Technology

Poka Plants the Flag on Industrial AI for Connected Work

Published

1 day ago

June 24, 2026

Built on twelve years of frontline data, new AI agents and no-code AI Studio, are now open in Poka Early Access Program, to bring governed Industrial AI to the shop floor of the world’s largest industrial operators

QUEBEC CITY, June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Today, Poka, the leading Industrial AI platform for Connected Work, is setting the bar even higher with the announcement of its Industrial AI roadmap: the addition of a no-code AI Studio and a MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, on top of its governed AI agents already in production with named industrial customers. The MCP server allows any AI assistant to access the Poka capabilities, and the no-code AI Studio enables customers to build their own agents to solve and manage critical shop floor processes. Both are now open to selected customers in a by-invitation Early Access Program, with general availability in October 2026.

“Industrial AI is not enterprise AI in a hard hat,” said Antoine Bisson, co-founder and CEO of Poka. “It belongs inside the work. We have spent twelve years building the foundation it runs on. Now we are defining Industrial AI for Connected Work.”

A growing wave of the world’s largest industrial operators are choosing Poka for their connected work solutions. New customer wins in 2026 include Viega, First Solar, and The Coca-Cola Company, alongside expansions across the existing base. Poka has expanded across Europe with new growth in DACH, the UK & Ireland, and France. The company grew ARR an outstanding 63% in 2025, followed by 60% in the first quarter of 2026.

This is Antoine Bisson’s first major strategic move since becoming CEO earlier this year. He previously served as Poka’s Chief AI Officer, where he was leading the creation of the data foundation that is in the DNA of the new agents. Poka’s twelve years of real-time frontline workflows across thousands of sites and dozens of languages is a foundation that no AI-first entrant can match.

The roadmap responds to three forces converging on the shop floor. Experienced operators are retiring faster than new ones can be trained, taking decades of plant knowledge with them. Regulators have tightened the rules around audit trails and deterministic behavior in the environments where Industrial AI now operates, and the first wave of horizontal AI on the factory floor has only delivered limited operational impact.

Poka’s answer is a complete Knowledge Flywheel, comprising AI agents that capture what the best operator knows and then pass this industry expertise into the hands of every operator on every shift, governed for the regulated environment and grounded in real workflow data. It is delivering governed Industrial AI with the tribal knowledge to equip the workforce, not to enforce horizontal AI bolted to the floor.

Industrial AI in production

Poka Industrial AI agents are in production today at named industrial customers, covering critical use cases, such as:

A Problem-Solving Agent that guides operators through to resolutionAn Analytics Agent that analyzes trends across operations and surfaces insights in secondsA Knowledge Agent that searches across work instructions, troubleshooting guides, and critical documents to deliver a clear, actionable answer

Poka announces Early Access Program

Today, Poka also opens the by-invitation Early Access Program for Poka AI Studio, the no-code environment where operations teams build their own agents on the same foundation, or use templates covering use cases such as:

A Work Instruction Comparison Agent that compares the two procedures and highlights exactly where they divergeA Formless Issue Agent that handles issues end-to-end in plain language (creating, updating, resolving, assigning a task, dropping a comment, all without opening the issue itself)A Similar Issues Agent that searches across open, resolved, and archived issues to surface what’s relevant in the moment, speeding up issue resolution time

General availability for these AI agents is October 2026.

The agents do more than answer questions. Through Poka’s Extensibility Framework, they trigger workflows in connected systems, including MES, CMMS, and ERP, and execute steps under human approval. All Poka agents are governed, auditable end-to-end, and deployable by an operations team without coding work.

Poka also ships today a production-ready MCP server, making Poka’s data and workflows accessible from any enterprise AI assistant. Industrial organizations building corporate AI stacks on Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or proprietary solutions can connect directly to Poka without custom integrations. A worker asking “Show me unresolved issues on Line 3 from last week” inside whichever AI tool their company provides gets a live answer from Poka — with authentication, permission scoping, and governance traveling with every call.

The Early Access Program opens as a founding cohort. It is limited to selected manufacturers who deploy with Poka engineers alongside their team, capture baseline and outcome metrics from day one, shape the Poka AI Studio roadmap, and convert on founding-member terms at general availability. Manufacturers can apply at poka.io/ai.

