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Smart Manufacturing 5.0: Info-Tech Research Group Publishes Guide to Future-Ready Factories

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Info-Tech Research Group’s latest blueprint emphasizes the crucial role of Smart Manufacturing 5.0 in modernizing production and offers key strategies for integrating advanced technologies and human-centric practices. The newly published research provides actionable insights to enable manufacturers to enhance operational efficiency, improve product customization, and ensure sustainable practices. By leveraging these strategies, organizations can effectively address challenges such as legacy system integration and workforce skill development to ultimately achieve a competitive and technologically advanced production environment.

TORONTO, May 28, 2024 /CNW/ – Global manufacturers are facing increasing demands for greater efficiency, customization, and sustainability, making the integration of advanced technologies essential. The shift to Smart Manufacturing 5.0 addresses these challenges by combining the innovations of Industry 4.0 with a focus on human-centric, resilient, and sustainable practices. While many organizations are still struggling to achieve Industry 4.0, Smart Manufacturing 5.0 offers a more efficient approach to modernizing production, enhancing workforce skills, and overcoming legacy system obstacles. Info-Tech Research Group’s latest blueprint, Bring Your Factory to Life With Smart Manufacturing 5.0, provides a comprehensive guide for manufacturing leaders to navigate this evolution. This blueprint offers strategies to integrate cutting-edge technologies and create a technologically advanced and competitive production environment.

“Throughout the evolution of industry from 1.0 to 4.0, we have seen major industrial changes that have significantly impacted the strategic decisions being made by organizations,” says Kevin Tucker, research advisory practice lead at Info-Tech Research Group. “Most manufacturing organizations have now achieved some level of implementation that includes Industry 4.0 technologies, with cloud services being the most widely adopted. Now that we are in the midst of the next evolution – Industry 5.0 and Smart Manufacturing 5.0 – integrating technology and people has become crucial.”

Info-Tech’s research highlights how Smart Manufacturing 5.0 can revolutionize the manufacturing industry by integrating advanced technologies with human-centric practices. By leveraging AI, IoT, and robotics, manufacturers can enhance operational efficiency, improve product customization, and ensure sustainable practices. The firm’s blueprint provides an actionable framework to implement these technologies cohesively, addressing challenges such as legacy system integration, workforce skill development, and data management. Embracing Smart Manufacturing 5.0 enables manufacturers to stay competitive, meet evolving market demands, and drive long-term growth. 

“Organizations must embrace Industry 4.0 tools and technologies and begin to focus on Smart Manufacturing 5.0 if they hope to achieve exponential growth or protect their market share from competitors who are doing so,” explains Tucker. “A more rapid adoption of Smart Manufacturing 5.0 and Industry 5.0 than of Industry 4.0 is anticipated due to the widespread acceptance of the integration of AI, ML, and humans as an essential component of any successful business model that prioritizes sustainability, quality, efficiency, and the wellbeing of employees.”

In the blueprint, the firm emphasizes the critical role of Smart Manufacturing 5.0 in modernizing manufacturing practices. By seamlessly integrating advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, and robotics, manufacturers can achieve greater operational efficiency, enhanced product customization, and sustainable practices. The research advocates for a strategic approach, highlighting the importance of addressing legacy system integration, workforce skill development, and data management. Implementing these strategies allows manufacturers to respond more effectively to market demands, ultimately leading to improved competitiveness and long-term growth.

The goal of Smart Manufacturing 5.0 is to combine the best of Industry 4.0 with the attributes of Industry 5.0, creating solutions that are cyberphysical, mass-customizable, collaborative, cognitive, and environmentally friendly. Info-Tech’s blueprint outlines the following 12 key attributes of Industry 5.0, which include human-centricity, resilience, and sustainability, integrated with Smart Manufacturing 5.0 practices:

Autonomous Manufacturing: Leveraging AI and robotics for self-operating production systems.Focus on Customer Experience: Prioritizing customer satisfaction and engagement.Personalization of Functions and Processes: Customizing manufacturing processes to meet individual needs.Responsive Supply Chain: Adapting supply chains swiftly to market demands.Resilience to Adapt to Market Shifts: Building systems that can withstand and adapt to changes.Creation of a Sustainable Healthy Environment: Reducing environmental impact through sustainable practices.Demonstration of Exceptional Value to Society: Contributing positively to societal wellbeing.Quality in Craftsmanship: Ensuring high standards in product creation.Human-Centricity Internally and with Customers: Focusing on the wellbeing and involvement of workers and customers.Safe Collaborative and Cognitive Robotics: Utilizing robots that safely interact and collaborate with humans.Dynamic and Transparent Customization: Offering customizable solutions with clear communication.Interactive Decision-Making: Engaging stakeholders in the decision-making process.

