Procurement AI agent is recognized in one of the most competitive categories in this year’s International Business Awards® program

BEDMINSTER, N.J., Aug. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Simfoni, a global provider of spend intelligence and procurement automation solutions, today announced that Virgil, the AI agent built into its Source-to-Contract (S2C) platform, has won a Stevie® Award for Best AI-Powered Product or Service in the 2026 International Business Awards®, one of the world’s most competitive business awards programs.

The Best AI-Powered Product or Service category also recognized AI offerings from several of the world’s largest technology and industrial companies. Simfoni’s own team is a fraction of the size of many of its fellow honorees, and Virgil’s recognition rested entirely on the strength of the product and its real-world customer adoption.

“Winning a Stevie Award in this category means being judged against some of the biggest names in enterprise technology,” said Chirag Shah, Executive Chairman of Simfoni. “We believed AI could do more than sit on top of procurement software. It could run inside it, as part of the actual workflow. Virgil is proof of that, and this recognition is a credit to everyone at Simfoni who helped build it into what it is today.”

Source-to-contract tools are supposed to help procurement teams address more of their spend, but messy data, manual workflows, and limited headcount cap how much any team can meaningfully cover, leaving opportunities hidden and savings uncaptured. Virgil, the AI agent built natively into Simfoni’s Source-to-Contract platform, closes that gap, going deeper than a typical spend suite and staying more connected than a patchwork of point solutions. It works across spend analytics, sourcing pipeline, eRFx, and contract management, automating the analysis and workflows that previously kept spend out of reach. Virgil proactively surfaces savings opportunities in a customer’s data and pushes them directly into a sourcing project, connecting insight to action without manual handoffs or switching tools. Enterprise customers worldwide rely on Simfoni’s Source-to-Contract platform and Virgil to run day-to-day procurement operations.

The International Business Awards are conducted by the Stevie Awards, widely regarded as the world’s premier business awards program. This year’s competition drew thousands of nominations from organizations of all sizes across more than 60 nations, evaluated by a global panel of business professionals.

“Procurement teams don’t have a data problem, they have a time problem,” said Shah. “By the time they have pulled all the relevant information together, there’s no time left to act on what they found, so most of the opportunity gets missed. That’s the problem Virgil was built to solve, and it’s the reason customers use it every day, not just to answer questions, but to actually run their procurement function and activate more of the spend that’s addressable. This award is proof that Simfoni is leading the charge in defining the AI-enabled solution for procurement.”

About Simfoni

Simfoni is a global spend intelligence and procurement technology company that helps organizations gain visibility into spend, uncover savings opportunities, and streamline sourcing, contracting, and supplier management. Simfoni’s Source-to-Contract platform — powered by Virgil, its native AI agent — is used by enterprise procurement teams around the world. Simfoni has offices in Chicago, New Jersey, London, and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.simfoni.com.

Media Contact
Trish McLoughlin, Simfoin, 1 415-231-3691, info@simfoni.com, simfoni.com

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SOURCE Simfoin

Overall vacancy rate held steady at 1.3 percent; Rate of “zombie” homes fell slightly to 3.3 percent

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ATTOM, the leading provider of property data, AI-powered analytics, and real estate intelligence solutions, today released its latest Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report showing that 1.3 percent of residential properties in the United States were vacant in the third quarter of the year. That was the same rate as the previous quarter as well as the third quarter of 2025.

The report analyzes publicly recorded real estate data collected by ATTOM — including foreclosure status, equity and owner-occupancy status — matched against monthly updated vacancy data. (See full methodology below).

Out of the country’s 104.6 million residential properties, 259,666 were in the foreclosure process in the third quarter of 2026. About 3.3 percent of those, or 8,482 properties, were “zombies,” meaning the owners had abandoned the properties before the end of their foreclosure proceedings. That zombie rate was slightly lower than the 3.4 percent of properties posted in both the prior quarter and at the same time last year.

