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BlueFocus CEO Fei Pan: “We Aim to Become a True Global AI Marketing Technology Company”

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BEIJING, April 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Recently, BlueFocus released its 2024 Annual Report, recording a total revenue of RMB 60.797 billion for the year, marking a 15.55% year-on-year increase and making it the first marketing company in China to surpass the RMB 60 billion milestone. Below are selected highlights from “A Letter to Our Investors” by BlueFocus CEO Fei Pan.

Dear Investors,

This year marks the 15th anniversary of BlueFocus’s public listing, and the forthcoming 30th anniversary of our founding. From our origins as a modest local company, we have steadily grown into one of the world’s top ten Marketing and Communications Groups—a transformation made possible by your enduring support, trust, and encouragement. On behalf of the entire BlueFocus Group, I extend my deepest gratitude.

China’s marketing industry has reached a scale of over RMB 1 trillion, and the global outbound market is of comparable size. Together, these two trillion-RMB arenas now stand at the cusp of a historic transformation, one that will be fundamentally reshaped by Artificial Intelligence (AI). What does a reimagined BlueFocus look like? It means transforming ourselves into a true AI-powered Marketing Technology company, breaking away from the traditional logic and business models that have defined marketing since its inception. It means becoming a global company, rooted in China and built to thrive on the world stage. It means growing into an enterprise of RMB 100 billion scale, one that combines technological DNA with global imagination. This is not merely a vision, but a clear and deliberate pursuit.

Next, I would like to share our current position and outlook, centered around two key questions that may be top of mind for many of you.

First question: At a time when everyone is declaring they’re “All in AI”, what is the real value behind BlueFocus’s All in AI strategy? And more importantly, what does it truly mean to be All in AI?

Today, AI has deeply integrated into more than 95% of BlueFocus’s operational scenarios, driving efficiency gains across integrated marketing, intelligent advertising, and our global outbound business, with improvements ranging from 60% to 1000%. Our goal is clear: to fundamentally restructure everything through an “AI Native” approach and logic, reimagining business scenarios, redefining and inventing new business models, reshaping the talent-to-business structure, and rebuilding our organizational structure and culture. For BlueFocus at this stage, these are elements far more important than the raw numbers behind cost reduction and efficiency gains:

It starts with real, sustainable business scenarios. These are environments where AI capabilities are continuously iterated through practical application, and where both process and outcome data can be labeled and refined. Today, BlueFocus uses AI to generate nearly 80,000 pieces of content each week across data analysis, content creation (text, images, video, and multimodal formats), and code generation. Our AI tools currently support around 600 clients, and in the past year alone, we executed over 1,500 AI-driven cases. On the revenue side, AI-enabled revenue has grown more than tenfold, reaching RMB 1.2 billion. We expect to achieve RMB 3 to 5 billion in AI-driven revenue by 2025.

It requires a truly self-developed AI platform and model. BlueAI is fast becoming the new engine that powers AI-driven applications across BlueFocus. It is our proprietary AI platform, our own “multimodal AI model for marketing,” purpose-built to meet BlueFocus’s strategic needs. BlueAI now supports more than half of BlueFocus’s project cases across both global and domestic marketing scenarios. Internally, we have incubated approximately 100 AI agents to scale and deepen our capabilities. Looking ahead, we aim to build on our growing base of content-scale data to power a self-reinforcing data flywheel, from factual data annotation, to content creation and delivery, to continuous deep learning. Our ambition is for BlueAI to become the most competitive model in the marketing industry and the next strategic engine of BlueFocus.

It builds on true AI infrastructure and robust data systems. By the end of this year, BlueFocus is projected to label over 200 million data records across marketing scenarios, with API token usage approaching hundreds of billions in scale. Coupled with the growing pool of process, operational, and media performance data accumulated across our business middleware systems, we are laying the groundwork for “emergent intelligence” under the new AI paradigm.

It takes deep organizational transformation and a bold talent strategy shift. At the organizational level, AI has become a hard-coded standard embedded in recruitment, promotion, and incentive structures. “No AI, No Bonus, No Promotion” is not just a slogan, but a decision-making principle that guides how we operate. Today, BlueFocus already has nearly 300 product and technology professionals and 200 AI Native seed talents. They are our strategic safeguard in becoming AI Native, and the foundation of our innovation.

With real scenarios, datasets, technology platforms, and a fundamental shift in organizational paradigms, we are methodically constructing durable vertical moats, barriers that differentiate us not only from general-purpose foundation models but also from competitors within our own industry.