Info-Tech advises that achieving Smart Manufacturing 5.0 requires more than just integrating advanced technologies; it demands a strategic transformation of manufacturing practices. By adopting these strategies, manufacturers can achieve greater efficiency, enhance product quality, and promote sustainable operations. This forward-thinking approach enables manufacturers to meet current market demands and adapt to future challenges effectively. Investing in Smart Manufacturing 5.0 and following this structured framework and principles ensures that manufacturers can deliver innovative, high-quality products while maintaining a strong competitive edge in the dynamic industrial landscape.

For exclusive and timely commentary on this topic from Info-Tech’s experts and access to the complete Bring Your Factory to Life With Smart Manufacturing 5.0 blueprint, please contact pr@infotech.com.

Info-Tech LIVE 2024

Registration is now open for Info-Tech Research Group’s annual IT conference, Info-Tech LIVE 2024, taking place September 17 to 19, 2024, at the iconic Bellagio in Las Vegas. This premier event offers journalists, podcasters, and media influencers access to exclusive content, the latest IT research and trends, and the opportunity to interview industry experts, analysts, and speakers. To apply for media passes to attend the event or to gain access to research and expert insights on trending topics, please contact pr@infotech.com.

About Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms, proudly serving over 30,000 IT and HR professionals. The company produces unbiased, highly relevant research and provides advisory services to help leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For nearly 30 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

To learn more about Info-Tech’s divisions, visit McLean & Company for HR research and advisory services and SoftwareReviews for software buying insights.  

Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and hundreds of industry analysts through the firm’s Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact pr@infotech.com

For information about Info-Tech Research Group or to access the latest research, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn and X.

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Lena Johnson Named President of National Brokerage for Douglas Elliman Realty

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Luxury brand executive and real estate industry veteran to lead national brokerage operations and accelerate Douglas Elliman’s leadership in the high-end market

NEW YORK, April 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Douglas Elliman Realty, the preeminent luxury residential real estate brokerage in the United States, today announced the appointment of Lena Johnson as President of National Brokerage. Based at the firm’s New York City headquarters at 575 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, Johnson will lead brokerage operations nationally with a strategic mandate to further strengthen the firm’s position in the global luxury real estate market, elevate agent performance, and deliver a distinctly differentiated experience for both agents and clients. She will report directly to Douglas Elliman Inc. President & CEO Michael S. Liebowitz.

“Lena understands the luxury consumer at the highest level and has repeatedly built businesses that attract elite talent and deliver elevated client experiences,” said Michael S. Liebowitz. “Douglas Elliman has always stood apart through service, relationships, and excellence. Lena’s leadership strengthens that identity and positions us to lead the next era of luxury brokerage.”

Johnson joins Douglas Elliman with a career defined by leadership at brands synonymous with luxury, design, and high-touch client service. Her experience spans premier names in real estate, media, and lifestyle, where she has built platforms that resonate with sophisticated consumers and top-performing talent making her uniquely aligned with Douglas Elliman’s brand and vision.

“From my earliest conversations with Michael, it was clear we share the same vision for where the luxury market is headed and what agents need to succeed in it,” said Johnson. “Douglas Elliman has an extraordinary brand, unmatched heritage, and a powerful opportunity to further define the future of luxury real estate. By investing in our agents and delivering a more elevated, personalized experience, we can continue to be the brokerage of choice for the world’s most discerning clients.”

Johnson most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at ONE Sotheby’s International Realty, where she led strategic marketing and brand strategy. Prior to that, she was VP of Marketing and Head of Luxury Division at Compass, where she built and led a 150-person in-house marketing and creative services agency. Earlier in her career, Johnson held senior leadership roles at Vogue, overseeing sales and marketing across the Americas, France, and the UK.

Johnson has emphasized accessibility and deep engagement with the firm’s agent community as a cornerstone of her leadership approach. Agents across all markets can expect close partnership, active collaboration, and meaningful investment in tools, support, and growth opportunities.

A key component of Johnson’s strategy will be leveraging Douglas Elliman’s scale and independence to create a differentiated value proposition in a competitive landscape. She sees the firm as uniquely positioned — not as a big-box brokerage, but as a brand with both heritage and agility that can deliver a more tailored and elevated experience than larger, more institutional competitors.

In her role, Johnson will also focus on expanding Douglas Elliman’s presence in key luxury growth markets globally, while continuing to strengthen its leadership in its established markets nationwide. Her mandate includes enhancing agent productivity, modernizing brokerage infrastructure, and attracting top-tier talent aligned with the firm’s long-term vision. She will work alongside the broader executive leadership team as the company executes on its strategy to accelerate growth and reinforce its position as the preeminent luxury residential real estate brokerage in the United States.

Johnson’s appointment underscores Douglas Elliman’s continued commitment to innovation, growth, and leadership in the global luxury real estate sector.