“It remains very hard to find an empty home for prospective buyers in most regions,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “In 19 states, the home vacancy rate is below 1 percent, creating a bottleneck that is helping to keep prices high.”

Zombie homes decline in just over half of states

The number of zombie properties rose in 21 states between the second and third quarters of 2026.

Among states with at least 50 zombie properties, the largest quarter-over-quarter increases were in Kentucky (up 56.8 percent to 58 zombie properties); Colorado (up 30.1 percent to 95); Arizona (up 19.4 percent to 86); Maryland (up 18.9 percent to 151); and Indiana (up 17 percent to 344).

The states with the largest decline in zombie properties were Georgia (down 22.8 percent to 78); Texas (down 17.4 percent to 166); Ohio (down 10.8 percent to 602); Minnesota (down 10 percent to 54); and California (down 8 percent to 298).

Vacancy rates below 1 percent in 19 states

The states with the highest overall home vacancy rates in the third quarter were Oklahoma (2.4 percent); Kansas (2.4 percent); Alabama (2.2 percent); West Virginia (2.1 percent); and Missouri (2.1 percent).

The lowest vacancy rates were in New Hampshire (0.3 percent); Vermont (0.4 percent); New Jersey (0.5 percent); Connecticut (0.5 percent); and Idaho (0.5 percent)

Zombie rates highest in Midwest cities

Out of 140 metropolitan statistical areas with sufficient data to analyze, meaning they had at least 100,00 residential properties and at least 50 properties in the foreclosure process, the highest zombie rates were in Youngstown, OH (12.1 percent of homes in foreclosure were vacant); Cedar Rapids, IA (11.6 percent); Baltimore, MD (11.5 percent); Fort Wayne, IN (11.1 percent); and Akron, OH (10.5 percent).

The lowest zombie rates were in Bridgeport, CT (0 percent); Huntsville, AL (0 percent); Trenton, NJ (0.1 percent); Provo, UT (0.2 percent); and Atlantic City, NJ (0.4 percent).

Investors holding more vacant properties

Out of 24.9 million properties owned by institutional investors, 879,532, or 3.5 percent, were vacant in the third quarter of 2026—more than double the nation’s overall vacancy rate.

The states with the highest vacancy rates among investor-owned homes were Indiana (7 percent), Illinois (6.2 percent), Oklahoma (6 percent), Kansas (5.9 percent), and Alabama (5.9 percent).

The states with the lowest vacancy rates for investor-owned properties were New Hampshire (0.9 percent), Vermont (1 percent), Idaho (1.3 percent), North Dakota (1.5 percent), and New Jersey (1.5 percent).

Two Indianapolis zip codes in top five for home vacancy rates

There were 2,511 zip codes with sufficient data to be included in ATTOM’s analysis, meaning they had at least 1,000 residential properties and at least 25 properties in the foreclosure process in the third quarter of 2026. Of those, the highest zombie rates were in 33708 in Saint Petersburg, FL (38.3 percent); 88310 in Alamogordo, NM (36.7 percent); 46201 in Indianapolis, IN (34.1 percent); 34652 in New Port Richey, FL (32.6 percent); and 46208 in Indianapolis, IN (32.6 percent)

Conclusion

ATTOM’s third quarter analysis of vacant and zombie homes found that the national vacancy rate held firm at 1.3 percent despite vacancy rates dropping in a majority of states. The national zombie home rate decreased slightly to 3.3 percent.

Report Methodology

ATTOM analyzed county tax assessor data for nearly 104.6 million residential properties for vacancy, broken down by foreclosure status and owner-occupancy status in the third quarter of 2026. Only metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 residential properties and 50 properties in pre-foreclosure, counties with at least 50,000 residential properties and zip codes with at least 1,000 residential properties and 25 in pre-foreclosure were included in the analysis.

Report Definitions

Vacant Rate

The percentage of all residential properties that are unoccupied at the time of analysis, regardless of foreclosure status or ownership type.

