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With Oil and Gas Industry Safety Concerns at the Forefront, SynergyXR Delivers Scalable Immersive Safety Solutions

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Oil and gas industry safety concerns, risks, injuries, and fatalities are on the rise. SynergXR delivers scalable extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and spatial computing solutions to educate and train instructors, workers, and stakeholders while mitigating risks. Precision Drilling and Texas A&M offer insights on the efficacy of immersive technologies for safety in the oil and gas industry.

HOUSTON, June 26, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — In an industry where safety is paramount, SynergyXR is pioneering the use of extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and spatial computing technology to enhance safety protocols and training in the oil and gas industry. As recent statistics from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement highlight an alarming number of accidents and fatalities on oil and gas drilling rigs, SynergyXR is committed to providing value through scalable immersive solutions to help mitigate these risks.

Our industry-leading technology is a competitive advantage that we are proud to offer to our clients in a variety of industries, particularly oil and gas. — Mads Troelsgaard, CEO of SynergyXR

The oil and gas industry and sectors like energy, manufacturing, mining, and construction often face hazardous and potentially life-threatening situations. XR technologies combine the physical and digital worlds to create immersive and interactive experiences. These training systems offer a safe and risk-free environment for trainers and employees to practice their skills, allowing them to handle dangerous scenarios without the fear of personal harm or equipment damage. This immersive technology ensures that trainees are well-prepared to face real-world challenges, thus significantly reducing the risk of accidents while reducing costs and training time, and simultaneously increasing memory retention through experiential learning.

Enhancing Safety in Oil and Gas Through Immersive Technology

In oil and gas, XR technology enables workers to experience the complexities of offshore and onshore platforms, manage high-pressure situations, and respond effectively to potential accidents. Dr. Faisal Irshad Khan, a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC) at Texas A&M, states, “The integration of XR, VR, AR, and spatial computing technologies in training programs has the potential to revolutionize the oil and gas industry. By immersing personnel in realistic environments, these technologies build familiarity and reduce accidents. Moreover, the use of these technologies helps in analyzing the range of high-risk scenarios and to train personnel on these scenarios safely.”

Working and living safely with chemicals is the ultimate focus of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center under Dr. Khan. The MKOPSC was established in memory of Mary Kay O’Connor in 1995. Ms. O’Connor was an operations superintendent who was killed in an explosion in 1989. The MKOPSC is dedicated to saving lives in the oil and gas industry through professional training, upskilling, and competency-building programs. These initiatives also help organizations comply with safety regulations and adopt preventative measures.

According to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, in 2019 there were 6 deaths and 222 injuries on offshore oil rigs, the highest number since 2010. From 2015 to 2020, there were 19 fatalities and 106 injuries in the US offshore oil and gas industry, with injuries in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industries among the highest in the US (16.6 per 100,000 workers).

Innovative Solutions Drive Adoption

Precision Drilling, a leading provider of safe and environmentally responsible services to the energy industry, has integrated immersive training from SynergyXR into their EverGreen™ suite of environmental solutions. This move complements their industry-leading digital technology portfolio. Precision Drilling’s EverGreen™ solutions are comprised of economically viable emissions reduction technologies, with the goal of displacing diesel fuel as the primary energy source in drilling operations.

Rob Houston, VP of Drilling Technology at Precision Drilling, highlighted the challenges in adapting to evolving industry expectations: “As technology evolves, so do the workflows on our drilling rigs. While traditional training methods can be inefficient and impractical, staged training that begins before deployment and continues afterward has proven effective. Our vision is to seamlessly integrate live competency assessments that enhance user proficiency.”

He expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration: “Our experience with SynergyXR has been transformative. Their expertise in oil and gas, combined with scalable immersive training solutions, perfectly aligns with Precision Drilling’s approach to technical innovation.” This partnership represents the initial phase of a broader initiative within Precision Drilling, targeting broad-based recruitment strategies and investor relations alike. By leveraging SynergyXR’s immersive training solutions, Precision Drilling aims to optimize operational efficiency and safety across its entire business ecosystem.