About Douglas Elliman Inc.
Douglas Elliman Inc. (NYSE: DOUG) owns Douglas Elliman Realty, LLC, which is one of the largest residential brokerage companies in the United States with operations in New York City, Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey, the Hamptons, Massachusetts, Florida, California, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In addition, Douglas Elliman Inc. provides other real estate services, including development marketing, mortgage as well as settlement and escrow services in select markets, and uses as well as invests in early-stage, disruptive property technology solutions and companies. Additional information concerning Douglas Elliman Inc. is available on its website, investors.elliman.com.

Investors and others should note that we may post information about Douglas Elliman Inc. on our website at investors.elliman.com or, if applicable, on our accounts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube or other social media platforms. It is possible that the postings or releases could include information deemed to be material information. Therefore, we encourage investors, the media and others interested in Douglas Elliman Inc. to review the information we post on our website at investors.elliman.com and on our social media accounts.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. All statements other than statements of historical or current facts made in this press release are forward-looking. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the future growth, plans, strategies and results of Douglas Elliman Inc. We identify forward-looking statements in this press release by using words or phrases such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may be,” “continue” “could,” “potential,” “objective,” “plan,” “seek,” “predict,” “project” and “will be” and similar words or phrases or their negatives. Forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons. Risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ significantly from our current expectations are described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed thereafter. We undertake no responsibility to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law.

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Kaseya Unveils the First Agentic IT Management Platform – Turning Data into Autonomous Action

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Powered by Kaseya Intelligence, Kaseya’s platform combines the industry’s deepest real-world IT dataset with an execution layer that acts with accuracy

MIAMI, April 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Kaseya, the leading global provider of AI-powered IT management and cybersecurity software, today introduced the first agentic IT management platform – powered by Kaseya Intelligence.

Unlike traditional IT management tools that surface insights for humans to act on, Kaseya’s platform combines comprehensive data across IT operations, cybersecurity, and cyber resilience with an execution layer that autonomously takes action – triaging tickets, containing threats, verifying backups, and optimizing workflows without manual intervention.

This is the core architectural difference. Every major technology vendor has added AI. But AI built on partial data and disconnected tools produces recommendations that are frequently inaccurate – creating more work, not less. Kaseya is the only platform with unified data spanning endpoints, help desks, security operations, and backup infrastructure, paired with the ability to execute across all systems from a single platform. The result is not just intelligence. It is accurate, autonomous action.

“The industry doesn’t need another AI feature bolted onto a disconnected tool,” said Rania Succar, Chief Executive Officer of Kaseya. “What MSPs and IT teams need is a platform that runs their operations – one that sees across every system, understands context, and acts autonomously. That’s what we’ve built. Kaseya Intelligence is the engine. The platform is the operating system. And the outcome is IT that manages itself.”

Why Only Kaseya Can Deliver This

Kaseya Intelligence is the engine at the core of the platform – built on more than 1 billion help desk tickets, 3 exabytes of backup data, and 17 million managed endpoints. This is not a general-purpose AI layer. It is a purpose-built system trained on real-world data at a scale no competitor can match.

But data alone is not enough. What separates Kaseya from the rest of the market is what happens after the AI thinks. Competitors surface a recommendation and hand it to a technician. Kaseya’s platform closes the loop – executing the action, validating the outcome, and learning from it. This is the difference between AI as a feature and AI as an operating system.

Today’s Announcements

The platform vision is already being delivered across three major releases announced today at Kaseya Connect Global:

Agentic Digital Specialists

The service delivery layer powered by Intelligence. Kaseya has introduced AI-powered Digital Specialists that autonomously handle high-volume IT tasks – starting with Ticket Triage, which automatically categorizes and routes tickets with high accuracy, reducing errors and accelerating resolution.

“20 to 30% of our tickets aren’t categorized correctly today,” said Koos Ligtenberg, Business Unit Director, Advisor ICT. “That creates all kinds of downstream issues – including billing inaccuracies. From what we’re seeing in early testing, we believe the Ticket Triage Digital Specialist will eliminate up to 80% of those errors. This is a huge deal for us.”

Kaseya’s Ticket Triage Digital Specialist is generally available today for Autotask Ultimate customers. Additional Digital Specialists spanning IT operations, cybersecurity, and cyber resilience will follow.

Unified Cyber Resilience

Kaseya has unified on-prem, SaaS, Endpoint, and Cloud backup into a single integrated portal – eliminating the fragmented tool sprawl that forces technicians to manage recovery across disconnected vendors. Powered by Kaseya Intelligence, the Unified Cyber Resilience Portal delivers actionable insights through connected workflows and intelligent prioritization, AI-driven screenshot verification with greater than 99.9% accuracy, and compliance coverage including FIPS capabilities and FedRAMP readiness.

