Tech Mahindra Introduces Distinctive Sound Signature to Complement Visual Identity

Tech Mahindra (NSE: TECHM), a leading global provider of technology consulting and digital solutions, has unveiled its new sonic identity named “TechM Ting”. This marks a significant milestone in the company’s ongoing brand transformation journey, complementing its refreshed visual identity and reinforcing its brand promise of Scale at Speed™.

The Rise of Sonic Branding

As enterprises increasingly engage audiences across digital, physical, and immersive environments, sound has emerged as a powerful tool for building emotional connections and strengthening brand recall. Tech Mahindra’s sonic identity is designed for an AI‑mediated world, seamlessly integrating across voice interfaces, AI agents, and ambient digital experiences.

• Creator & Sage archetypes – balancing innovation with expertise
• Emotional resonance – evoking warmth, curiosity, and confidence
• Consistency – ensuring recall across every brand interaction

“TechM Ting” – A Digital Spark

The track, named “TechM Ting” through an internal crowdsourcing campaign, draws inspiration from a luminous digital spark — symbolizing a sharp, kinetic, futuristic pulse of energy traversing a connected world. The name echoes the sound itself, reinforcing recall by aligning word and audio.

• Created by BrandMusiq – a leading sonic branding company
• Integration across ecosystem – offices, websites, podcasts, social media
• Customer touchpoints – IVR, ringtones, events, exhibitions
• Employee engagement – internal initiatives and sales enablement assets
• Global Chess League – reinforcing brand identity in sports

🗣 Voices Behind the Sound

Peeyush Dubey, Chief Marketing Officer, Tech Mahindra: “Our sonic identity represents the next evolution of Tech Mahindra’s brand journey. Inspired by our ‘Scale at Speed™’ positioning, it reflects our commitment to combining innovation with expertise while building stronger, more consistent connections with our communities.”

Rajeev Raja, Founder & Soundsmith, BrandMusiq: “Scale at Speed became our anchor for every musical decision. What we’ve created blends modern, forward‑moving production with instrumentation rooted in an Indian soul, designed to travel across every earpoint the brand has.”

Dynamic and AI‑Ready

The sonic identity is not static — it is designed as a dynamic sonic asset. Using generative AI, elements such as tempo, instrumentation, and mood can evolve across different contexts while maintaining a recognizable Tech Mahindra sound. This adaptability ensures relevance across diverse digital and physical environments.

Conclusion

Tech Mahindra’s TechM Ting represents more than just a sound — it is the audio expression of its refreshed brand language, carrying forward momentum, modernity, and purpose. By embedding sonic branding into every touchpoint, the company strengthens its global identity and sets a precedent for how enterprises can harness sound in an AI‑driven era.

Save Production Time for Creators Using an AI Character for Instant Generation

There is an increasing demand for continuous video production for creators. Delayed production results in less reach and engagement. Traditional workflows are associated with a great deal of planning, coordination, and editing. AI-powered tools streamline content production and minimize repetitive work. Pippit enables faster workflows by automatically generating videos with avatars. In this way, you can pick up a script and rapidly transform it into a great video. Content teams become more efficient without a complex production process. By using Instant generation, publishing times will be reliable, and productivity will increase.

Understanding Time Challenges in Traditional Content Production

Producers and creators today can struggle with traditional production workflows to deliver content. Research, drafting, and several refinements are required even before the recording sessions begin to prepare the script. Coordination between the presenters and availability of professional equipment are required when making recordings of presentations. Retakes lead to more time being spent and inconsistencies in the final product quality. Trimming, audio sync, and fixing visual and audio errors are all editing processes. Scheduling teams further delays the combination of creative and technical resources. Timelines are further extended for post-production revisions in response to feedback and platform changes. Each social media platform has to be formatted separately for distribution. The cumulative difficulties severely hinder creators' overall production efficiency.

How AI Characters Enable Instant Content Generation

The automated avatar systems obviate the need for conventional filming and provide creators with digital presentation tools. These systems can effectively convert written scripts into audio-video content in just a few minutes. Using AI character technology, realistic avatars can convey messages with lip-syncing. The benefits of cutting back on cameras, lights, and studio setups are numerous, and production is much faster as a result. Instant rendering allows creators to share content without waiting for the editing process. Efficient workflows can help reduce workflow complexity and ensure consistency across various video outputs. Creators can produce content in bulk without having to do any more manually. This aids in conveying more quickly through social media and marketing. Brands experience quicker turnaround when creating campaigns across multiple languages and regions. This reduces manufacturing bottlenecks and helps keep content pipelines busy at all times. When repetitive filming tasks are avoided, it is even more efficient.

