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Layered Reality, creators of the forthcoming immersive experience ‘Elvis Evolution’, sign strategic partnership with Technicolor Group, home of The Mill

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Technicolor Group’s The Mill will first be tasked to create the most realistic & authentic Elvis using AI under Layered Reality Studio head Simon Reveley

The Mill was one of the earliest pioneers of VFX for icon replacements, winning a BAFTA & Oscar for their work on the movie ‘Gladiator’ and most recently winning 3 Cannes Gold Lions with FCB NY and Michelob for the virtual Williams Formula 1 race “Lap of Legends”Layered Reality also announce the expansion of their in-house studio team with world class production talent from Harry Potter, Royal Albert Hall, Eurovision, Royal National Theatre and Commonwealth Games

LONDON, July 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Layered Reality, the UK’s leading immersive entertainment company, has penned a strategic partnership agreement with Technicolor Group, famed for its global network of BAFTA and Academy Award-winning visual effects studios. The partnership will be executed via Technicolor’s advertising and experience studio, The Mill, which is headquartered in London and has offices in Paris, New York, LA, Seoul, Shanghai and Bangalore.

The agreement will see The Mill partner on multiple projects with Layered Reality, including using AI technology to create the most realistic and authentic version of Elvis, led by Layered Reality’s newly expanded in-house studio team. Layered Reality Studios has recently welcomed world-class talent to bring back the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, including Executive Producer Oran Doyle (Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience, Stranger Things: The Experience); Digital Producer Catherine Hayward (Commonwealth Games); Production Manager Al Parkinson (Royal National Theatre, Cameron Mackintosh); Technical Director Ollie Jeffrey (Royal Albert Hall) and Producer Sophie Scotchford (Eurovision 2023).

Simon Reveley, Head of Layered Reality Studio says “The Mill has a history of being pioneers, innovators and world class artists. We’re thrilled to work with them, utilising the latest in Artificial Intelligence to deliver more for our audiences. The integration of AI into The Mill’s arsenal of world class VFX tools, in the hands of their global network of award-winning artists, will help us deliver truly magical moments; the kind of moments that take your breath away.”

Mark Benson, President, The Mill says “We are very excited about the potential for our partnership with Layered Reality and helping to put Elvis back in the building. We are tasked with bringing Elvis back digitally by collecting and ingesting images and film archive clips to train AI models on Elvis’s face so we can recreate famous Elvis live performances. The Mill’s outstanding creative and tech talent will once again push the boundaries of what is possible, to deliver an extraordinary, authentic and thrilling theatrical event.”

In January this year Layered Reality announced they had secured the global licensing rights to create ‘Elvis Evolution’ from the owners of Elvis’ estate Authentic Brands Group. The immersive experience will bring the global musical icon back through the power of AI, augmented reality, live theatre and multi-sensory effects in a celebration of his life and legacy. Tickets go on sale later this year and ‘Elvis Evolution’ is due to open in Spring 2025.

Andrew McGuinness, Founder and CEO of Layered Reality comments

“Securing the best talent and partners is crucial for us to deliver outstanding immersive experiences. The Mill has an unrivaled pedigree in creating extraordinary digital effects spanning back to one of the earliest examples of icon replacement which won them a BAFTA for their work on Gladiator. They are at the forefront of utilising new technologies for creative innovative entertainment and we are delighted to have secured their partnership. Their support, and our talented new in-house team, means we are confident of delivering a superlative immersive experience for Elvis fans everywhere.”

Layered Reality is the creator of London’s longest running and most highly rated immersive experiences, with Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds celebrating its fifth year and being placed in the top 10% of attractions globally by TripAdvisor reviewers. They also have a pipeline of global IP’s which will be announced over the coming months.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Layered Reality

Layered Reality’s multi-award-winning experience Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, has over 10,000 five-star customer reviews, and has won Tripadvisor’s Travellers choice, ranking top 10% of all attractions globally. In addition, it is London’s no. 1 immersive night out and top rated 5/5 on Tripadvisor. Other experiences by Layered Reality include the highly successful The Gunpowder Plot https://gunpowderimmersive.com, currently running in London, and ELVIS EVOLUTION https://elvis.layeredreality.com/, a new immersive experience celebrating the world’s biggest star of stage and screen, launching in 2025. For more information about Layered Reality, visit https://www.layeredreality.com/

Layered Reality (www.layeredreality.com), the UK’s leading immersive experience specialist, has secured the global rights to celebrate Elvis Presley in a digital form. The rights provide Layered Reality with global exclusivity for the creation of immersive experiences based upon Presley’s life story and music. *The global rights were secured from Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) (https://corporate.authentic.com/) who obtained ownership of the rights to ELVIS™’ estate in November 2013.

