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Canada and Germany Strengthen AI Cooperation Through Strategic Partnership Between DFKI and Mila

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New partnership brings together two leading AI research institutions to deepen scientific ties between Canada and Germany and advance trustworthy AI, agentic AI, AI safety, and AI for the energy sector.

MONTRÉAL and KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany, Sept. 16, 2026 /CNW/ — The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the Canadian research institute Mila have agreed to join forces in key sectors to strengthen German-Canadian AI ties. The partnership was formalized at ALL IN, Canada’s largest AI and technology event, in Montréal, where the leaders of both institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding in the presence of German Federal Minister for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation Karsten Wildberger and Canadian Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon. Building on recent government efforts to strengthen bilateral ties in applied AI and research, the collaboration focuses on joint research projects in key application domains such as the energy sector, as well as the development of trustworthy and safe AI systems and agentic AI.

Synergies for the Energy Transition and AI Safety

Both Germany and Canada face the challenge of transforming their energy systems into sustainable, efficient, and resilient structures. Artificial intelligence plays a key role here–for instance, in optimizing smart grids, forecasting renewable energy generation, and improving industrial energy efficiency.

The partnership between DFKI and Mila combines the complementary strengths of two leading global AI ecosystems. In addition to solutions for the energy transition, the partnership focuses on research questions surrounding agentic AI, AI safety, and trustworthy systems. Through targeted knowledge sharing, methodology exchange, and talent mobility, the partners aim to develop practical solutions and accelerate technology transfer into the Canadian and German economies.

Statements on the Cooperation

Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger, CEO of DFKI:
“The cooperation with Mila marks an important milestone for DFKI. Canada and Germany share the vision of human-centric and trustworthy artificial intelligence. By combining our research and transfer capabilities, particularly in critical application domains such as the energy sector, we create synergies that benefit science, industry, and society in Canada and Germany alike.”

Valérie Pisano, President and CEO of Mila:
“As Mila continues to expand its global reach, joining forces with one of Germany’s leading AI research institutes is an important next step. As a trusted partner, Germany, and more specifically DFKI, will enable us to advance cutting-edge AI research and translate it into high-impact industrial applications.”

Dr. Karsten Wildberger, Federal Minister for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation, Federal Republic of Germany:
“This partnership brings together two of the world’s leading AI research institutions with the clear goal to further develop safe and trustworthy AI systems. This collaboration not only accelerates AI innovation, but also ensures that artificial intelligence serves people, businesses, and society in Germany and Canada.”

The Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, Government of Canada:
“In a rapidly evolving AI landscape, progress depends on trusted partnerships. By bringing together two world-leading AI institutions, Mila and DFKI, Canada and Germany are strengthening the ties between our research ecosystems and advancing the development of safe, reliable AI. This collaboration will help accelerate innovation, deepen scientific exchange, and ensure that AI serves people, businesses, and societies on both sides of the Atlantic.”

About DFKI

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (DFKI) was founded in 1988 as a non-profit Public-Private Partnership (PPP). It operates facilities in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Bremen, Lower Saxony, and Darmstadt, labs in Berlin and Lübeck, as well as a branch office in Trier.

DFKI combines scientific excellence and commercially oriented value creation with societal impact. For over 35 years, DFKI has been conducting research on human-centric AI, guided by social relevance and scientific excellence across key future-oriented research and application domains of artificial intelligence. In the international scientific community, DFKI is recognized as one of the premier “Centers of Excellence.” Currently, approximately 1,400 employees from over 76 nations are researching innovative software solutions.

About Mila

Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio, Mila is one of the world’s leading AI research institutes, bringing together close to 2,000 researchers & professionals shaping the future of intelligence. A non-profit organization based in Montreal, Mila is recognized for its scientific contributions, global innovation partnerships, leadership in safe & responsible AI, and acceleration of AI venture creation. It was created through a unique partnership between Université de Montréal and McGill University to advance scientific breakthroughs for the benefit of all. Mila is supported by the Government of Canada, the Government of Quebec, and more than 150 industrial partners. For more information, visit mila.ai

SOURCE Mila – Quebec AI Institute

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Trip.Biz Launches Agent ONE, an AI Suite Transforming Business Travel — Cutting Booking Time by 90% for Travellers and Simplifying Oversight for Travel Managers

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–     Trip.Biz launches Agent ONE, at Transform 2026
–     Agent ONE is four connected, specialised agents supporting the end-to-end business travel lifecycle
–     Improves OBT adoption and reduces travel program leakage worldwide

SINGAPORE, Sept. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Trip.Biz, the business travel brand of Trip.com Group, welcomed 200 senior leaders from travel, procurement, finance, and HR to Transform 2026, held at the Mandarin Oriental, Singapore.

