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Assemble Launches Digital Marketing & Communications Council as AI Reshapes the Digital Landscape

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The new AEO Board and its sister communities, SocialMedia.org and SocialMedia.org Health, come together under the Digital Marketing & Communications Council to help leaders navigate the next era of digital marketing.

TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The AEO playbook is still being written, and its downstream impact on the digital landscape is only beginning to take shape.

To help enterprise marketing leaders navigate one of the most consequential shifts in digital visibility in years, Assemble today announced the launch of the Digital Marketing & Communications Council (DMCC), bringing together its new AEO Board with its SocialMedia.org and SocialMedia.org Health Boards.

“No company has the full playbook for this yet,” said Aaron Kissel, CEO of Assemble. “The organizations that get ahead won’t be the ones with the most resources. They’ll be the ones learning fastest from each other. That’s why we built the DMCC: a real-time, trusted way to compare notes on the decisions everyone is being forced to make.”

The combined community includes 394 member companies and 1,750 individual members, representing more than half of the Fortune 500 and creating a powerful peer network for leaders responsible for how their organizations show up, communicate, and grow in an increasingly AI-driven world.

A Changing Digital Ecosystem

As AI-powered search and large language models reshape how customers discover brands, build trust, and make purchasing decisions, digital marketing leaders are navigating unfamiliar territory without an established roadmap.

Within Assemble’s own community, members are reporting a staggering 40% to 60% decline in traffic, according to DMCC Membership Director Will White, and nearly two-thirds call operationalizing AEO a top near-term challenge.

But the questions extend well beyond traffic. Leaders are asking: What is the impact on funnel conversion and revenue? Are we showing up the right way in AI results? How should we organize, define roles, and set goals? And how should media spend change as discovery changes? The DMCC will help leaders navigate these questions and more.

Announcing the Launch at NAMLS

From September 28–30, 2026, leaders across Digital Marketing, AEO, Social Media, Brand, Communications, Customer Experience, Growth, and Digital Strategy will come together at Assemble’s North American Marketing Leadership Summit (NAMLS) to compare strategies and exchange emerging practices.

In his mainstage address, Assemble CEO Aaron Kissel will announce the launch of the new council and invite leaders from across the profession to join.

The 2026 speaker lineup includes senior marketing leaders from Amazon, PepsiCo, SAP, FIFA World Cup 2026, Spotify, Unilever, KPMG, AT&T, Bayer, State Farm, Lockheed Martin, Bank of America, Synchrony, LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games, Dominion Energy, and Goodwill Industries International, among others.

About Assemble

Assemble is a peer intelligence company that helps senior business leaders make faster, more confident decisions through professionally facilitated communities, industry-specific summits, and curated content, delivering the real-time, peer-driven insights traditional information sources no longer reliably do. Assemble delivers impact on three levels: companies make big calls with more certainty, teams move priority work forward faster, and individual members lead with confidence and vetted strategy.

Assemble currently serves more than 1,600 companies across finance, human capital, marketing, technology, supply chain, and manufacturing. Learn more at www.theassemble.com.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/assemble-launches-digital-marketing–communications-council-as-ai-reshapes-the-digital-landscape-302885493.html

SOURCE Assemble

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Cognex to Acquire RealSense, Expanding Machine Vision Leadership into High-Growth Robotic Perception Market

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Acquisition adds leading 3D robotic perception platform, expands Cognex’s served market, and
supports long-term growth diversification

NATICK, Mass. and CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX), the global technology leader in industrial machine vision, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire RealSense, the market leader in depth-sensing cameras and vision technology for robotic perception and Physical AI. The acquisition advances Cognex’s strategy to diversify its growth engine by entering the robotic perception market, a high-growth adjacency that expands its served market opportunity.