The Role of Pippit in Accelerating Creator Workflows

Pippit is a centralized platform for fast video creation and editing. It integrates the following features into a single platform: avatar selection, script input, and voice sync. The platform aims to streamline the creation workflow for creators, minimizing the need for different tools and the hassle of switching between them. Pippit's AI video generator can instantly transform scripts into professional videos. Visuals are easily manipulated, and pacing and better storytelling can be achieved without technical knowledge. Inbuilt editing features like overlays, captions, and scene adjustments help to enhance clarity. It has publishing capabilities that allow you to distribute it efficiently to various digital platforms. Scalability means that the output of small and large content campaigns is consistent. Utilize templates and resources to have more control over the brand. The production steps remain within the same system to ensure a more efficient workflow.

Steps to Save Production Time for Creators Using AI Character for Instant Generation

Step 1: Launch the creation tool for faster video production

1. Log in to Pippit and access the dashboard to begin creating videos without lengthy production steps.
2. Click on "Video generator" from the left-hand menu to enter the video creation interface.
3. In the Popular tools section, select "Avatar video" to access ready-to-use AI characters.
4. This feature helps pair voice narration with avatars quickly for efficient content creation.

Step 2: Select an AI character and prepare the narration

1. After opening the Avatar tools, carefully review the characters listed in the "Recommended avatars" section under "Choose avatar".
2. Filter avatars by gender, age, industry, name, scene, pose, outfit style, or figure to narrow your choices.







3. Select your preferred avatar and click "Edit script" to customize the spoken content.
4. Enter text in multiple languages and allow the avatar to lip-sync the dialogue accurately.
5. Scroll to "Change caption style" and choose a caption format that fits the video.

Step 3: Complete edits and distribute content quickly

1. Once lip sync is applied, click "Edit more" to make additional improvements to the video.
2. Use the editor to carefully adjust script timing, voice pacing, and facial expressions.
3. Add text overlays and background music to strengthen the final presentation.
4. When satisfied with the completed video, click the "Export" tab in the top right corner. 
5. Select "Publish" to post the video on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, or click "Download" to save it with your preferred format, frame rate, resolution, quality, and name.

Features That Help Creators Work Faster with Pippit

• Instantly select and deploy Avatar Libraries.
• Quick tools for editing scripts and for quick content changes and updates.
• Lip-sync technology to ensure accurate speech synchronization automatically.
• Customizing the scene for a variety of video presentation styles.
• Simple export to various platforms and formats.
• Built-in sharing with instant publishing to channels.

Content Production Areas That Benefit from Instant Generation

AI-powered manufacturing facilitates a variety of materials for digital marketing and training. Faster video production and posting schedules are helpful for social media campaigns. Teachers use avatars to give precise instructions and make learning easier. Using stimulating presentation techniques and visual storytelling to make promotional announcements. Explanations can be delivered using avatars instead of live recording, making product demonstrations easier. Business news to the world in more than one language. Pippit can help with quality control and reduce the time to produce each type of content. The scalable workflows cater to individual creators and large marketing teams alike, ensuring efficient performance. Content uniformity is higher across channels, due to standardized production systems.

Productivity Habits for Maximizing AI Character Efficiency

For productivity to occur, there must be structured planning and regular practices for optimizing workflow. Planning production by pre-writing scripts to reduce production cycle delays. Reusable templates ensure consistency and greatly reduce time spent on repetition. Planning assets upfront helps to prevent any delays in the editing and rendering process. In batch production, multiple videos can be created in a single session. It is scheduled content at the time of writing, which helps ensure timely posting on platforms. Standardized captions provide a consistent reading experience and brand across video types. Pippit also has streamlined workflows, making life easier for today's creators. Monitoring performance will enable further optimization of production strategies and increased efficiency. Projects benefit from regular template audits in the long term, improving productivity.

The Evolving Future of Fast AI-Assisted Content Creation

Content creation is moving towards a more automated approach and intelligent workflows. AI tools reduce manual work in video production processes worldwide. The more iterations = more testing and tweaking of content in a short period of time. There is no better way to engage audiences on digital platforms than with enhanced personalization. The more technical the production is, the more creative flexibility you have. The easier it is for people to use the video tools, the more accessible they will be. Pippit allows creators to produce content at scale, adapting to their evolving needs. Production standards for speed and quality are continually being set by automation.

Conclusion

AI characters streamline content production processes. They eliminate the obstacles of filmmaking and make video production easier across the globe. Pippit has built-in avatar systems for instant production. This helps ensure consistency, speed, and scalability across projects. Creators can create and publish more content and work more efficiently. Production teams are streamlined, and barriers are removed. Content creation in the future will be automated and quick. The greater the development of AI tools, the more efficient they will be.

How AI Video Style Transfer Turns One Shoot Into Ten Stories

Content creation used to be a numbers game — the more budget and people you had, the more content you could produce. That equation has fundamentally changed. AI video style transfer is quietly becoming one of the most powerful tools in a modern creator's arsenal, letting individuals and small teams produce content at a scale that would have required entire production departments just a few years ago. Here's how to actually use it to your advantage.