The half-day summit set out to challenge one of the most persistent assumptions in global travel management – that Asia Pacific is intrinsically too complex to manage consistently – while unveiling its new Agent ONE AI tool.

Transform 2026 opened with an address from Trip.Biz CEO Tao Song, titled “A New Day One for Business Travel”. Song set the tone for the afternoon by framing Trip.Biz’s next chapter around simplicity and trust, describing a company built on local depth across Asia Pacific and continuing to grow in Europe and around the world.

“Trip.Biz aims to become a leading global AI-powered travel management company (TMC) rooted in APAC and built for the complexity of global business travel”, said Tao Song. “We are building for the new world, in which digital adoption pushes the boundaries of what’s possible, and gives way to innovative tech solutions that help fix real-world challenges”, he added.

Complexity Isn’t the Region, It’s the Model

For multinational travel, procurement and finance teams, APAC has long been treated as the exception that breaks the global travel program – a patchwork of markets with different regulations, payment standards, languages and supplier ecosystems.

Trip.Biz’s position, delivered in the event’s keynote by General Manager, Southeast Asia Eugene Tan, is that this diagnosis is wrong. “The complexity isn’t the APAC region, it’s the model”, Tan explained during his “Rethinking APAC as ONE” keynote. “Every model on the market today breaks somewhere, because none of them delivers consistency and depth at the same time.”

The company points to three structural gaps that persist:

Legacy TMCs offer deep local expertise, but execution depends on the local office involved, resulting in different standards in every market.Digital-only platforms are fast and familiar for routine bookings, but go silent the moment something isn’t routine.In-house, self-managed programs offer full policy control, but no system to catch it when that control breaks down.

Each model delivers one piece of the puzzle, but gaps remain, costing global travel programs time, money, and control.

Trip.Biz’s answer is a single, digital-first, full-service platform, designed to give global programs consistency across markets while absorbing the complexities of APAC – from contracting and settlement to entities and supplier ecosystems – rather than passing them on to the traveller or the program owner.

In practice, this means a single enforced service standard across every market, one consolidated view spanning booking, approvals, and reporting, and a consistent end-to-end experience. This consistency has delivered a 90% SLA compliance rate and an 80%+ satisfaction score across the region Trip.Biz serves.

Product Director Terence Eng built on this during his “Closing Leakage with One Platform” keynote, stating that the model alone doesn’t fully solve the problem, a challenge that extends across global travel programs. “Even with one platform, leakage doesn’t disappear automatically,” Eng said. “To actually reduce it, that platform needs the right content and genuinely good usability. Without both, travellers will still book off platform, even with the right model in place.” Getting this right, Eng noted, is what ultimately increases adoption.

Launching Agent One: Built to Improve OBT Adoption and Fix Leakage

Trip.Biz CEO Tao Song took the stage to launch Agent ONE during his “Building Trust through Simplicity with Agent ONE” keynote, positioning it as the next step in closing the leakage gap. “A platform with the right content and usability gets you most of the way there”, Song said. “AI is how we go further; by continuing to improve the user experience itself, we can drive an even higher adoption rate.”

Agent ONE is a team of four connected, specialised agents supporting the end-to-end business travel lifecycle:

Planning Agent: ends the multi-site search struggle. Drawing on a broader, multi-source range of content, it converts natural-language requests into personalised, policy-compliant recommendations, understanding traveller preferences, trip purpose, and itinerary logic to simplify search and boost online adoption.Booking Agent: replaces friction-heavy TMC booking flows with guided, conversational booking, keeping more trips inside the OBT. Early performance targets show average booking time dropping from around 45 minutes to 2 minutes, a +90% efficiency improvement, while keeping bookings natively connected to Trip.Biz inventory, pricing, approval, and payment.Approval Agent: auto-approves low-risk requests and routes only exceptions to human review, cutting approval wait times from over an hour to under 3 seconds.Insight Agent: goes beyond static dashboards to proactively surface hidden data patterns and actionable cost-saving opportunities, often missed due to rigid, fixed-view reporting. Insight Agent generates a full travel analysis report, complete with leakage patterns and savings opportunities, in under 7 minutes, a process that previously took analysts up to a week using legacy tools.