“Zombie” Foreclosure Rate (Pct Pre-Foreclosures Vacant)

The percentage of properties in the foreclosure process that are vacant because the owner has abandoned the property prior to the foreclosure being completed.

Vacant Investment Rate

The percentage of investor-owned residential properties that are unoccupied, measured against the total number of investor-owned homes.

Vacant Bank-Owned (REO) Rate

The percentage of bank-owned (REO) residential properties that are vacant after foreclosure has been completed and ownership has transferred to the lender.

About ATTOM

ATTOM delivers AI-driven property intelligence built on one of the nation’s most trusted property data assets, covering 160+ million U.S. properties—99% of the population. Our engineered, multi-sourced real estate data spans property tax, deeds, mortgages, foreclosure, environmental risk, property conditions, natural hazards, neighborhood insights, and geospatial boundaries, rigorously validated for advanced analytics. ATTOM supports analytics and AI-driven applications through flexible delivery options including APIs, bulk licensing, cloud delivery, market trend products, and the MCP Server for AI-powered, agentic access to engineered property data—enabling organizations to automate analysis and scale property intelligence across industries.

Media Contact:
Megan Hunt
megan.hunt@attomdata.com 

Data and Report Licensing:
datareports@attomdata.com 

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SOURCE ATTOM

Football fans can experience Turbo Live by AT&T for free at select professional and college football season openers. Fans can also purchase our new Turbo Live season passes for a better-connected gameday experience all season long.

Key Takeaways:

First game is on us: AT&T is giving football fans at select professional and college games a chance to experience Turbo Live at no cost.1Available to all football fans: You don’t need to be an AT&T customer to experience the power of Turbo Live. Reserve your complimentary spot now while availability lasts.2Save all season long: Turbo Live season passes will be available at select stadiums for AT&T customers3, helping fans save over the course of the season.

DALLAS, Aug. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — What’s the news: Football is back, and AT&T is celebrating by giving fans free Turbo Live at select season-opening games. Quantities are limited, so reserve your spot and sign up now for complimentary access to experience AT&T’s first-of-its-kind VIP connection during some of the biggest matchups of the season.2

After the season opener, AT&T is also introducing Turbo Live season passes at select stadiums for AT&T customers. Fans can choose between purchasing access for a single game or save with a Turbo Live season pass for every home game. The new offerings provide a flexible and cost-effective way to enjoy enhanced connectivity throughout the season.

Why it matters: Whether fans are checking scores, sharing photos and videos, watching replays or coordinating a ride home, staying connected is an essential part of the game-day experience. Turbo Live was created to provide fans with a priority connection in crowded venues, so fans can stay closer to the action when it matters most.

Quotable: “Turbo Live was built to help fans stay connected during high demand,” said Josh Goodell, vice president, consumer product development, AT&T. “The best way to feel the difference is to experience it firsthand, which is why we’re offering it free at select pro and college season openers. And for loyal fans who never miss a home game, the season pass delivers enhanced connectivity at a great value, game after game.”

Why it has to be AT&T: As a leader in connected stadium experiences, AT&T built Turbo Live as the first and only premium data connection designed for live events, giving fans enhanced access when networks are most congested. Turbo Live gives fans with an eligible 5G smartphone, including those on Verizon or T-Mobile, the chance to enjoy every game-day moment with our best data boost experience, only provided by AT&T.

To learn more about Turbo Live, please visit: att.com/turbolive.

About AT&T
We help more than 100 million U.S. families, friends and neighbors, plus nearly 2.5 million businesses, connect to greater possibility. From the first phone call 150 years ago to our 5G wireless and multi-gig internet offerings today, we @ATT innovate to improve lives. For more information about AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), please visit us at about.att.com. Investors can learn more at investors.att.com.

© 2026 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the Globe logo are registered trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property.

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SOURCE AT&T