What Is AI Video Style Transfer?

Think of it this way: you shoot one piece of raw footage, and then use AI to spin it into ten different visual styles — a gritty documentary look, a vibrant anime aesthetic, a moody noir finish, a clean corporate feel. One shoot, ten pieces of content. That's the scaling power people are starting to wake up to.

AI video style transfer is the process of applying a specific visual style — a color palette, artistic aesthetic, cinematic look, or animation style — to existing video footage. Instead of reshooting content every time you need a different look, you feed your existing footage into an AI system and let it do the heavy lifting.

Why Style Transfer Is a Game-Changer for Content Teams

The traditional content production bottleneck isn't ideas — it's execution. Most creators have more ideas than they have time, budget, or bandwidth to produce. AI video style transfer attacks that bottleneck directly.

Here's where the real efficiency gains show up. Repurposing becomes effortless. A single product video can be restyled for different audience segments, platforms, or seasonal campaigns without going back to the shoot. Brand consistency becomes easier to maintain because you can apply a defined visual style across all content systematically rather than relying on manual editing judgment. And testing becomes cheaper — instead of producing multiple versions of a campaign from scratch, you generate stylistic variations from one master clip and see what resonates.

For social media teams in particular, this is transformative. The demand for fresh, platform-native content is relentless. Style transfer lets you meet that demand without burning out your creative team or blowing your production budget.

How to Build a Style Transfer Workflow with AI

Scaling with AI style transfer isn't just about having access to the right tools — it's about building a repeatable process around them. Here's a practical framework.

Start with a content library, not individual pieces. The scaling benefit of style transfer multiplies when you apply it to a library of footage rather than one-off clips. Invest time upfront in building a bank of raw, unprocessed video assets — product footage, lifestyle clips, talking head recordings, B-roll — that you can continuously draw from and restyle.

Define your style palette before you start generating. Know what visual identities you're working with. If you're managing content for a brand, document the specific aesthetic parameters — color grading direction, texture preferences, animation style — so that every style transfer output aligns with established brand guidelines rather than drifting into inconsistency.

Use a platform that centralizes your tools. Jumping between five different apps to complete one content workflow kills the efficiency you're trying to build. This is where Pollo AI genuinely earns its place in a scaling workflow. It brings together a powerful suite of AI video and image generation tools — including style transfer capabilities — in one place, and it has a video creator app so you can keep your workflow moving whether you're at your desk or not. For teams and solo creators who need to move fast without sacrificing output quality, having everything accessible in one platform makes a measurable difference

Batch your generations. Rather than generating one styled video at a time, prepare multiple clips and run them through your style transfer process in batches. This keeps your output pipeline full without requiring constant hands-on attention.

Matching Style Transfer to Platform Strategy

Different platforms reward different visual languages, and AI style transfer lets you speak all of them without producing content from scratch for each one.

For TikTok and Instagram Reels, high-contrast, saturated, visually dynamic styles tend to perform well. AI style transfer can push your footage in that direction quickly, giving raw clips the punchy energy that short-form audiences respond to. For YouTube, a more cinematic, polished aesthetic often works better — a different style applied to the same source footage. For LinkedIn, clean, professional, and restrained visual treatment signals credibility. One piece of footage, three platform-specific style treatments, three distinct pieces of content.

This kind of platform-aware style strategy used to require a skilled colorist and editor for every variation. Now it's a prompt and a generation queue.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

A few patterns consistently hold creators back when they try to scale with AI style transfer.

Over-relying on a single style is the most common one. The whole point of style transfer is variety and adaptability — if you're applying the same look to everything, you're not using the tool to its potential. Neglecting source footage quality is another. Style transfer enhances and transforms, but it can't rescue genuinely poor footage. Your raw material still needs to be decent — good lighting, stable framing, clean audio if applicable — for the AI to have something worth working with.

And finally, treating every generation as final output without review leads to inconsistent quality hitting your channels. AI tools are fast, but they still benefit from a human eye before anything goes public.

The Bigger Picture: Content at Scale Is Now a Realistic Goal

Not long ago, scaling content production meant hiring more people, spending more money, or accepting lower quality. AI video style transfer has broken that trade-off. You can now produce more content, in more visual styles, for more platforms, with a smaller team and a leaner budget — without the output looking like it was made on a shoestring.

The creators and brands that are building these workflows now are going to have a significant head start as the tools continue to improve. The technology is already capable enough to make a real difference in your production output today. The question isn't whether AI style transfer is worth exploring — it's whether you can afford to keep ignoring it while your competitors don't.

Start small, build your asset library, find the right platform, and let the workflow compound. The scale will follow.

Cloudflare Launches EmDash as WordPress Alternative with Built‑In Security and Payments

A new publishing platform called EmDash is positioning itself as the “spiritual successor to WordPress,” promising to retain the flexibility of plugins while eliminating the security risks that have long plagued the world’s most popular content management system.