“On the factory floor, the wrong AI answer hurts someone and brings the regulator in,” Bisson said. “Industrial AI is what works there, and what moves the numbers in the board pack. Across every plant. On the spot. No configuration session. No compromises. This is the AI we built.”

“The work spoke for itself. The work scaled. The time for quiet is over,” Bisson said.

About Poka

Poka is the leading Industrial AI platform for Connected Work. Founded in 2014, Poka powers more than 1 million frontline workers across 3,000+ sites in 70+ countries and 17 languages, with customers including Nestlé, Bosch, Mars, Danone, L’Oréal, Tetra Pak, Coty, Hitachi, and Flora Food Group. Poka’s governed AI agents run on twelve years of real-time frontline workflow data. Poka was named Leader in both the Growth and Innovation indices of the 2025 Frost Radar for Connected Worker, and in 2026 is shipping production-grade Industrial AI to the factory floor. Poka is part of IFS. Learn more at www.poka.io.

Media Contact

Jamie Kightley, Poka, 1 561 228 1940, poka@iba-international.com, https://www.poka.io/

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Technology

ITC Validates Again Voltage Energy’s Right to Supply Trunk Bus Solutions to U.S. Market

Published

1 hour ago

June 25, 2026

Voltage Energy to Continue Serving Domestic Customers with Next-Generation Trunk Bus Solutions

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Voltage Energy Group (“Voltage Energy”), a leading solar and clean energy solutions provider founded in North Carolina, today announced that the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) has issued a final determination confirming that its next-generation trunk bus solutions (“LYNX PLUS”) do not infringe the patents of Shoals Technologies Group, Inc. (“Shoals”) asserted in its second ITC case against Voltage Energy.

This critical ruling allows Voltage Energy to continue serving domestic customers, including solar developers and EPCs, by ensuring uninterrupted access to its trunk bus solutions for projects nationwide. It also rejects Shoals’ efforts to exclude Voltage Energy’s trunk bus solutions from the market and stifle competition.

“Today’s decision is a victory for Voltage Energy and reinforces fair competition and reliable access to innovative energy solutions for the domestic solar industry and its customers,” said Li Wang, CEO of Voltage Energy. “Voltage Energy independently developed its trunk bus solutions and will continue to innovate. The solar industry depends on open and fair competition, not efforts to eliminate competitors through litigation and unfair business practices.”

This latest ruling follows a series of favorable outcomes for Voltage Energy in related proceedings. Last January, the ITC found no violation and terminated Shoals’ first ITC investigation, which Shoals had initiated in May 2023 and in which it wrongly accused Voltage Energy’s products of infringing three patents. During that first ITC case, Shoals sought new patents, which were issued in June 2024 and were later asserted in Shoals’ second ITC case and district court complaint against Voltage Energy in January 2025.

Following a recent bench trial, the district court found that Shoals violated an agreement prohibiting its ITC counsel’s involvement in obtaining those new patents.

Voltage Energy appreciates the court’s validation of those concerns, as well as the Court’s recognition that Shoals should not unfairly benefit from that violation, which accelerated Shoals obtaining those patents. Voltage Energy stands behind its trunk bus solutions, which were independently developed before Shoals obtained the asserted patents, and will continue to defend its innovations, including its latest LYNX PLUS solution, which the ITC confirmed does not infringe the 375/376 patents.

While related legal matters remain ongoing, Voltage Energy respects valid intellectual property rights and remains committed to competing with integrity, investing in innovation, and delivering dependable, forward-looking solutions to customers.

About Voltage Energy Group

Founded in 2016, Voltage Energy Group (“Voltage Energy”) is a leading global provider of electrical balance of systems (EBOS) solutions for utility-scale solar projects, with global headquarters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Voltage Energy delivers innovative, value-engineered technologies and services that improve installation efficiency, enhance safety, and optimize long-term system performance.

We are a group of innovative people who sincerely care about the renewable industry. Learn more at the company’s new website, www.voltageenergy.com.

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SOURCE Voltage Energy Group

Technology

Validar, Leader in Event-Technology Sector, Secures Debt-Funding Package from Decathlon Capital Partners

Published

1 hour ago

June 25, 2026

Seattle-based company to expand platform, boost customer-support and sales initiatives

SEATTLE, June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Validar, an innovative provider of event-technology solutions, will launch a significant expansion program after it reached agreement with Decathlon Capital Partners on a growth-funding investment. Validar is headquartered at Seattle.