“Through our collaboration with SynergyXR and combined expertise, we have successfully bridged communication gaps and elevated our safety protocols,” Mr. Houston continues. “With fully equipped training centers in both the US and Canada, we can rapidly deploy training across our extensive fleet of drilling rigs. This streamlined approach not only reduces travel and training time but also enhances our team’s capacity to retain critical information acquired during immersive training.”

Dr. Khan adds, “Partnerships between technology leaders like SynergyXR and Precision Drilling are crucial in demystifying and mainstreaming these immersive innovations. These partnerships are important in terms of exploring the current and future use of these technologies, but also in being able to identify the areas where improvements are needed.”

According to SynergyXR’s CEO Mads Troelsgaard, “In today’s dynamic digital landscape, transformation is not just about staying relevant; it is about seizing the lead with technology that’s already proven its worth. Our industry-leading technology is a competitive advantage that we are proud to offer to our clients in a variety of industries, particularly oil and gas.” This commitment to innovation and safety is paving the way for a safer, more efficient oil and gas industry.

About the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC) at Texas A&M

The Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC) is the world’s foremost university-based Process Safety Center. The Center serves industry, government, academia, and the public. It is a resource in education and research and provides service to all stakeholders. MKOPSC is guided by a Steering Committee of consortium member companies and a Technical Advisory Committee of industry experts. Industry guidance ensures that Center activities are relevant to the actual practice of process safety. Over the past 20 years, the body of work created by the Center has led to the inarguable recognition as an unbiased science-based organization focused on creating dialogue and consensus on difficult scientific topics, amongst all stakeholders. Learn more at https://psc.tamu.edu/

About Precision Drilling

Precision is a leading provider of safe and environmentally responsible High Performance, High Value services to the energy industry, offering customers access to an extensive fleet of Super Series drilling rigs. Precision has commercialized an industry-leading digital technology portfolio known as Alpha™ that utilizes advanced automation software and analytics to generate efficient, predictable, and repeatable results for energy customers. Drilling services are enhanced by their EverGreen™ suite of environmental solutions, which bolsters Precision’s commitment to reducing the environmental impact of their operations. Additionally, Precision offers well service rigs, camps, and rental equipment all backed by a comprehensive mix of technical support services and skilled, experienced personnel.

Precision is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol “PD” and on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol “PDS”. For further information about Precision, please visit precisiondrilling.com.

Media:

Link to Video https://vimeo.com/957711435/00d707cc9f?share=copy

Link to SynergyXR Oil and Gas information page with case studies, video, and images https://synergyxr.com/news-and-updates/oil-gas-safety-xr-vr-ar/

About SynergyXR

SynergyXR is the leading no-code XR and Spatial Computing SaaS platform for the manufacturing and energy sectors, enabling companies to build, operate, and optimize safe immersive virtual learning and training programs at a scale, speed, and cost not previously possible. For more information, please visit synergyxr.com.

Oil and Gas Industry Stats

Chemical Safety Board Statistics:

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) reported that in the past year alone, there have been over 200 incidents resulting in 30 fatalities and numerous injuries on oil and gas drilling rigs. This information is corroborated by recent reports on the CSB’s website, emphasizing the ongoing safety challenges in the industry (Prevent Chemical Disasters) (UPI).

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) 2019 Statistics:

In 2019, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) recorded 6 deaths and 222 injuries on offshore oil rigs, marking the highest number since 2010. This data is available through BSEE’s annual safety performance reviews, highlighting a notable increase in incidents that year (UPI).

Media Contact

Taylor L. Cole, APR, TV with TLC, 1 9723334343, TaylorLCole@gmail.com

Andy Grantham, SynergyXR, 45 5195 0172, Ag@synergyxr.com, SynergyXR.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/with-oil-and-gas-industry-safety-concerns-at-the-forefront-synergyxr-delivers-scalable-immersive-safety-solutions-302182844.html

SOURCE SynergyXR

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

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37 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce

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

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

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

About commercetools

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

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

Media Contact: comms@commercetools.com 

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SOURCE commercetools

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

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38 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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

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

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

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

About Phylo

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

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

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

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

SOURCE Phylo, Inc.

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

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38 minutes ago

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October 22, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOURCE Sandler Partners

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