Security concerns around WordPress plugins have grown in recent years, with reports of vulnerabilities affecting millions of sites. By addressing this pain point directly, EmDash aims to carve out a niche in a crowded market of CMS platforms, positioning itself as the next evolution in digital publishing.

WordPress powers over 40% of the Internet. It is a massive success that has enabled anyone to be a publisher, and created a global community of WordPress developers. But the WordPress open source project will be 24 years old this year. Hosting a website has changed dramatically during that time. When WordPress was born, AWS EC2 didn’t exist. In the intervening years, that task has gone from renting virtual private servers, to uploading a JavaScript bundle to a globally distributed network at virtually no cost. It’s time to upgrade the most popular CMS on the Internet to take advantage of this change.

EmDash is written entirely in TypeScript. It is serverless, but you can run it on your own hardware or any platform you choose. Plugins are securely sandboxed and can run in their own isolate, via Dynamic Workers, solving the fundamental security problem with the WordPress plugin architecture. And under the hood, EmDash is powered by Astro, the fastest web framework for content-driven websites.

EmDash is fully open source, MIT licensed, and available on GitHub. While EmDash aims to be compatible with WordPress functionality, no WordPress code was used to create EmDash. That allows us to license the open source project under the more permissive MIT license. We hope that allows more developers to adapt, extend, and participate in EmDash’s development.

EmDash is being pitched not just as another CMS, but as publishing infrastructure for the secure web. Its creators believe enterprises, media houses, and independent publishers will be drawn to a platform that combines scalability with peace of mind.

You can deploy the EmDash v0.1.0 preview to your own Cloudflare account, or to any Node.js server today as part of our early developer beta:

Or you can try out the admin interface here in the EmDash Playground:

What WordPress has accomplished

The story of WordPress is a triumph of open source that enabled publishing at a scale never before seen. Few projects have had the same recognisable impact on the generation raised on the Internet. The contributors to WordPress’s core, and its many thousands of plugin and theme developers have built a platform that democratised publishing for millions; many lives and livelihoods being transformed by this ubiquitous software.

There will always be a place for WordPress, but there is also a lot more space for the world of content publishing to grow. A decade ago, people picking up a keyboard universally learned to publish their blogs with WordPress. Today it’s just as likely that person picks up Astro, or another TypeScript framework to learn and build with. The ecosystem needs an option that empowers a wide audience, in the same way it needed WordPress 23 years ago.

EmDash is committed to building on what WordPress created: an open source publishing stack that anyone can install and use at little cost, while fixing the core problems that WordPress cannot solve.

Solving the WordPress plugin security crisis

WordPress’ plugin architecture is fundamentally insecure. 96% of security issues for WordPress sites originate in plugins. In 2025, more high severity vulnerabilities were found in the WordPress ecosystem than the previous two years combined.

Why, after over two decades, is WordPress plugin security so problematic?

A WordPress plugin is a PHP script that hooks directly into WordPress to add or modify functionality. There is no isolation: a WordPress plugin has direct access to the WordPress site’s database and filesystem. When you install a WordPress plugin, you are trusting it with access to nearly everything, and trusting it to handle every malicious input or edge case perfectly.

EmDash solves this. In EmDash, each plugin runs in its own isolated sandbox: a Dynamic Worker. Rather than giving direct access to underlying data, EmDash provides the plugin with capabilities via bindings, based on what the plugin explicitly declares that it needs in its manifest. This security model has a strict guarantee: an EmDash plugin can only perform the actions explicitly declared in its manifest. You can know and trust upfront, before installing a plugin, exactly what you are granting it permission to do, similar to going through an OAuth flow and granting a 3rd party app a specific set of scoped permissions.

For example, a plugin that sends an email after a content item gets saved looks like this: 

import { definePlugin } from "emdash";

export default () =>
definePlugin({
  id: "notify-on-publish",
  version: "1.0.0",
  capabilities: ["read:content", "email:send"],
  hooks: {
    "content:afterSave": async (event, ctx) => {
      if (event.collection !== "posts" || event.content.status !== "published") return;
      await ctx.email!.send({
        to: "editors@example.com",
        subject: `New post published: ${event.content.title}`,
        text: `"${event.content.title}" is now live.`,
      });
      ctx.log.info(`Notified editors about ${event.content.id}`);
    },
  },
});

This plugin explicitly requests two capabilities: content:afterSave to hook into the content lifecycle, and email:send to access the ctx.email function. It is impossible for the plugin to do anything other than use these capabilities.

Solving plugin security means solving marketplace lock-in

WordPress plugin security is such a real risk that WordPress.org manually reviews and approves each plugin in its marketplace. At the time of writing, that review queue is over 800 plugins long, and takes at least two weeks to traverse.

