program agility and success. TP’s responsible AI approach also incorporates governance controls, configurable guardrails, safety thresholds, escalation protocols, and risk monitoring.

“AI is changing the economics of customer experience, but the technology itself was never the point. The opportunity is in how enterprises rewire workflows, decisions and operating models around AI, data and human expertise — that’s the shift we talk about as Opportunity AI, and it’s where the measurable value sits. At TP, that’s the work we’re doing with clients across Asia-Pacific every day. This recognition from Frost & Sullivan is a credit to our teams for turning that opportunity into real impact,” said David Rizzo, President and CEO – APAC at TP. 

Across the region, TP combines offshore, nearshore, onshore, hybrid, and work-from-home delivery models to address diverse language, regulatory, cultural, and cost requirements. Its regional footprint supports growth in Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, China, Singapore, and the Philippines, while its local leadership model enables closer engagement with enterprise customers and market-specific needs.

Frost & Sullivan commends TP for establishing a high standard in competitive strategy, execution, innovation, and market responsiveness. The ability to combine global scale with local execution, AI-enabled transformation, and measurable customer outcomes positions TP at the forefront of the evolving CX management services industry.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the Company of the Year Recognition to an organization that demonstrates excellence in strategy development and implementation, resulting in measurable improvements in competitive positioning, customer impact, and market performance.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Recognition
Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Recognitions honor companies across regional and global markets that exhibit exceptional achievement and consistent excellence in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer experience, and strategic product development. Each recognition is the result of a rigorous analytical process in which Frost & Sullivan industry experts benchmark performance through comprehensive interviews, deep-dive analysis, and extensive secondary research. The goal is to identify true best-in-class organizations that are driving transformative growth and setting new industry standards.
Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:
Tarini Singh
E: Tarini.Singh@frost.com 

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

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SMiT unveils UWB-enabled CI+ 2.0 dongle and Presence-Aware TV platform at IBC2026

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2 hours ago

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September 10, 2026

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Joint solution combines SMiT secure TV-access hardware, TrueSense UWB technology, The Hashgraph Group’s BrandBoost product and Sofia Digital’s TV application expertise.

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SMiT, a global provider of secure TV-access hardware and solutions, will unveil its Presence-Aware TV platform anchored by a CI+ 2.0 USB dongle integrating Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology at IBC2026, which will be held from September 11 for September 14. The solution is designed for Free-TV and Pay-TV operators and broadcasters seeking privacy-conscious audience awareness, richer viewer engagement and measurable advertising opportunities on the main screen.

The platform brings together SMiT’s secure and deployable TV-access hardware, the TrueSense UWB integration layer for precise identity association and precise relative positioning, The Hashgraph Group’s BrandBoost TV Awareness product, and Sofia Digital’s TV application and user-interface capabilities.

As viewing and advertising budgets increasingly move toward digital platforms, Pay-TV operators need a reliable and consent-based way to understand engagement at the shared television screen. SMiT’s proposition turns the television from a reach-only device into an interactive and measurable surface while keeping the operator at the center of the customer relationship.

How it works

The UWB-enabled CI+ 2.0 dongle connects directly to a compatible iDTV without requiring a separate set-top box. Using TrueSense UWB technology, the system can securely associate an opted-in registered viewer’s smartphone or tag with the television and determine the device’s proximity and relative position with high precision. This enables the TV, the operator application and cloud services to coordinate personalized and interactive experiences.

SMiT pairs its hardware with BrandBoost, The Hashgraph Group’s TV Awareness product. BrandBoost combines privacy-conscious viewer awareness, gamification, targeted engagement and reward workflows. Developed around the UWB layer, allowing the platform to link an authorized digital identity to the viewer’s precise proximity and position relative to the television.

Sofia Digital provides the TV application, operator user experience and integration capabilities required to bring these services to screen.

Demonstrated use cases include:

Live sports ‘Guess & Glory’: prediction and polling experiences with rewards for correct answers.Ad Trivia: interactive overlays during commercial breaks, with credits, vouchers or other operator-defined rewards.Presence-aware personalization: content, menus and offers adapted to an opted-in registered viewer.Location-based authentication: an additional proximity signal supporting account security and password-sharing controls.

Where required by the operator, engagement and reward events can be recorded using Hedera DLT, supporting transparent campaign measurement and tokenized reward models. The combined platform is designed to help operators progress from broad audience estimates toward permission-based, outcome-oriented engagement and advertising metrics.

Live at IBC2026

Visitors to SMiT Stand 2.C36 will be able to experience a live demonstration in which an enabled smartphone approaching the television is associated with the TV session through UWB. The demonstration will show the combined hardware, viewer onboarding, TV interaction, gamification and operator cloud-management experience.

The architecture is extensible to personalized operator interfaces, live sports interaction, targeted advertising, loyalty programs and other presence-aware services. SMiT positions the dongle as a practical add-on for existing Pay-TV operators and conditional-access providers, supporting new services without requiring a complete replacement of the installed TV platform.

More information: www.smit.com.cn/engr/

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