Second question: Amid ongoing trade tensions, how should we think about and respond to the challenges facing our large-scale global outbound business?

Based on in-depth conversations with multiple clients, the broader industry is proactively embracing market diversification, accelerating expansion into high-average-order-value markets in Europe, high-growth regions like Southeast Asia, and fast-emerging opportunities in Latin America. Market volatility, while challenging, often reveals strategic openings for those positioned to move with agility. We remain confident in both the long-term trajectory of global e-commerce and the continued expansion of BlueFocus’s outbound business in 2025.

In 2024, we officially launched our Global Outbound Business 2.0 strategy. So, what does 2.0 signify for us? In short, it marks a shift away from a traditional agency-driven model toward one that is powered by technology, AI, and localized operations, ushering in a new era of proprietary traffic development and self-built competitive infrastructure. We see tremendous opportunities in both traffic structure and customer base. So far, our outbound team has built a customer base of nearly 100,000. Across this vast client pool, we are seeing growing marketing budgets and increasingly diversified demands, indicating that any partner capable of offering new capabilities stands a real chance of capturing new budget streams. Finally, in a global landscape shaped by diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts, resource and information barriers remain high. This is precisely why we continue to invest in building local offices.

As we look to the future, powered by the synergy of our AI strategy and Globalization 2.0, BlueFocus will continue to unlock new, high-quality incremental markets—breaking through the valuation limits that have long defined traditional marketing. Our ambition is to evolve into a Marketing Technology company rooted in technological DNA and guided by global vision—ultimately serving as a defining Chinese example in the evolution of the global marketing industry.

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SOURCE BlueFocus

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Alethios Unveils a Comprehensive Decentralized Data Collection Suite for Human Health Research

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Live, no-code integrations let researchers combine participant-reported outcomes, wearables and sensors, AI-powered digital biomarkers, and at-home lab tests in a single study at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Alethios, the software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health, today launched a comprehensive suite of decentralized data collection tools. Researchers can now combine participant-reported outcomes, wearable and sensor data, digital biomarkers, and at-home biomarker testing in a single study, without writing code, managing multiple vendors, or requiring clinic visits.

Alethios powers studies across nutraceuticals, functional foods, academia, consumer health, medical devices, biotech, and the life sciences. Study designs range from consumer perception studies to pivotal, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials all run on the same software platform. Customers  including Givaudan, Thorne, PLT Health Solutions, Applied Food Sciences, Hofseth BioCare, Helaina, Samphire Neuroscience, and Sonoran University use the platform to generate rigorous evidence from participants’ homes. The new integrations build on the company’s founding belief that rigorous, multimodal research should be within reach for teams of every size and budget, across the human health ecosystem.

The suite spans four layers of data, each available as a no-code integration within the Alethios Study Planner and Study Operator:

Reported data: participant-submitted photo, video, audio, and text, plus a library of clinically validated instruments, both publicly available and licensed.Generated health data: personal wearables and health platforms including Apple Watch, Google Health, Garmin, Oura, Whoop, and Fitbit, and sensors including Abbott’s continuous glucose monitors and Withings and InBody bioimpedance scales.Digital biomarkers: validated cognitive batteries powered by BrainHQ, skin health selfies for dermatology and cosmetic studies powered by Haut.ai, and 3D body composition scans powered by Prism Labs.At-home biomarker testing: dried blood spot cards, Tasso blood collection devices, and at-home microbiome kits. Standard panels, including male and female hormones, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammation, vitamin D, and hydration, run through Choose Health. Next-generation tests include epigenetic clocks from Muhdo and TruDiagnostic, and gut and vaginal microbiome sequencing from GutID and other shotgun metagenomic sequencing partners.

Adding a data type takes a few clicks. In the Study Planner, researchers select the data types their study needs and place each one on the participant schedule. For at-home kits, Alethios can handle ordering, shipping, and unique ID verification to keep every sample matched with the right participant, and results flow back into the platform. Once a study is live, the Study Operator brings every data stream into one real-time monitoring dashboard.

Compliant Data Collection by Default

Every integration runs on the platform’s existing infrastructure, where validation and data integrity assurances are built in and each one is designed to encourage participant adherence without compromising data quality. Researchers can:

Schedule each integration on the study timeline, so every data point is accurately time-stamped.Tie completion and compliance to milestone-based tracking and compensation, for example releasing a $50 gift card once a participant’s kit is accessioned at the lab.Monitor adherence across multiple data types in real-time from the Study Operator, so missed wearable syncs, late surveys, or unreturned kits are caught before they turn into missing data.