EmDash plugins have two important properties that mitigate this marketplace lock-in:

• Plugins can have any license: they run independently of EmDash and share no code.
• Plugin code runs independently in a secure sandbox: a plugin can be provided to an EmDash site, and trusted, without the EmDash site ever seeing the code.

Every EmDash site has x402 support built in — charge for access to content

x402 is an open, neutral standard for Internet-native payments. It lets anyone on the Internet easily charge, and any client pay on-demand, on a pay-per-use basis.

EmDash has built-in support for x402. This means anyone with an EmDash site can charge for access to their content without requiring subscriptions and with zero engineering work.

Solving scale-to-zero for WordPress hosting platforms

WordPress is not serverless: it requires provisioning and managing servers. EmDash is different: it’s built to run on serverless platforms, and make the most out of the v8 isolate architecture of Cloudflare’s open source runtime workerd.

EmDash is different: it’s built to run on serverless platforms, and make the most out of the v8 isolate architecture of Cloudflare’s open source runtime workerd. On an incoming request, the Workers runtime instantly spins up an isolate to execute code and serve a response. It scales back down to zero if there are no requests. And it only bills for CPU time (time spent doing actual work).

You can run EmDash anywhere, on any Node.js server — but on Cloudflare you can run millions of instances of EmDash using Cloudflare for Platforms that each instantly scale fully to zero or up to as many RPS as you need to handle, using the exact same network and runtime that the biggest websites in the world rely on.

Beyond cost optimizations and performance benefits, we’ve bet on this architecture at Cloudflare in part because we believe in having low cost and free tiers, and that everyone should be able to build websites that scale. We’re excited to help platforms extend the benefits of this architecture to their own customers, both big and small.

Modern frontend theming and architecture via Astro

EmDash is powered by Astro, the web framework for content-driven websites. To create an EmDash theme, you create an Astro project that includes:

• Pages: Astro routes for rendering content (homepage, blog posts, archives, etc.)
• Layouts: Shared HTML structure
• Components: Reusable UI elements (navigation, cards, footers)
• Styles: CSS or Tailwind configuration
• A seed file: JSON that tells the CMS what content types and fields to create

This makes creating themes familiar to frontend developers who are increasingly choosing Astro, and to LLMs which are already trained on ASTRO.

WordPress themes, though incredibly flexible, operate with a lot of the same security risks as plugins, and the more popular and commonplace your theme, the more of a target it is. Themes run through integrating with functions.php which is an all-encompassing execution environment, enabling your theme to be both incredibly powerful and potentially dangerous. EmDash themes, as with dynamic plugins, turns this expectation on its head. Your theme can never perform database operations.

An AI Native CMS — MCP, CLI, and Skills for EmDash

EmDash is designed to be managed programmatically by your AI agents. It provides the context and the tools that your agents need, including Agent Skills, EmDash CLI, and a built-in MCP Server.

Pluggable authentication, with Passkeys by default

The least fun part about working with any CMS is doing the rote migration of content: finding and replacing strings, migrating custom fields from one format to another, renaming, reordering and moving things around. This is either boring repetitive work or requires one-off scripts and “single-use” plugins and tools that are usually neither fun to write nor to use.

EmDash is designed to be managed programmatically by your AI agents. It provides the context and the tools that your agents need, including:

• Agent Skills: Each EmDash instance includes Agent Skills that describe to your agent the capabilities EmDash can provide to plugins, the hooks that can trigger plugins, guidance on how to structure a plugin, and even how to port legacy WordPress themes to EmDash natively. When you give an agent an EmDash codebase, EmDash provides everything the agent needs to be able to customize your site in the way you need.
• EmDash CLI: The EmDash CLI enables your agent to interact programmatically with your local or remote instance of EmDash. You can upload media, search for content, create and manage schemas, and do the same set of things you can do in the Admin UI.
• Built-in MCP Server: Every EmDash instance provides its own remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, allowing you to do the same set of things you can do in the Admin UI.

Pluggable authentication, with Passkeys by default

EmDash uses passkey-based authentication by default, meaning there are no passwords to leak and no brute-force vectors to defend against. User management includes familiar role-based access control out of the box: administrators, editors, authors, and contributors, each scoped strictly to the actions they need. Authentication is pluggable, so you can set EmDash up to work with your SSO provider, and automatically provision access based on IdP metadata.

Import your WordPress sites to EmDash

You can import an existing WordPress site by either going to WordPress admin and exporting a WXR file, or by installing the EmDash Exporter plugin on a WordPress site, which configures a secure endpoint that is only exposed to you, and protected by a WordPress Application Password you control. Migrating content takes just a few minutes, and automatically works to bring any attached media into EmDash’s media library.

Try it

EmDash is v0.1.0 preview, and we’d love you to try it, give feedback, and we welcome contributions to the EmDash GitHub repository.