About The Mill

We create and deliver world-class content & visual experiences. We do this by leveraging creative technology to deliver famous, trail blazing work, across any screen, app, theatrical, art, ride, event, fashion, sport, and immersive experience with an unwavering commitment to creative excellence in all that we do, across every stage of the process. Our content creators and experience makers, directors, artists, animators, technologists and producers partner our clients to bring their vision to life and delight consumers world-wide.

About the Technicolor Group
Technicolor Group is a creative technology company providing world-class production expertise driven by one purpose: The realization of ambitious and extraordinary ideas. Home to a network of award-winning studios, MPC, The Mill, Mikros Animation and Technicolor Games, we inspire creative companies across the world to produce their most iconic work. Our global teams of artists and technologists partner with the creative community across film, television, animation, gaming, brand experience and advertising to bring the universal art of storytelling to audiences everywhere.

About Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley is one of the most influential pop culture figures of the 20th century. Often referred to as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Elvis’ commanding voice and charismatic stage presence unleashed a musical and cultural revolution that changed the world. Over the course of his extraordinary career, Elvis was nominated for 14 Grammy Awards (3 wins), sold over 1 billion records worldwide, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was named “One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation” by the United States Jaycees, as well as the 2018 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition to his musical accolades, Elvis starred in 33 films and made numerous television appearances. More than 60 years after his global debut, Elvis’ legacy is stronger than ever. His life and music have inspired countless hit musicals, movies and TV series’, fiction and non-fiction books, musical covers, and commercial endorsements, as well as a robust merchandise program spanning collectibles and fashion collaborations. An enduring symbol of “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s” stardom, Graceland, Elvis’ Memphis home, is the second most-visited home in the United States after the White House, drawing over 600,000 visitors annually and tens of thousands of fans for its Elvis Week celebration. With more than 17 million fans across social media and a growing multimedia presence, the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” continues to inspire today’s most influential musicians, designers, entertainers, and social influencers and captivate audiences around the world.

About Authentic Brands Group
Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) is a global brand development, marketing and entertainment platform, which owns a portfolio of more than 50 iconic and world-renowned Lifestyle, Entertainment and Media brands. Headquartered in New York City, with offices around the world, Authentic connects strong brands with best-in-class partners and a global network of operators, distributors and retailers to build long-term value in the marketplace. Its brands generate more than $29 billion in global annual retail sales and have an expansive retail footprint in 150 countries, including 13,100-plus freestanding stores and shop-in-shops and 370,000 points of sale. Authentic is committed to transforming brands by delivering powerful storytelling, compelling content, innovative business models and immersive experiences. It creates and activates original marketing strategies to drive the success of its brands across all consumer touchpoints, platforms and emerging media. Authentic’s brand portfolio includes Marilyn Monroe®, ELVIS™ Presley®, Muhammad Ali®, Shaquille O’Neal®, David Beckham®, Dr. J®, Greg Norman®, Neil Lane®, Thalia®, Sports Illustrated®, Reebok®, Brooks Brothers®, Barneys New York®, Judith Leiber®, Ted Baker®, Hunter®, Vince®, Hervé Léger®, Hickey Freeman®, Frye®, Nautica®, Juicy Couture®, Vince Camuto®, Lucky Brand®, Aéropostale®, Forever 21®, Nine West®, Rockport®, Eddie Bauer®, Boardriders®, Quiksilver®, Billabong®, Roxy®, DC Shoes®, RVCA®, Element®, VonZipper®, Honolua®, Spyder®, Volcom®, Shark®, Tretorn®, Prince®, Airwalk®, Izod®, Jones New York®, Van Heusen®, Hart Schaffner Marx®, Arrow® and Thomasville®.

For more information, visit corporate.authentic.com.
Follow Authentic on LinkedIn, Instagram and X.

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

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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.

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

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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

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