“RealSense represents a compelling strategic expansion for Cognex into robotic perception, one of the most attractive adjacent markets in machine vision,” said Matt Moschner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cognex. “RealSense brings a leading 3D perception platform with proprietary technology, a strong developer community and a compelling value proposition for customers. Combined with Cognex’s machine vision expertise and global reach, RealSense positions us to offer a full-stack visual intelligence platform, spanning industrial ID, 2D and 3D machine vision measurement to 3D depth perception and robotic navigation, built to serve the full spectrum of Physical AI.”

“RealSense was built on a simple idea: robots and autonomous systems can’t act intelligently in the physical world if they can’t first perceive it accurately. We’ve called that mission the Visual Cortex of Physical AI. Joining Cognex puts that mission on an entirely new scale, giving us access to a global industrial customer base and go-to-market reach that would have taken us years to build on our own. This is a combination that makes both businesses stronger,” said Nadav Orbach, Chief Executive Officer of RealSense.

Originally founded by Intel in 2014 and spun out in 2025, RealSense has established a leading position in 3D robotic perception, with applications across fixed arm perception-guided robotics, autonomous mobile robots, quadrupeds and humanoids. The acquisition expands Cognex’s served market opportunity by adding exposure to a robotic perception market estimated at $600 million today and expected to grow more than 25% annually to approximately $1.6 billion by 2030. RealSense is expected to generate revenue of $80 million to $90 million in 2026, representing more than 50% growth over the prior year.

“This transaction is highly aligned with our disciplined M&A strategy,” said Dennis Fehr, Chief Financial Officer of Cognex. “RealSense is expected to be strongly accretive to Cognex’s growth profile. Over time, we expect the business to scale in line with Cognex’s through-cycle financial framework, including attractive Adjusted EBITDA margins and strong free cash flow conversion.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Cognex will acquire RealSense for approximately $500 million, financed entirely from existing cash and investments on its balance sheet. Cognex also expects to provide a three-year $56.5 million cash retention program at target for RealSense employees, subject to performance modifiers, and to grant restricted stock units valued at approximately $50 million under Cognex’s existing 2023 Stock Option and Incentive Plan dependent on the grant-date share price. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Prior to closing, RealSense will spin out its Facial Authentication product line into an independent company, including all necessary functions to continue its focused growth strategy in the biometrics market.

Evercore served as financial advisor to Cognex on the transaction.

Conference Call and Webcast Information

Cognex management will host a conference call today, September 22, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. ET to discuss the acquisition and answer questions from investors and analysts.

Conference Call Details

Date: September 22, 2026
Time: 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time
Domestic Dial-In: (877) 704-4573
International Dial-In: (201) 389-0911
Conference ID: 13762771

A live webcast of the conference call, together with a presentation accompanying management’s prepared remarks, will be available in the Investor Relations section of the Company’s website at investor.cognex.com.

A replay of the webcast will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call and will remain accessible for a limited period of time.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this release, as well as oral statements made by Cognex Corporation (“Cognex”, “we”, “us”, “our”, or the “Company”) from time to time, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers can identify these forward-looking statements by our use of the words “expects,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “potential,” “believes,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “aims,” “will,” “may,” “shall,” “could,” “should,” “opportunity,” “goal,” “objective,” “target,” “milestone” and similar words and other statements of a similar sense. These statements are based on our current estimates and expectations as to prospective events and circumstances, which may or may not be in our control and as to which there can be no firm assurances given. These forward-looking statements, which include statements regarding business and market trends, future financial performance, financial targets, milestones and related timing expectations, the impacts of our strategic portfolio review, customer demand and order rates and timing of related revenue, future product or revenue mix, research and development activities, sales and marketing activities, new product offerings, innovation and product development activities, customer acceptance of our products, commercial partnerships, capital expenditures, strategic and growth plans and opportunities, financial and operating models, acquisitions, and estimated tax benefits and expenses, and other tax matters, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Such risks and uncertainties include: (1) the challenges in integrating and achieving expected results from acquired businesses; (2) the failure to properly manage the distribution of products and services; (3) economic, political, and other risks associated with international sales and operations, including the impact of trade disputes, the imposition of tariffs, the economic climate in China, and the wars and conflicts involving Iran, Ukraine, and Israel; (4) uncertainty surrounding our future capital needs; (5) the inability to obtain, or the delay in obtaining, components for our products at reasonable prices, including memory chips; (6) potential impairment charges with respect to our investments or acquired intangible assets; (7) exposure to additional tax liabilities, increases and fluctuations in our effective tax rate, and other tax matters; and (8) stock price volatility. The foregoing list should not be construed as exhaustive and we encourage readers to refer to the detailed discussion of risk factors included in Part I – Item 1A of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (the “Annual Report”), as updated by Part II – Item 1A of our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company disclaims any obligation to subsequently revise forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date such statements are made.

