Cloaked, the consumer-first privacy and security company, launches the Cloaked Research Hub. This ongoing initiative will produce original, nationally representative research on how American consumers think about, experience, and respond to personal privacy and data safety issues. Insights are available at www.cloaked.com/research-hub.

NEW YORK, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Cloaked, the consumer-first privacy and security company, today announced the launch of the Cloaked Research Hub. This ongoing initiative will produce original, nationally representative research on how American consumers think about, experience, and respond to personal privacy and data safety issues.

The Cloaked Research Hub launches with five published surveys, revealing growing concern about data privacy risks and distrust of new technologies like AI, which are influencing consumer behavior. Each survey includes 1,000 US respondents and addresses a relevant topic, such as artificial intelligence and data sharing, the cost of financial fraud, the impact of digital search exposure, and the impact of spam on consumer trust.

“Understanding consumer sentiment and how it influences action is a pivotal component to solving the data privacy crisis we face today,” said Arjun Bhatnagar, Co-founder and CEO at Cloaked. “The Cloaked Research Hub is a fact-based insights resource for individuals, companies, media, and policymakers to continue to better understand American views on data privacy across a wide range of topics and demographics.”

Americans Know Privacy-Risk Exists and Seek Answers.

Over the last two years, 33 million searches related to digital privacy, online privacy, and personal data removal have been made. Of these, “remove my information from the internet free” grew by 133%, while “how to delete information from the internet” grew 34%.

Nearly all digital identity searches (96%) focused on awareness, monitoring, or protection. Only 3% focused on reactive deletion, removal, or damage control. However, within this context, searches tied to doxxing prevention grew 37% year over year.

Digital footprint survey results revealed that 77% of Americans feel they do not have control over what appears about them online.

Spam and AI Add to Growing Consumer Distrust.

New technologies like artificial intelligence are accelerating feelings of distrust and a lack of control among Americans, as they increase the volume of spam and the sophistication of scams.

According to Cloaked’s “The Trust Costs of Spam Calls and Texts” survey, spam is playing a significant role in changing how Americans communicate. The survey reveals that the average American loses 27 hours a year to spam calls. Because of such high spam rates, 42% of individuals state that it has significantly influenced or completely changed their communication preferences toward non-call methods, and 43% of respondents have blocked all unknown callers by default.

Cloaked’s “How Americans Feel about Sharing Their Data with AI” survey shows that 75% of individuals feel monitored by the technologies they use, and 82% of respondents say they do not trust AI to keep their data safe.

Feelings about AI are also influencing consumer decision-making and brand loyalty. More than 2 in 5 Americans said learning that a company uses AI to make decisions about them regarding credit, hiring, or insurance without their consent would cause them to leave a platform.

The Cloaked Research Hub is meant to provide an ongoing pulse on American sentiment and action tied to timely privacy topics. New surveys will be unveiled monthly, addressing different forces shaping digital identity, data protection, and consumer privacy today.

For more information about Cloaked and the Cloaked Research Hub, visit www.cloaked.com/research-hub.

About Cloaked

Founded by brothers Arjun and Abhijay Bhatnagar, Cloaked is a consumer-first privacy and security company dedicated to helping individuals take control of their personal data. Trusted by more than 450,000 users, Cloaked gives individuals control over when, where, and with whom they share personal data across its web platform, browser extension, and mobile app while actively removing what’s already exposed in the public domain. Cloaked Enterprise extends this same foundational approach with enterprise-grade tooling, delivering comprehensive employee protection through a distributed, cloud-based managed service that reduces corporate risk and exposure.

To date, the company has raised more than $400 million in funding from investors, including General Catalyst, Liberty City Ventures, Human Capital, Lux Capital, Marquee Ventures, Fifth Growth Fund, Next Play Ventures, Index Ventures, Mantis VC, Khosla Ventures, Thiel Capital, ENEA Capital, the NFLPA, LG Technology Ventures, Assurant Ventures, and DuckDuckGo. Cloaked is based in New York City. To learn more, visit cloaked.com.

Media Contact

Kendra Peavy, Cloaked, 1 929.525.6249, kendra@cloaked.id, cloaked.com

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The agentic AI platform introduces a three-part control layer — guardrails, simulations, and step-by-step visibility — so enterprise brands can move on AI without putting their customer experience or brand reputation at risk.

BOZEMAN, Mont., July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Quiq, the agentic AI agent platform for enterprise customer experience, today announced Verified Intelligence, a set of capabilities designed to give brands the controls they need to deploy and operate agentic AI with confidence. Verified Intelligence combines guardrails that protect every customer interaction, simulations that prove AI behavior before go-live, and step-by-step visibility into every decision the AI makes.

