FULLERTON, Calif., Nov. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Travertine Spa Atelier, the luxury fragrance house is developing a new fragrance using the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in collaboration with the digital olfaction company Osmo.

It can take a year or more to create a fine fragrance. With Osmo’s cutting-edge AI technologies, the development process from concept to final creative wrap-up is reduced to several weeks. Travertine embraces AI for the benefits that it offers in fragrance formulation along with ethical rules that Travertine and Osmo do not compromise on.

“Touring the Osmo laboratories and seeing robots digitize scent left me speechless,” said Terry Carter, chief perfumer of Travertine. “The digital amalgamation of olfactive data and safety protocols does not hinder but rather assists my creative process. Our ethos is to combine indulgent ingredients with modern science. Collaborating with Master Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel and working with new fragrance molecules is a high honor.”

Travertine and Osmo are aligned to incorporate a global perspective and hinder biases of some AI data sets. The fragrance is inspired by an island in the Mediterranean sea. A rich cultural history, terroir, geographical influences, spices, sunshine and originality are elements of the fragrance concept brief.

“We are combining decades of human expertise and ground-breaking technologies from multiple industries. It is imperative that artists and scientists collaborate to discover new molecules and expand the art,” said Osmo Master Perfumer, Christophe Laudamiel. “Art development for thousands of years has always been enabled by scientific discoveries. Fostering education of the artists and the public also goes hand in hand with more grandiose art forms. We also walk that talk at Osmo in our collaboration with colleague perfumers.”

Perfumery is one of many facets of Osmo’s technological innovation.

“I am obsessed with smell and fully committed to digitizing our sense of smell,” said Osmo CEO, Alex Wiltschko. “Our solutions enable large corporations and a multitude of underserved smaller companies to achieve quality perfume design. The history-making technology of Osmo can be used for innumerable applications ranging from fragrance creation to the early detection of disease.”

The unisex fragrance is anticipated to launch in Spring 2025.

About Travertine Spa Atelier
Founded in 2004, Travertine Spa Atelier is a luxury lifestyle brand of high-quality skin care, body care and fine fragrance. We travel the globe for inspiration, ancient skincare rituals, and therapeutic body treatments to create a unique line of vitamin-rich, olfactorily-delicious botanical products. Travertine is favored by fragrance enthusiasts and those in the know. Travertine custom formulates fragrance for ultra-luxe resorts and multinational corporations and is a pledger of the Perfumery Code of Ethics. The Travertine Perfumery Workshop is a top-rated in-demand experience. Travertine Eucalyptus Steam Shower Sprays and products have been featured on major outlets such as FOX, NBC, ABC, Forbes, Bravo, and Extra.

About Osmo Labs
Launched in January 2023 with $60 million Series A funding led by Lux Capital and Google Ventures, Osmo fuses machine learning, data science, psychophysics, olfactory neuroscience, electrical engineering, and chemistry in a multi-disciplinary approach to digitizing scent. The company has begun work in the flavor and fragrance market to create a new generation of better, safer, environmentally-friendly scent molecules, breaking new ground in developing captives, designing scents through images and words, and teleporting scent. Osmo has also begun work in the commercial (authenticating products through scent) and public health (discovering new insect repellents) sectors, and expects to expand into others in the future.

For media inquiries: info@travertinespa.com and press@osmo.ai

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SOURCE Travertine Spa, Inc.

SAS joins forces with the ACFE to explore the two-edged sword that is GenAI and showcases organizations using advanced analytics to get the upper hand

CARY, N.C., Nov. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Among the 13,500 people surveyed for SAS’ 2023 Faces of Fraud consumer fraud study, 7 in 10 reported falling victim to fraud at least once. Nearly 40% of the 16-country survey’s respondents reported two or more fraud experiences. To counter rampant AI-fueled scams, data and AI leader SAS again allies with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and hundreds of organizations worldwide to promote anti-fraud readiness and education throughout International Fraud Awareness Week, Nov. 17 – 23, 2024.

 “AI technology, and generative AI in particular, has proven incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands,” said ACFE President John Gill. “According to our most recent anti-fraud technology study with SAS, 83% of anti-fraud professionals anticipate adding GenAI tools to their defenses over the next two years. They’re forced to keep up in what’s become an escalating tech arms race with criminal enterprises – but it’s an uneven playing field because, unlike their adversaries, fraud fighters must use these technologies ethically and comply with regulations.”