The real opportunity for AI is to remove the complexity travellers experience. When AI can understand what a traveller needs, find the right content, and automatically apply company policy, the managed program becomes simpler and more trusted. This helps drive greater adoption and reduce leakage, removing the complexity that has stood in the way of managed travel’s original promise: one place for every trip. “Unlike generic AI assistants, Trip.Biz positions Agent ONE as a purpose-built AI solution”, Song said. “We drive greater business efficiency across each stage of the business travel lifecycle, and help solve the practical challenge faced by our industry.”

Trip.Biz positions the Agent ONE launch not as an incremental product update, but as a marker of how it intends to compete globally: combining the local depth required in complex markets with the consistency, simplicity and intelligence multinational travel programs increasingly expect worldwide. Agent ONE is now available globally across all Trip.Biz-supported markets.

END

About Trip.Biz

Trip.Biz, a digital-first full-service travel management company (TMC) powered by Trip.com Group, provides an all-in-one solution that streamlines business travel with human-centric technology and a people-first approach, offering extensive global content, exceptional service, and ESG solutions. As the fastest-growing TMC in the last few years, we have been trusted by over 15,000 multinational corporations and more than 1,000,000 small to medium-sized enterprises globally.

At Trip.Biz, we are dedicated to providing cost-effective and time-efficient travel solutions, empowering businesses to focus on what truly matters – growth and success. By saving on travel costs and time, our clients can invest more in their core operations and achieve their business outcomes.

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Meet ‘Shin Duty Free Sale’: Shinsegae’s New Mega Sale Event

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Four times a year, the new signature event brings affordable luxury, beauty, fashion and spirits to travelers at special duty-free prices.

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Shinsegae Duty Free is launching ‘Shin Duty Free Sale,’ a new signature shopping event designed to give travelers four opportunities each year to discover exceptional duty-free deals on luxury, beauty, fashion, spirits and more.

Held around Korea’s major holidays and extended travel periods, Shin Duty Free Sale brings together customer-favorite brands, best-selling products and exclusive offerings available only at Shinsegae Duty Free. The event will become a recurring quarterly promotion, giving both domestic and international travelers a new reason to shop with Shinsegae throughout the year.

The inaugural Shin Duty Free Sale runs September 17 through October 11, both online and at Shinsegae Duty Free’s Myeongdong store, timed to Korea’s extended Chuseok holiday period and the consecutive public holidays of National Foundation Day and Hangeul Day.

The name ‘Shin Duty Free Sale’ uses ‘Shin,’ a friendly shortened reference to Shinsegae Duty Free, to create a more approachable and memorable name for the company’s flagship promotional event.

Affordable Luxury Takes Center Stage

The inaugural event centers on “Affordable Luxury,” offering a curated selection of luxury brands and best sellers at attractive duty-free prices. The promotion spans fashion and accessories, leather goods, cosmetics and fragrance, spirits and other popular categories.

Online, a total of 3,800 products from 277 brands will be available at discounts of up to 70%.

Among these, approximately 2,200 highly sought-after cosmetics and fragrance products from 173 customer-favorite brands will be offered at discounts of up to 60% off.

Participating brands include major international beauty brands include names such as YSL Beauty, Lancôme, Kiehl’s, Prada Beauty (Fragrance), and Swiss Just, alongside THOME, a highly popular beauty device brand.

Yunjac: up to 40% offVIDIVICI: up to 49% offSwiss Perfection: up to 30% offAMUSE: up to 48% offDEWARSOME: up to 49% off

In addition, Shinsegae Duty Free’s exclusive brands will also offer major savings:

 The A Effect: up to 50% off Sunshuruup: up to 50% off

Beyond cosmetics and fragrances, the online sale showcases approximately 1,300 highly preferred products from 83 brands across fashion, accessories, and leather goods. To further elevate the shopping experience, a selection of 160-plus exclusive products and specialized promotional items from Shinsegae Duty Free’s sole brands will be featured, adding a distinct and differentiated value.

At Shinsegae Duty Free’s Myeongdong flagship, shoppers can explore approximately 290 products from 85 premium brands—including Sulwhasoo, The History of Whoo, Anua, and Biotherm—all at discounts of up to 40%.

To keep the selection fresh throughout the 25-day event, Shinsegae Duty Free is tailoring product assortments to each sales channel based on customer preferences and will rotate featured products and benefits during the promotion.

Special Experiences for Travelers

The inaugural Shin Duty Free Sale will also feature a series of themed promotions that go beyond traditional price discounts.