Enterprise brands are under pressure to move on AI. The risk is not moving too slowly, it is deploying AI that behaves in ways you cannot predict, explain, or control. Run agentic AI with confidence, not guessing. Verified Intelligence is Quiq’s answer to that problem.

“The brands that get AI right are the ones that never had to choose between innovation and control,” said Mike Myer, CEO of Quiq. “Verified Intelligence is how we make sure our customers never have to make that tradeoff. You get agentic AI that acts, and a control layer that makes sure it acts correctly.”

Guardrails that protect. Before any response reaches a customer, Quiq’s proprietary Verify Claim cross-references the AI’s answer for accuracy. Process Guides encode brand standards directly into the AI’s behavior without requiring code. Guardrails protect your brand before every response goes out.

Simulations that prove. Unlike tools that test single turns or scripted paths, Quiq lets teams run hundreds of realistic multi-turn conversations before a single customer sees the AI. Teams can define specific tests the simulation must pass, locking in desired behaviors as regression tests or adding targeted tests to make sure it cannot silently recur. Edge cases, regressions, and policy failures get caught before they reach production, not after.

Visibility into every decision. Quiq surfaces the step-by-step reasoning behind every individual interaction. Teams can see every AI decision in sequence since 100% of AI decisions are visible and auditable. Teams can refine and improve AI agent performance with full confidence, and demonstrate to stakeholders exactly how the AI is performing.

Verified Intelligence is available now across the Quiq platform for all AI Agent deployments.

About Quiq

Quiq is the agentic AI agent platform that resolves customer needs throughout the entire customer journey, maintaining continuous context across all channels while giving you complete visibility into every AI decision. Leading global brands including Roku, Staples, Accor, Brinks Home, Terminix, Urban Outfitters, and IHG Hotels & Resorts trust Quiq to resolve customer needs with confidence. Learn more at quiq.com.

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SOURCE QUIQ, INC.

Round Co-Led by SAS Private Equities and Scale Venture Partners to Accelerate Deployment of AI-Powered Manufacturing Solutions

BEDFORD, Mass., July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Oxipital AI, whose V-CORTX platform is quickly becoming the visual intelligence backbone for modern food manufacturing, today announced the successful close of its Series A financing. The round was co-led by SAS Private Equities and Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Material Impact and other existing shareholders.

The financing follows a period of rapid commercial growth as manufacturers increasingly deploy Oxipital AI’s V-CORTX platform to address labor shortages, product quality challenges, food safety requirements, and production bottlenecks in highly variable manufacturing environments.

Oxipital AI is on track to deliver 400% annual revenue growth in 2026, powered by production expansion with several global food manufacturers. Most recently, the company was awarded a major production contract to expand deployment of its V-CORTX platform, including 120 AI vision systems, to perform critical foreign object detection across multiple production lines and facilities.

“Food manufacturing is entering a new era,” said Mark J. Chiappetta, President & CEO of Oxipital AI. “While automation is deployed at scale in highly structured industries like semiconductor fabrication and automotive, many others have been unable to benefit broadly because products and production conditions vary constantly. Our V-CORTX platform changes the game, enabling conventional automation systems to observe, understand, and act with human-level performance in these complex real-world environments.”

At the center of the company’s success is V-CORTX, a synthetic AI vision platform purpose-built for high-variability manufacturing. With its proprietary synthetic model training pipeline and factory model, V-CORTX enables manufacturers to rapidly deploy inspection and quality control, yield and throughput optimization, foreign material detection, and vision-guided robotic automation solutions at production scale.

The platform also provides production data analytics to support deterministic decision-making, auditability, and end-to-end traceability, enabling manufacturers to confidently deploy AI in production environments where reliability, compliance, and operational accountability are essential.

“Machine vision has historically been one of the largest failure points in industrial automation,” said Rory O’Driscoll, Partner at Scale Venture Partners. “Oxipital AI has built a fundamentally differentiated approach that is already proving itself in production at scale. Their traction with major food manufacturers demonstrates both the urgency of the problem and the size of the opportunity ahead.”

As manufacturers accelerate investments in AI-driven operations, Oxipital AI is becoming an increasingly important component of modern production infrastructure. By combining synthetic AI vision, operational intelligence, and robotic automation integration, the company helps manufacturers improve product quality, increase throughput, reduce waste, strengthen food safety, and reduce dependence on scarce labor resources in environments that have traditionally challenged conventional automation systems.

About Oxipital AI

Oxipital AI is transforming manufacturing with V-CORTX, its synthetic visual intelligence platform that enables conventional automation systems to observe, understand, and act with human-level performance in highly variable production environments. The company is headquartered in the Greater Boston area. More information can be found at www.OxipitalAI.com.

Media Contact: 
Austin Harvey
VP of Product & Marketing – Oxipital AI
Email: aharvey@oxipitalai.com

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SOURCE Oxipital AI