If you’re just playing around and want to first understand what’s possible — try out the admin interface in the EmDash Playground.

To create a new EmDash site locally, via the CLI, run:

npm create emdash@latest Or you can do the same via the Cloudflare dashboard below:
We’re excited to see what you build, and if you're active in the WordPress community, as a hosting platform, a plugin or theme author, or otherwise — we’d love to hear from you. Email us at emdash@cloudflare.com, and tell us what you’d like to see from the EmDash project.

If you want to stay up to date with major EmDash developments, you can leave your email address here.

Cloudflare's connectivity cloud protects entire corporate networks, helps customers build Internet-scale applications efficiently, accelerates any website or Internet application, wards off DDoS attacks, keeps hackers at bay, and can help you on your journey to Zero Trust.

India Tightens IT Rules to Combat Deepfakes and AI Misinformation

The Indian government has proposed significant amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, aimed at curbing the misuse of deepfakes and generative AI content. Here's a breakdown of the key changes:

New IT Rules Targeting Deepfakes (2025 Draft Amendments)

• Definition Introduced
  Synthetically Generated Information: Defined as content created, altered, or modified using computer tools to appear real.
• Mandatory Labelling
  Platforms with over 5 million users (like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) must:
  • Ask users to declare if uploaded content is synthetic.
  • Take reasonable steps to verify these claims.
  • Clearly label synthetic content with visible or audible markers.
  • For videos: markers must cover at least 10% of the screen.
  • For audio: markers must be present in the first 10% of the clip.
  • These markers cannot be removed or altered.
• Legal Protections
  Platforms acting in good faith to remove or block synthetic content will receive legal protection.
• Takedown Oversight
  Only senior officers (Joint Secretary or above) can issue takedown orders.
  All takedown actions will undergo monthly review by a Secretary-level officer to ensure legality and proportionality.
• Timeline & Feedback
  Draft rules were released on October 22, 2025.
  Public feedback is open until November 6, 2025.
  Final rules are expected to take effect from November 1, 2025.

Youtube is One of the World's Most Valuable Media Companies with Worth at Least $455 Billion

YouTube is one of the world's most valuable media companies and worth at least $455 billion on its own, which is more than 50% above Netflix's market cap, according to analysts at Needham & Co., reported Bloomberg.

Parent company Alphabet's revenue from subscriptions, platforms and devices, which includes YouTube subscriptions, is also poised to expand in the coming years.

YouTube's dominance in online video sharing and content creation is undeniable. With over 2 billion monthly active users, it remains the go-to platform for video content, generating substantial revenue through ads, sponsorships, and other monetization methods.

YouTube, often overshadowed by its parent company Alphabet Inc., is a media giant hiding in plain sight. According to analysts at Needham & Co., the streaming unit is worth at least $455 billion on its own, which is more than 50% above Netflix Inc.'s market cap. Despite this massive valuation, YouTube's true worth remains underappreciated due to Alphabet's conglomerate structure.

If even a small portion of YouTube were separately tradable, it could add significant value to Alphabet stock. However, there are no immediate signs of Alphabet considering such a separation. Regardless, YouTube's impact on the media landscape is undeniable, and its dominance in streaming continues to shape the industry.

YouTube primarily generates revenue through advertisements. It embeds targeted ads directly into the video clips users watch and promotes featured content. In the first three months of 2023, YouTube earned $6.69 billion from advertising, and in 2022, it generated $29.23 billion.

Additionally, YouTube's other revenue sources include YouTube Premium subscriptions, channel memberships, Superchat donations, YouTube TV, and merchandise commissions.

YouTube has a dominant and growing share in streaming, as consumers shift to such platforms and away from broadcast and cable TV. Ad revenue from the platform is expected to grow by nearly 17% to $37 billion in 2024 and by another 14% to $42 billion in 2025, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Alphabet’s revenue from subscriptions, platforms and devices, which includes YouTube subscriptions, is also poised to expand in the coming years. At Netflix, revenue is expected to be about $38.7 billion in 2024, with almost all of that derived from streaming, while YouTube accounts for about 10% of its parent’s total sales.

A recent survey of streaming platforms by TD Cowen showed that while Netflix still dominates in most TV categories, YouTube is often not far behind. And, it’s the top choice for watching content on a mobile phone.

Germany's Handelsblatt Media Group Ties-Up with Infosys To Enhance Its Digital Storytelling Using AI Technologies

Infosys and German media company Handelsblatt Media Group have announced a strategic collaboration to make complex reports on global economic and finance issues more accessible and easily consumable for the public.

As part of this partnership, Infosys will work with the Handelsblatt Research Institute (HRI), an independent economic research institute under the umbrella of the Handelsblatt Media Group.

As part of their collaboration, In the first year of this partnership, Infosys will work with Handelsblatt Research Institute (HRI), an independent economic research institute under the umbrella of the Handelsblatt Media Group.