Every data point is cleaned and aligned to its participant automatically, so research teams receive one analysis-ready dataset rather than stitching together exports from multiple vendors.

“We built Alethios for researchers across human health,” said Zeenia Framroze, Founder and CEO of Alethios. “There are so many new ways to collect data at home, and we want to give research teams the best of them, wherever they sit. Whether someone is designing a claims substantiation study for a supplement or running post-marketing surveillance for a drug, we want to make it easy to collect robust subjective and objective data from Alethiad participants around the nation. The better and more accessible data collection is, the more we move the needle on our understanding of all of human health.”

A Home for Next-Generation Health Measurement

“So many novel devices and at-home tests are being developed today,” said Gurpreet Atwal, CTO of Alethios. “We want Alethios to be the tool scientists and innovators use to rapidly develop and validate new methods of data collection, and the home for the newest, best-in-class technologies for measuring human health. With rapid recruitment through the Alethiad Participant Community, those technologies can be tested with diverse, representative participants from day one.”

Companies developing novel devices, tests, or digital biomarkers can apply to integrate with Alethios here.

About Alethios

Alethios is a software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health. Its AI-powered, full-stack software delivers the capabilities of a study team without the overhead. The platform unifies protocol design, IRB coordination, recruitment, participant management, multimodal data collection, and reporting for decentralized clinical trials. Principal investigators, sponsors, and CROs rely on Alethios to generate rigorous real-world evidence across human health industries, setting up a study in minutes with plans starting at $100 per month. Through the Study Planner, Study Operator, and the Alethiad Participant Community, research teams can use the software in a self-service, hybrid, or fully turn-key model, at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.Alethios is a 2026 Nutra Healthspan Innovator Award winner, a 2026 Vitafoods Europe Startup Challenge finalist, and a 2025 NutraIngredients-USA Startup Award finalist. Get started at Alethios.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alethios-unveils-a-comprehensive-decentralized-data-collection-suite-for-human-health-research-302916518.html

SOURCE Alethios, Inc.

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7 out of 10 Individuals Hit by Data Breaches Via Third Party, Kroll Finds

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Breaches at technology and insurance firms affected the most individuals
in Kroll cases, highlighting the wider damage a single incident can cause

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Kroll, the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, today revealed that two-thirds of organizations surveyed (69%) suffered a data breach in the past year. More than a third (34%) were breached more than once, according to its 2026 annual Data Breach Outlook.

Further analysis showed that financial services accounted for the largest share of organizations breached in Kroll’s cases, at 20%, but a single breach at a technology provider can expose data belonging to customers of hundreds of businesses that use its services.

Of the incidents handled by Kroll in the twelve months between June 2025 and June 2026, 69% of affected individuals were impacted by a third-party breach. 79% of those individuals were affected by a breach from the technology sector, which is significantly higher compared to the finance (9%), insurance (6%) or healthcare (5%) sectors.

Breaches at technology firms accounted for the largest number of affected individuals, followed by insurers, despite ranking seventh and ninth respectively for the total number of organizations breached.

Data and Trends from the Kroll Data Breach Outlook 2026

Repeated breaches are common. Of the 250 leaders surveyed by Kroll, 69% said their organization had suffered a breach in the previous 12 months, while 34% reported experiencing more than one.IT teams are far more concerned about third parties than senior leaders. More than half (54%) of IT and technology leaders identified vendor and third-party breaches as their biggest compliance risk, compared with 40% of C-suite executives and 30% of risk and compliance leaders.Third-party relationships complicate the response. Dependence on vendors was among the top four challenges leaders faced when making breach-response decisions, cited by 41% of respondents.A small number of breaches can have a wide impact. Technology ranked seventh for the number of organizations breached but first for the total number of individuals affected. Insurance ranked ninth for the number of organizations breached but second for the total number of individuals affected.

Denyl Green, Global Head of Breach Notification at Kroll says, “Kroll handles thousands of incidents every year. Across most of the major incidents we handled over the past year, a vendor, software supplier or service provider was the link between the initial breach and the organizations affected. One incident can reach businesses and individuals who have never dealt directly with the company where the compromise began.”

“As AI agents are given more access to systems and sensitive data, breach risk rises across both human on non-human identities. Data and identity governance are becoming even more complex, and we expect AI to feature more prominently in Kroll’s Data Breach Outlook next year, both as a tool used by attackers and as a source of exposure for businesses adopting it.”

“When a supplier is breached, every client needs to determine whose data was affected and whether customers and regulators need to be notified. The businesses that respond most effectively have already mapped their third-party relationships and the subsequent domino effect, with an agreed plan in place before an incident happens. That preparation can reduce both the complexity and the cost of managing a breach, as well as give greater peace of mind.”