Coverage is expanding further across cloud and virtualization. Azure Files support is now generally available, extending Azure VM protection to file shares and unstructured data – giving partners a cost-effective way to protect critical Azure workloads beyond a single-cloud environment. Agentless Hyper-V backup follows in June 2026, protecting virtual machines without individual agents to deploy or maintain.

Kaseya SIEM

Kaseya SIEM is now generally available – a purpose-built solution that delivers enterprise-grade security operations for MSPs and IT teams without the complexity and cost of traditional SIEM platforms. It unifies telemetry across endpoint, network, cloud, identity, and email, correlating signals from more than 60 data sources to detect and respond to threats across the full attack surface.

Unlike traditional SIEMs that require dedicated security engineers, or managed-only offerings that limit control, Kaseya SIEM gives IT teams enterprise-grade detection without enterprise-grade staffing. Cross-surface correlation shows technicians the full attack picture in one interface, without a specialist to parse it. Automated response contains threats in minutes, acting across systems instead of bouncing alerts back to a human. Tunable detection cuts noise, and 400-day log retention covers compliance out of the box. For customers who’d rather not run a SOC in-house, a 24/7 team of real security experts – accelerated by Kaseya Intelligence – delivers the coverage of a dedicated SOC without the burden of building one.

Accelerating Innovation

These releases reflect an accelerating pace of innovation, with more than 100 new features and enhancements delivered in the last 90 days. Kaseya Intelligence is embedded across the platform today and will continue to power new capabilities across IT operations, cybersecurity, and cyber resilience – moving the industry from tools that inform to a platform that acts.

About Kaseya

Kaseya is the leading global provider of AI-powered IT management and cybersecurity software, delivering an integrated platform that helps MSPs and businesses manage infrastructure, secure environments, protect data, and streamline operations. Trusted by more than 40,000 organizations worldwide, Kaseya enables customers to improve productivity, reduce complexity, and scale efficiently. To learn more, visit www.kaseya.com.

 

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Canary Speech Introduces Free Voice-Based Check-In for Consumers to Help Identify Early Signs of Mental Health Decline

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As gaps in early detection persist, a 45-second voice analysis offers a new way to identify signals of stress, anxiety, and depression during Mental Health Awareness Month

PROVO, Utah, April 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Canary Speech, a leader in vocal biomarker technology, is introducing a free, voice-based check-in designed to help individuals better understand their mental well-being and identify potential early signs of stress, anxiety, and depression. The 45-second check-in offers a quick, private way for individuals to assess their mental well-being and identify potential early signals. Available at no cost through Mental Health Awareness Month, the tool can also be shared to encourage broader awareness and participation.

Mental health challenges affect a significant portion of the population, yet many cases still go unrecognized or untreated due to a lack of early detection. Nearly one in five U.S. adults lives with a mental illness each year, and only about half receive treatment, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, underscoring a persistent gap between need and care.

Subtle changes in speech patterns, tone, and cadence can reflect underlying mental health conditions, but these signals are frequently missed in everyday life. Canary Speech’s technology analyzes vocal characteristics using artificial intelligence to detect indicators associated with stress, anxiety, and depression. By translating voice data into measurable insights, the platform offers a new way to recognize changes that individuals may not be aware of.

“Too often, people don’t recognize changes in their mental health until symptoms begin to interfere with daily life,” said Henry O’Connell, CEO of Canary Speech. “Voice offers a natural, objective signal that can help identify those changes earlier. By making that insight accessible in a simple way, we can help more people take action sooner.”

This initiative reflects a broader shift toward proactive mental health monitoring, where early detection and ongoing awareness play a more central role in care. While voice-based analysis is not a replacement for clinical diagnosis, it can serve as an initial signal that prompts individuals to seek further evaluation and support. As conversations around mental health continue to evolve, Canary Speech aims to help close the gap between experiencing symptoms and recognizing them. By making these signals more visible and accessible, the company seeks to empower individuals to take a more active role in their mental health.

To learn more about Canary Speech, visit www.canaryspeech.com.

About Canary Speech

Canary Speech is a Utah-based, AI-powered voice biomarker health tech company, utilizing patented real-time vocal analysis to screen for mental health and neurological disorders. Canary’s technology swiftly captures and analyzes speech data, detecting behavioral and cognitive changes—including signs of anxiety, depression, and dementia—often before traditional clinical standards or noticeable symptoms. Recently, Canary Speech launched Canary Ambient™, an API-first solution for real-time voice analysis in healthcare and contact centers. This clinical decision support software provides actionable insights from patient-clinician conversations by tracking speech patterns for real-time assessments of cognitive and behavioral health conditions. Canary Speech advances speech and language applications across health systems, payers, and pharmaceutical markets.

Media Contact:

Caitlyn Brooksby, VP of Marketing
caitlyn@canaryspeech.com

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