Through “Captain Ttager PICK,” a spirits-focused campaign created in collaboration with Captain Ttager, one of South Korea’s leading travel content creators with more than 770,000 YouTube subscribers, shoppers can discover special offers on popular spirits including Glenfiddich and The Balvenie.

The “Amore Beauty Shinsegae” Brand Week, presented in partnership with Amorepacific, will showcase best-selling products from leading brands including Sulwhasoo, HERA and AESTURA, along with Shinsegae Duty Free-exclusive sets and special purchase benefits.

Two Waves of Offers During Korea’s Golden Holiday Season

The inaugural Shin Duty Free Sale will be divided into two promotional waves to coincide with travelers’ holiday schedules.

Wave 1: September 17–30Wave 2: October 1–11

Featured products and benefits will change between the two waves, giving travelers additional opportunities to discover different products and offers depending on when they travel.

“Shin Duty Free Sale brings together the products our customers love—from luxury and beauty to fashion and spirits—along with exclusive experiences and offers that can only be found at Shinsegae Duty Free,” said a Shinsegae Duty Free representative. “We plan to make Shin Duty Free Sale a signature shopping event, returning four times a year around Korea’s major holidays and peak travel periods.”

The first Shin Duty Free Sale runs September 17 through October 11, 2026, online and at Shinsegae Duty Free Myeongdong.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/meet-shin-duty-free-sale-shinsegaes-new-mega-sale-event-302882741.html

SOURCE Shinsegae Duty Free

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From Chaos to Calm: Streamline Your Holiday Kitchen with YouCopia® Organizers

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CHICAGO, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As the calendar turns toward the busy holiday season, homes are about to feel crowded with extra decorations, incoming gifts, and festive family gatherings. To help hosts beat the stress before the chaos begins, YouCopia offers customizable storage organizers designed to transform cluttered cabinets, pantries, and fridges into functional, happy spaces.

Known for delivering that coveted “woo hoo” feeling of an instantly organized space in the kitchen or bath, the women-owned brand is showcasing its best-sellers, the Organizing Hero™ Collection, alongside its new MagicTrack™ Rectangle Turntables, to streamline seasonal baking, meal prep, and hospitality at home.

“Getting organized isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, especially when you are trying to coordinate holiday dinners, baking schedules, and house guests,” says YouCopia President Lauren Greenwood. “That’s why our products require absolutely no tools or installation. In less than a few minutes you can clear off kitchen counters and maximize your cabinet and pantry space so you can focus on making memories with the people who matter most.” 

Baking & Meal Prep Efficiency 

StoreMore® Pan & Lid Rack, Cookware Rack, and Bakeware Rack: Features adjustable dividers to hold pots, pans, cookie sheets, muffin tins, and cutting boards upright.SmoothSpin™ Turntables: Perfect for keeping everyday cabinet essentials visible, sorted and within smooth, spinning reach.SpiceStack® Spice Organizer: Features unique pull-out, drop-down drawers, allowing you to instantly view and grab the spice you need for making holiday cookies and pies.FridgeView® Rolling Egg Holder: Keeps eggs visible and accessible for holiday baking. 

Leftover and Food Storage 

StoraBag® Food Bag Dispenser: Holds sandwich, quart, and gallon baggies in one sleek, drawer-fitting unit. This makes bagging holiday cookies, treats, and meal prep ingredients incredibly fast. UpSpace® Cabinet Organizer: Shelves adjust in 1-inch increments to neatly stack boxes of aluminum foil, parchment paper, and plastic wrap, as well as boxed and canned goods. It clears up counter space during heavy baking sessions and keeps wrapping supplies within arm’s reach. StoraLid® Container Lid Organizer: Keeps container lids neatly upright and sorted so you can quickly pack up leftover holiday meals without dealing with a messy cabinet avalanche. 

YouCopia products are available online at YouCopia.com and through major retailers including Amazon, Sam’s Club, Walmart and The Container Store. 

About YouCopia 
Since its founding in 2009, YouCopia has helped millions of people discover the “woo hoo” feeling of being organized. The company creates practical organization products to fit different items throughout the home. With almost effortless set-up (no tools or installation required), anyone can transform their space into a happy place. YouCopia is a WBNEC-Certified Women’s Business Enterprise based in Chicago.

Media Contact: 
Cynthia Greenwood 
847-404-8404 
cynthia@youcopia.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/from-chaos-to-calm-streamline-your-holiday-kitchen-with-youcopia-organizers-302882746.html

SOURCE YouCopia

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