Katherine Keefe, Global Cyber Insurance Industry Lead at Kroll says, “Kroll’s breach data shows a single supplier breach can trigger dozens or even hundreds of cyber insurance claims from businesses whose only connection is that they use the same provider. These scenarios exponentially increase potential cyber insurance losses compared to breaches affecting a single business.”

“Cyber underwriters are already responding, not only by more closely scrutinizing how businesses manage their suppliers, but also by identifying potential single points of failure which may be caused by vendors and suppliers serving wide swaths of industry. Cyber insurance claims teams managing aggregated losses are also impacted and require efficient incident response and breach notification best practices when multiple policyholders are affected by the same event.”

“Cyber insurers now know that identifying dependencies on common vendors is critical to assessing and minimizing the risk that one breach will impact many policyholders.”

Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience (CDR) practice guides organizations through cyber crises, from incident response and cyber risk strategy to process and software controls and managed security operations. Within CDR, the Data Breach team handles some of the largest and most complex notification programs in the world. Often serving as part of a broader cyber incident response, Kroll’s data breach notification services help organizations rapidly navigate multi-jurisdictional requirements, including call center and credit monitoring services, to meet regulatory obligations and protect their reputation. Learn more: https://www.kroll.com/en/services/cyber/breach-notification.

About the Data Breach Outlook 2026 report

The Data Breach Outlook 2026, launched in October 2026, draws on two sources: an analysis of data breach incidents handled by Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience practice between June 2025 and June 2026, and a companion survey of 250 risk and compliance leaders and C-suite executives and board members, conducted by Kroll in 2026, examining how organizations experience and respond to breach events, including the role of vendor and third-party relationships.

About Kroll

As the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, Kroll leverages our unique insights, data and technology to help clients stay ahead of complex valuation demands. Kroll’s team of more than 6,500 professionals worldwide continues the firm’s nearly 100-year history of trusted expertise spanning risk, governance, transactions and valuation. Our advanced solutions and intelligence provide clients the foresight they need to create an enduring competitive advantage. At Kroll, our values define who we are and how we partner with clients and communities. Learn more at kroll.com.

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SOURCE Kroll Associates

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Innodisk Launches All-in-One GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit to Accelerate Edge AI Vision Deployment

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TAIPEI, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Innodisk, a leading global AI solution provider, today announced the Innodisk GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, an all-in-one vision solution that bundles four 3MP GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, FAKRA cables, and other necessary accessories.

A milestone in Innodisk’s edge AI vision strategy, the kit lets customers set up a multi-camera system and begin validation right out of the box, shortening the path from proof of concept (PoC) to deployment. Full camera source code is included, giving customers flexibility throughout development and maintenance.

As AI vision moves toward multi-camera perception in robotics and intelligent vehicles, integrating cameras, capture cards, drivers, and host platforms has become increasingly complex, often taking six months or more before validation. The starter kit’s pre-integrated hardware and software driver enable system integrators to speed up time-to-market.

All-in-One Multi-Camera Integration for Faster Setup and Validation

GMSL2™ is a high-speed video transmission technology that originated in automotive applications and offers long-distance connectivity. Unlike plug-and-play USB cameras, it requires a dedicated capture card and platform-specific drivers. The starter kit includes four 3MP fixed-focus GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, four FAKRA cables, a power adapter, power cords, and a quick start guide. It also provides camera source code for the widely adopted NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, so users can bypass component sourcing, system-level integration, driver debugging, and tuning.

“The biggest challenge in a multi-camera AI vision project is often not the AI application itself, but the camera integration and system tuning that come before it,” said CK Hsu, Senior Manager of the Camera Product Business Department at Innodisk. “With the GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, Innodisk takes on the complexity of early-stage integration so customers can focus on development and move into PoC sooner.”

Source Code Included for Seamless Customization

With the camera source code in hand, engineering teams can independently adapt the software driver to their own requirements and use the kit as a working foundation for further development. Innodisk also provides comprehensive customization services from hardware fine-tuning to application deployment, helping customers move smoothly into design-in and mass production.

Expanding GMSL2™ Portfolio for Diverse Edge AI Scenarios

The kit supports edge AI scenarios including blind spot detection and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for heavy-duty vehicles, object recognition and environmental perception for humanoid robots and AMRs.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/innodisk-launches-all-in-one-gmsl2-camera-starter-kit-to-accelerate-edge-ai-vision-deployment-302916771.html

SOURCE Innodisk Corporation

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