About Cognex
For over 40 years, Cognex has been making advanced machine vision easy, paving the way for manufacturing and distribution companies to become faster, smarter, and more efficient through automation. Innovative technology in our vision sensors and systems solves critical manufacturing and distribution challenges, providing unparalleled performance for industries from automotive to consumer electronics to packaged goods.

Cognex makes these tools more capable and easier to deploy thanks to a longstanding focus on AI, helping factories and warehouses improve quality and maximize efficiency without needing highly technical expertise. We are headquartered near Boston, USA, with locations in over 30 countries and more than 30,000 customers worldwide. Learn more at cognex.com.

About RealSense
RealSense delivers the Visual Cortex of Physical AI™ through industry-leading depth cameras and vision technology used in autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, industrial automation, and beyond. With a mission to deliver world-class perception systems for Physical AI and safely integrate robotics and AI into everyday life, RealSense provides intelligent, secure, and reliable vision systems that help machines navigate and interact with the human world. RealSense is headquartered in Cupertino, California, with operations worldwide. Learn more at realsenseai.com.

Cognex Investor Relations Contact:
Greer Aviv
Head of Investor Relations
Greer.Aviv@cognex.com

RealSense Media Contact:
Emily Roberts
PRforRealSense@bospar.com

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SOURCE Cognex Corporation

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Captello Launches Event Revenue Intelligence, Making Event Spend Auditable at a Macro-Level Down to Every Lead & Meeting

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Captello’s event-to-revenue intelligence platform now traces closed revenue back to a single badge scan, replacing the averages and projections that have hampered marketing teams from defending and growing events.

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Captello today announced Event Revenue Intelligence, a category of its platform that measures event performance the way finance measures every other line in the budget: at the individual record, from first touch to closed deal. Event Revenue Intelligence attributes revenue at the level of the individual lead and meeting rather than a program-wide average or a projected multiplier, and it runs on the same platform that captured the lead in the first place.

THE MEASUREMENT GAP EVENTS NEVER CLOSED

Events are one of the largest discretionary line items in the B2B marketing budget and one of the least defensible. Trade shows generate 33% of new business annually, according to trade-show research cited in the Lead Capture Playbook. Yet 79% of event leads never receive any follow-up (CEIR, via 391 Advantage), 58% of event marketers report losing leads to inefficient capture, and 47% say they struggle to integrate event data into their CRM (EMS25 white paper). The same research finds that 73% of event marketers now rank analytics and reporting as the most important lead-capture capability.

The consequence is structural. Digital channels report cost per opportunity and pipeline contribution. Events report scans, booth traffic and post-show anecdote. When budget season arrives, event teams defend spend with activity while every other channel arrives with revenue, and the shows that quietly lose money are protected by the program-level averages that hide them.

“Every other channel in the marketing budget got its accounting decades ago. Events never did, so the industry learned to report activity and call it performance. Event Revenue Intelligence removes that excuse. When a CMO or CFO asks what a show produced, the answer is a number tied to specific deals, specific reps and specific conversations, and it holds up under scrutiny. That is the shift. Events stop being a cost center with a good story and become a measurable revenue channel.” -Ryan Schefke, Chief Executive Officer, Captello

WHAT EVENT REVENUE INTELLIGENCE DOES

Event Revenue Intelligence spans the full event lifecycle in four connected capabilities:

Pre-Event Intelligence maps clients, partners, strategic accounts and competitors against who is attending, exhibiting and sponsoring, then enriches every record through the Captello Proprietary 5-Layer Enrichment Engine and the Captello Enrichment Network of 125+ data providers at up to a 98% match rate. Accounts are segmented by fit and intent and sequenced into outreach and meeting scheduling, eliminating 40+ hours of manual preparation on average, per event. Event portfolio scoring applies the same logic across the calendar.ROI Attribution tracks each captured lead and meeting through to closed revenue, tied into CRM and marketing automation through 9,000+ system integrations and 300+ registration-platform integrations. Attribution is closed-loop and record-level, not a lead count multiplied by average deal size.Revelation™ unifies performance across every event, team and region into one analytical view, benchmarks year over year, show against show and team against team, and drills from a portfolio trend down to a single booth, rep or interaction.CapChat™ answers plain-language questions across the same unified data and verifies every answer against live records before it is shown, so executives, marketing and sales work from one live number instead of three reconciled dashboards.

Every capture method feeding the system runs through IntelliScan™, a unified interface which auto-detects a badge, business card, QR code, badge photo, LinkedIn profile code or handwritten contact details in a single action, and works offline, syncing when connectivity returns.

WHAT IT HAS PRODUCED

Measured end to end in Revelation, a global industrial manufacturer held 94 meetings against a goal of roughly 100 with zero scheduling conflicts, reached approximately 100% meeting-space utilization against a 60% to 70% industry average, and cut administrative workload by more than 60%. A global heavy-equipment manufacturer captured 7,110 leads at a single construction trade show. On the organizer side, a global media-technology show captured 195,947 leads across its exhibitor base at one event and generated more than $250,000 in incremental license revenue in its first year.

“The number that changes the conversation is revenue per lead, not lead count. On our own program we measured $141.10 cost per lead and $13,323.23 revenue per lead end to end, and we can point at the badge scans behind it. Averages protect the shows that lose money. Record-level attribution surfaces them, which is why the budget conversation stops being about how much to cut and starts being about where to move it.” -Brad Froese, Vice President of Marketing, Captello

FOR ORGANIZERS AS WELL AS EXHIBITORS

Show organizers run the same measurement problem one level up. Event Revenue Intelligence gives organizers visibility into capture and engagement across their full exhibitor base, the benchmarking to compare editions and floor zones against each other, and the evidence exhibitors need to justify renewing. Organizers can price and package lead capture as a revenue line rather than an amenity, and prove its value with the exhibitor’s own results.

AVAILABILITY

Event Revenue Intelligence is available now to Captello customers. The platform carries SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance, supports enterprise SSO, and operates in up to 75 languages. More information is available at captello.com/event-revenue-intelligence.

ABOUT CAPTELLO

Captello is the lead capture system of record for enterprise event programs, connecting every event interaction to attributable pipeline. As the system of record for third-party events, Captello captures every conversation, meeting, and activation across trade shows, conferences, and field programs, and routes it to your CRM with AI-powered insights that align Sales, Marketing, and Events. A profitable company trusted by AT&T, IBM, Amazon, GE, Philips, and Thomson Reuters, Captello delivers world-class support and enterprise-grade security.

Captello is a three-time Inc. 5000 honoree, ranked #121 among the fastest-growing private software companies in the United States on the 2026 list, a three-time MUSE Award winner, and a G2 category leader in Lead Retrieval and Lead Capture with a 4.8 rating.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/captello-launches-event-revenue-intelligence-making-event-spend-auditable-at-a-macro-level-down-to-every-lead–meeting-302885509.html

SOURCE Captello

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Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Teams with Citiri to Open with the World’s First AI-Powered Operational Readiness Program

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One platform, a single on-site orchestrator, and a team of AI operating roles guided the $1 billion museum from construction to opening day – capped by operational trials and preview events that welcomed more than 30,000 visitors.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — When Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens its doors to the public today, it marks more than the debut of a $1 billion, 300,000-square-foot museum. It marks the first time a major capital project has been brought into operation with an AI-powered operational readiness program – AI operating roles executing work that has traditionally required a small army of consultants, while people made every decision that mattered.