Infosys will leverage Infosys Topaz, an AI-first platform, to make complex reports more accessible and consumable for the public. This partnership aims to redefine the storytelling experience for economic and financial reports, making them smarter and more reliable

This collaboration will enable new-age customizations such as chat functionality, text translation, text-to-speech, and automatic data updates, making the reports smart, reliable, and widely accessible.

Soon after the announcement of this collaboration shares of Infosys Ltd gained as much as 1.7%.

Handelsblatt Media Group is a German media company specializing in business and financial journalism. Founded in 1946 and Handelsblatt group started with the publication of the newspaper Handelsblatt which evolved from a thrice-weekly to a daily publication focused on economic and financial news. Over the years, the group expanded to include other specialized magazines and digital platforms.

The Handelsblatt Media Group publishes two prominent titles — Handelsblatt, a leading German newspaper covering business, finance, and economic topics, and — Wirtschaftswoche, a weekly magazine that provides in-depth analysis and insights into the business world.

The group has actively embraced digital media. Their digital activities include websites, apps, and other online platforms.

Kuku FM partners with WhizCo for Influencer Activities and Campaigns

WhizCo, India’s leading Influencer Marketing and creator management agency, has announced that it has partnered with Kuku FM, India’s leading podcast platform for an influencer marketing campaign. The collaboration aimed at helping Kuku FM promote its wide range of audiobooks, Podcasts, Talk shows, Stories, and more diverse audio content.

As part of the collaboration, WhizCo worked for complete influencer campaign management- from shortlisting, evaluating, and onboarding influencers to conceptualising the campaign, gathering feedback, and tracking the performance of the campaign.

Bringing together YouTube influencers from various categories, WhizCo conceptualized a Video Integration campaign for Kuku FM that uses influencers’ videos as a marketing platform by integrating the product ad into the natural flow of the video. By shortlisting the best influencers and providing creative direction to the campaign, WhizCo was able to strategize the campaign in the best way possible to help promote Kuku FM. WhizCo reached out to creators and influencers with a good outreach YouTube presence that could help boost Kuku FM’s brand awareness in the most effective way possible.

"We are so thrilled to be collaborating with Kuku FM and devising influencer marketing campaigns for them. Everything about the campaign, from conceptualizing to executing this campaign, was really fun and exciting, and I’m glad we were able to meet the expectations and goals of the brand. We look forward to creating and designing more such campaigns for Kuku Fm," said Prerna Goel, Co-Founder, and Chief Marketing Officer, WhizCo.

“Working with Whizco has been amazing. Their team who understands the brand requirements and needs is truly amazing! Deepanshu from Whizco went beyond his work hours to get things done for us. They provide you with insights and suggestions, which you otherwise don’t think of. My experience has been amazing” said Rahul Chiplunkar, Influencer Marketing Manager at Kuku FM.

WhizCo is one of India’s leading influencer marketing and creator management agencies. The agency, which manages over 10,000 content creators on almost every short-video app and social media platform in the country, has also plunged into Live Commerce and started working with India’s leading e-commerce platforms for Live Commerce campaigns

WhizCo has successfully completed various influencer marketing campaigns with leading brands in the past and is currently in the process of launching its very own influencer and creator discovery portal that will take things to the next level for both brands and influencers alike and allow users to search from a database of 50,000 creators across 25+ categories. The portal, which is expected to launch soon, will provide data-driven full campaign management, help bridge the gap between brands and influencers, and help brands craft the perfect influencer marketing campaign for their business.

What Is The Role Of NLP Technology In Creating Fresh Content?

NLP is a key branch of AI. So, what is its role in creating fresh content?

NLP is one of the leading AI aspects in today's world. In 2025, NLP's market worth is expected to go around a whopping $43 billion. If these estimates are to be believed, then AI is one of the most profitable sides.

But profits aside, what exactly does it do to help us create content? What is its role in it? Today, we're going to analyze a few cases in which NLP helps. So, let's find out.

What Is NLP?

Natural language processing is the ability of a computer to understand human speech. It has the potential to change how we interact with computers and how they interact with us. It is a specific branch of artificial intelligence.

Its job is to understand human language as it is written or spoken in order to either generate intelligent text or speech.

Computers are becoming more intelligent and can process language like humans do, leading to better communication between humans and machines.

One such example today is assisting tools for writing, such as a grammar checkers, paraphrasing tool, and a plagiarism finder.

These tools thoroughly employ NLP to read and comprehend with the help of machine learning, then execute intricate tasks accordingly.

4 Key Roles Of NLP In Creating Fresh Content

NLP is one of the key branches of AI, that's for sure. But, it needs to work with other AI algorithms to produce and create content. In this section, we will explore four cases where NLP stands out as the most valuable aspect of AI in creating fresh content. So, let's dive right into it.