AI vs. AI: using advanced tech to outmaneuver fraudsters
As generative AI continues to reshape the fraud and financial crime landscape, how can anti-fraud pros best position their organizations to foil spiraling criminal exploits? Join SAS and the ACFE for a Fraud Week webinar – open for the first time to ACFE members and non-members alike – where experts will discuss the evolution of GenAI and its growing role in fraud prevention and detection.

Fighting Financial Crime in the Generative AI Age
Nov. 21, 2024, at 10 a.m. CST (and available later on demand)

The webinar will explore current GenAI trends, future implications of the technology and how organizations can keep pace with accelerating innovation. Attendees will get guidance on how to:

Future-proof against GenAI threats in fraud.Utilize advancements and innovative solutions to reshape their anti-fraud programs.Establish trust and responsibility when implementing GenAI technologies.

“Banks, government agencies, insurers, merchants and other businesses continue to modernize with apps and digital offerings to match public demand – and in parallel, criminals are finding and exploiting weaknesses using increasingly sophisticated tools, particularly generative AI,” said Stu Bradley, Senior Vice President of Risk, Fraud and Compliance Solutions at SAS. “But as our customers are proving with their many fraud-fighting successes, even in this climate, establishing robust data ecosystems of digital data points and effective use of composite AI – AI aligned to a specific use case – can help organizations agilely adapt to evolving threats.”

Predicting real-time payment fraud with real-time analytics
Financial institutions have milliseconds to approve or deny an incoming transaction – a staggering task considering that total global credit card transactions alone averaged nearly two billion daily in 2023, the equivalent of almost 23,000 transactions per second. To quickly and accurately identify suspicious activity, digital payments service provider Nets (part of Milan-based Nexi Group) uses anti-fraud technology from SAS. 

Nets provides digital payment services used by over 740,000 merchant outlets and hundreds of banks. Critically, SAS’ AI capabilities enable the European paytech to continually improve its predictive fraud modeling to ensure that the millions of consumers it serves enjoy seamless – and safe – instant payments.

“With SAS Fraud Management, we can process massive amounts of data to identify unusual patterns and sift the fraudulent transactions from the authentic ones – all in real time,” said Jukka-Pekka Kokkonen, Head of Fraud and Dispute at Nexi Group.

“Because of the nature of this battle, it’s critical to constantly monitor fraud detection performance,” added Kokkonen. “The SAS solution … allows us to adapt as needed to battle changing threats in different regions of the world.”

Fighting claims fraud to deliver quality service and reasonable premiums
Since issuing its first policy in 1994, Quálitas MX has grown into the leading auto insurer in Mexico, serving nearly one-third of the market. It boasts more than 20,000 agents and provides coverage for more than five million vehicles. Remaining at the forefront of innovation and technology is an operational cornerstone outlined in Quálitas’ vision statement – and it is reflected in the company’s cloud-based approach to fighting fraud.

For more than a decade, Quálitas has relied on SAS Fraud Framework to detect and prevent claims fraud. The insurer is building AI models to better detect suspicious activity. Early and accurate fraud detection reduces losses, which helps keep premiums down while also expediting the payment of legitimate claims. Both are key factors in delivering quality service and nurturing customer loyalty.

“We have a lot of data in the company, a lot of transactions, and the challenge for us is to use that data to answer questions and make better decisions,” said Rene Abdala, Director of Strategic Planning at Quálitas. “SAS delivers a single view of our customers that helps us identify fraud and other risks. We also use SAS for optimizing pricing and to monitor KPIs across the company.”

Detecting fraud within seconds with real-time data monitoring
Techcombank is a Vietnamese joint-stock bank, serving nearly 14 million retail and corporate customers through its digital banking platform, mobile app and more than 300 branches nationwide. In Vietnam, more than 50% of digital fraud attacks target banks and financial firms, so identifying and preventing fraud is paramount.

Techcombank has implemented a proactive data monitoring system using an enterprise fraud solution from SAS, allowing employees to analyze customer behavior in real time. The results: enhanced fraud detection and prevention capabilities across multiple products and channels on a single platform. The bank slashed the time needed for fraud detection to mere seconds while also minimizing false positives.