“Opening this museum meant getting thousands of details right the first time, in front of the world.”

Opening a museum of this scale means proving thousands of details in public, on a date the whole world knows: security posts and life-safety drills, timed entry and box office, two state-of-the-art theaters, a restaurant, a café, retail store, and library, and the care of a collection of thousands of works of narrative art. The industry default for a project like this is a multi-year consulting engagement staffed by ten to twenty people working from spreadsheets, binders and email.

The Lucas Museum took a different path. Its activation ran on CitiriOS, Atlanta-based Citiri’s agentic, Owner Scope Management platform — a live readiness room in which every requirement, every piece of evidence, and every decision is tracked in one governed system. Citiri’s Opti AI operating roles drafted procedures and readiness checklists, chased and organized evidence, monitored and analyzed training and trial results, and kept a running Ready Score for museum leadership. Citiri’s Readiness Operations Center monitored the AI agents, and on the ground — where a traditional program would post a bench of consultants — stood one person: Lynette Gude, Citiri’s orchestrator for the Museum, working shoulder to shoulder with the Museum’s own leaders and staff.

Written autonomy policies governed every AI role: the agents drafted, tracked, and flagged; accountable people – the Museum’s leaders – reviewed, decided, and approved. No algorithm accepted evidence, approved a gate, or called the go. That division of labor – AI toil, human authority – is the heart of Citiri’s AI-forward managed readiness model.

The program’s dress rehearsal came during a series of operational trials and preview events, when the Museum welcomed more than 30,000 visitors, including a star-studded reveal September 19th.

“Opening this museum meant getting thousands of details right the first time, in front of the world. Before now, launching a major operation like this meant renting a crowd and building a wall of binders,” said Ortez Gude, Chief Executive Officer of Citiri. “The Lucas Museum ran its opening as a system instead: one agentic platform with a team of AI operating roles, and one experienced readiness orchestrator on site. The AI did the toil; the people made the calls. Every requirement traced to evidence, every decision to a person. That is what operational readiness looks like from now on – for museums, airports, hospitals, energy, data centers, and every owner who has to be ready on day one.”

“My job was to stand where the work met the mission — in the galleries, at the door lines, in the command room,” said Lynette Gude, Citiri’s orchestrator for the Lucas Museum. “Because CitiriOS and Opti carried the tracking, the chasing, and the reporting, I could spend my days with the Museum’s people, walking the building until the building was ready.”

The engagement was delivered through Citiri Managed Readiness, the company’s agentic readiness solution that is uniquely designed to deliver customer outcomes. Citiri, whose platform is best known in aviation – where terminal openings are governed by the discipline the industry calls ORAT – now serves owners and operators across transit, healthcare, energy, data centers, and cultural institutions. The Museum retains its full readiness record in CitiriOS, carrying training currency, compliance obligations, and continuous-improvement work forward into daily operations.

About the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Founded by filmmaker George Lucas and businesswoman and philanthropist Mellody Hobson, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is the first museum devoted to the art of visual storytelling across cultures, media, and centuries. Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with landscape by Studio-MLA, the museum stands in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park. lucasmuseum.org

About Citiri, Inc.

Citiri builds CitiriOS, the agentic Owner Scope Management platform for operational readiness, and delivers Citiri Managed Readiness — AI-forward readiness programs that combine the platform, Opti AI operating roles, a Readiness Operations Center, and senior on-site operational readiness Orchestrators. Citiri serves capital project and program owners across aviation, transit, healthcare, energy, data centers, and cultural institutions. citiri.com

Media Contact

Ortez Gude, Citiri, Inc., 1 404-225-3657, ortez.gude@citiri.com, www.citiri.com

David Wood, Citiri, Inc., 1 404-822-8313, david.wood@citiri.com, www.citiri.com

Twitter, LinkedIn

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SOURCE Citiri, Inc.

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