The venture-debt funding will support expanded features on the Validar platform as well as expanded customer-support and sales-and-marketing initiatives. Financial details of the venture-debt transaction were not disclosed.

Victor Kippes, Founder and CEO of Validar, said the company has worked more than two decades to help marketers of B2B events better understand and articulate their value. At more than 1,000 events around the world, Validar products have enhanced ticketing and registration, provided real-time feedback on the effectiveness of content, and driven leads from the show floor into sales initiatives.

“This important growth-financing package is custom designed to meet the needs of our fast-growing company,” Kippes said. “It provides flexible amortization, doesn’t require any dilution of existing shareholders and doesn’t involve any changes in management control or governance.”

Validar will face no cost for undrawn capital in the transaction, which includes possible additional steps to support Validar’s growth beyond the current investment.

John Borchers, Managing Director of Decathlon Capital Partners, said Validar’s products provide high-value data to organizers of B2B events, allowing them to understand the ROI on the millions of dollars they spend to attract attendees to their events.

“Validar has worked closely with the B2B events industry since 2005. Victor Kippes and his team understand the requirements of event marketers, and they continue to develop technology solutions to meet the needs of their clients worldwide,” Borchers said. “Decathlon Capital Partners is pleased to support the continued growth of Validar.”

About Validar
Validar provides innovative event technology solutions that empower organizers to create engaging, efficient, and data-driven experiences. With a focus on streamlining registration, check-in, tracking attendee behavior, engagement tools, and event analytics, Validar serves a wide range of industries to enhance attendee satisfaction and measure event performance. Learn more at www.validar.com.

About Decathlon Capital Partners
Decathlon Capital Partners provides growth capital for companies seeking alternatives to traditional equity investment. Through the use of highly customized growth-debt financing solutions, Decathlon provides long-term growth capital without the dilution, loss of control and operational overhead that often comes with equity-based funding. With offices in Palo Alto and Park City, Decathlon is active across a wide range of sectors. Learn more at www.decathloncapital.com.

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SOURCE Validar

Technology

PLS Logistics Services Acquires The AGL Group

Published

1 hour ago

June 25, 2026

Acquisition expands PLS Logistics non-asset-based Service Portfolio

CRANBERRY, Pa., June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — PLS Logistics Services (PLS), a leading third-party logistics provider, today announced the acquisition of The AGL Group, an international freight forwarder and supply chain company based in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The acquisition of AGL enhances PLS’s market position, diversifies its customer base, and expands its product portfolio.

For customers, PLS now offers international forwarding services, including drayage, ocean and customs brokerage, along with its world class domestic freight solutions, including truckload, LTL, TMS, and managed services.

Commenting on the acquisition, PLS Chairman and CEO Greg Burns remarked “The acquisition of the AGL Group brings a proven and reliable international service provider with strong presence in ocean and customs brokerage to the PLS client base. I’m excited that the AGL management team lead by CEO Steve Zambo will be joining the PLS family.”

Added Steve Zambo, CEO of the AGL Group, “The team at AGL is looking forward to further growth opportunities as part of a Billion dollar organization. PLS Logistics is known throughout the industry for its advance supply chain solutions, scaled operations, and outstanding market reputation. The combination will create new opportunities for AGL clients and employees alike.”

The AGL Group will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of PLS Logistics, with Steve Zambo remaining CEO and reporting to PLS President Steven Bergan.

PLS President Steven Bergan commented; “The entire PLS Leadership team has been impressed with the customer and employee centric culture that Steve Zambo has built and we see this as an excellent culture fit with PLS. I look forward to working closely with Steve and his team to further growth opportunities ahead.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

ABOUT PLS LOGISTICS SERVICES
PLS Logistics Services is a leading third-party logistics provider specializing in managed transportation and end-to-end supply chain solutions across North America and beyond. Powered by people, process, and proprietary technology, PLS delivers Visibility, Capacity, and Confidence to businesses that depend on their supply chains to perform. For more information, visit www.plslogistics.com.

ABOUT THE AGL GROUP
The AGL Group is a full-service logistics company with more than 40 years of experience in domestic, import, and export freight solutions. With a team of 76 specialists and a global partner network of 600+ providers, AGL delivers comprehensive freight solutions built around one guiding principle: making lives easier. For more information, visit www.theaglgroup.com

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SOURCE PLS Logistics Services