“While many banks are reactive and may implement solutions only after fraud issues catch up with them, we made the decision to move early on this front,” said Joseph Vu, Director of Technology and Digital Risk Management at Techcombank. 

“With SAS, we consolidated our fraud detection and investigation while also assigning data authorization to the right specialists. We now act faster, more effectively and more precisely in our information sharing, reporting, business rule writing, triggering alerts and investigation.”

Uncovering noncompliance, tax avoidance and tax evasion
The Mediterranean island nation of Malta is in the midst of a three-year strategic plan to modernize the technology used to collect taxes and customs. The agency responsible – the Malta Tax and Customs Administration (MTCA) – uses SAS as part of those efforts to detect compliance issues and ensure that every citizen and corporation pays their fair share.

Noncompliance, tax avoidance and tax evasion cost governments about 10% to 20% of anticipated annual revenue – and in countries where enforcement is lax, those rates can be as high as 80%. Fixing the problem could yield millions in additional revenue. Using SAS solutions on SAS® Viya®, the MTCA can analyze real-time data, allowing for more effective monitoring and more timely interventions.

“Previously, we had an entirely manual process,” said Joseph Caruana, Commissioner for Tax and Customs at MTCA. “Now thanks to SAS advanced analytics and AI capabilities, audits are much faster and more effective, because they are based on cross-referenced data. … We are more effective because our decisions are data-driven and much timelier.”

Join the conversation online
For more customer stories, thought leadership and practical anti-fraud tips throughout the observance, follow #FraudWeek on Twitter/X and LinkedIn. You’ll find conversations and real-world guidance from SAS experts on payments fraud, identity and digital fraud, money laundering and financial crimes, claims fraud, unemployment fraud, health care fraud and cost containment, procurement fraud, and other fraud topics.

About SAS
SAS is a global leader in data and AI. With SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®. 

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2024 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

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SOURCE SAS

Liquidity created by the transaction enables OnTrac to advance operational and growth initiatives, strengthen its financial profile, and continue its expansion as the only last-mile alternative to the national carriers.

VIENNA, Va., Nov. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — OnTrac Final Mile (“OnTrac” or the “Company”), a leading last-mile delivery e-commerce parcel carrier, today announced it has reached an agreement with more than 85% of the holders of its first and second lien term loans for a comprehensive financing and exchange transaction that includes new debt financing, extended debt maturities, and other liquidity enhancements. All existing OnTrac lenders will be offered the opportunity to participate in the transaction.

OnTrac is the largest last-mile delivery company in the U.S. outside of the national carriers, reaching over 70% of the population in two days or less. The Company has a footprint of 16 highly automated sort centers and nearly 100 branches across the U.S. and recently completed its expansion to the Midwest and South-Central regions. OnTrac continues to invest in its network and expand its geographies served and value proposition with customers, offering same-day delivery, 7-day delivery, and transcontinental shipping, with additional near-term service launches on the horizon.

“This transaction will strengthen our balance sheet and enhance our ability to help current and future customers to provide excellent service to their consumers,” said OnTrac CEO Mike Duffy. “We will continue identifying new opportunities for growth, expanding our geographic reach, investing in technology and automation to improve the customer experience, and completing the transition from a super-regional to a national carrier.”

Evercore Group LLC served as exclusive financial advisor and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as exclusive legal advisor to the Company.

PJT Partners Inc. served as exclusive financial advisor and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as exclusive legal advisor to the ad hoc group of lenders.

About OnTrac Final Mile
OnTrac is a leading last-mile delivery solutions provider, serving e-commerce retailers. Headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, the Company’s footprint stretches across the United States to reach approximately 70% of the population in 35 states and Washington, D.C. and enhance retailers’ ability to meet growing demand in the consumer e-commerce delivery market. OnTrac has evolved into a critical part of the e-commerce infrastructure and is trusted by leading retailers and shippers that desire reduced transit times and increased flexibility within their supply chains. Learn more at http://www.ontrac.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.

Media Contact

Caroline Taylor, OnTrac, (703) 662-2215, mediarelations@ontrac.com, www.ontrac.com 

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SOURCE OnTrac