1. Capture The Essence Of A Topic

The first thing to understand here is that NLP allows us to thoroughly capture a topic's essence. In other words, it allows us to understand not only a topic's basics but also an idea's key aspects. But how exactly does it happen?

The purpose of NLP is to convert human languages for computers to understand. So, when we use tools like a paraphrasing tool or summary writing, it's NLP that allows the tool to understand the basics, as well as the nooks & crannies of a topic.

2. Metric-Based Content Creation

Metrics are everywhere, including SEO and other online marketing factors. However, understanding these metrics is one of the key aspects of NLP in creating fresh content. When we analyze keywords or other content metrics, the pillar of NLP keeps that building standing.

It doesn't only analyze human patterns with the help of other AI elements but also helps us understand which content types perform the best based on their metrics. This allows writers to improve content quality and performance.

3. Originality And Integrity

Content's originality and integrity are two of the key factors in creating content today. NLP is one of the key ingredients in tools that help us get there, such as a paraphrasing tool. But how exactly does it work? Here's how:

• NLP analyzes and reads the content;
• It passes the information on to other AI elements, which comprehend the existing tone;
• When the writer picks another content tone, NLP implements the changes;

• The paraphrasing tool rewords content into a different tone.

These factors can be seen working when you use a paraphrasing tool. Not only does the content's tone change, but it also improves. Which is all made possible with the help of NLP.

4. Repurposing Content

NLP isn't only good at reading and converting content. Instead, NLP-based tools can help you repurpose content. For instance, if you use a viable paraphrasing tool, then you can reuse content or sections from your blogs for various purposes, such as:

• Convert a blog post to a social media post;
• Condense important content for emails or captions;
• Change content's wordings for another platform;
• Post the same blog on two websites by paraphrasing and citing.
• These factors allow you to repurpose content, and NLP is at the center of it once again.

Conclusion

These factors of NLP allow us to understand just how helpful it is in content creation. Not only is it a viable aspect of AI, but a necessary one. Today, not many tools can work without the help of NLP, so to condense the role of NLP in an article like this is impossible—but you get the idea.

Flickstree Raises $5 Mn in its Pre-Series B funding round, led by Venture Catalysts and 9 Unicorns

Flickstree, a content and marketing technology startup secured investment led by Venture Catalysts Group, India’s first incubator and largest accelerator for startups and 9 Unicorns, in its pre-series B round of funding. Flickstree creates AI-based editorial video content for video commerce.

Flickstree is a content led video commerce platform that enables transactions for their brand partners, leveraging in house video content, created using patented AI. The platform uses AI voiceover, AI script, and auto-generates branded video content. These videos are distributed through its own apps and websites such as PlusYou Club, and a network of more than 150 publisher partners. Flickstree currently has an active client base in India, Middle East, South-East Asia, UK, Australia and USA.

Reflecting on leading the funding round for Flickstree, Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder, Venture Catalysts & 9Unicorns said, “Flickstree uses the power of Artificial Intelligence to create the most compelling branded video content at scale, at no-cost for brands. Moreover, they use their data engine to promote these videos that keeps churning transactions on an auto-pilot mode. In sum, Brands get videos at no cost and consumers love watching these videos and buy their products and services. This makes it a win-win platform for all brands globally.”

"Content driven ecommerce is the fastest growing segment of online sales across Asia," said William Bao Bean Managing Director Orbit Startups and General Partner SOSV "Flickstree is the leader in India and now positioned to expand across the region helping brands to leverage video to drive sales."

Flickstree is a global product with an extremely asset lite plug-and-play model. Its inception took place in 2016. The company was started by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain and Nagendra Sandra, who hold a combined domain experience of over 30 years. With a team that specializes in the fields of branding, sales & distribution, digital marketing, machine learning and artificial intelligence technology, the company caters to over 200 brands worldwide, driving transactions over $50 million annually and boasts an active user base of 25 million on its platform.

On securing funds in the pre-series B round, Saurabh Singh, CEO of Flickstree said, “Consumers love watching video content before making transactions. That’s why content-led commerce is the future of e-commerce. Flickstree’s AI creates great content that consumers love to watch and transact, making this a cutting-edge platform to partner with, for all e-commerce brands worldwide.”

In its pre-series B round of funding, Flickstree secured US $5 million, which it plans to utilize for global expansion, along with strengthening its product and technology. It is also backed by Samsung Ventures, Orbit Startups (SOSV), LionRock Capital, FULD & Co., Lets Venture, AB Claymore, Angelbay, amongst others.

About Flickstree

Flickstree, a video commerce company, was founded by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain, and Nagender Sangra in 2016. Flickstree creates editorial video content using AI. It then

promotes these videos to drive sales using world class in-house data engine. With over 25 million monthly active users driving over 150 thousand transactions per month, Flickstree works with over 200 brands worldwide driving transactions over $50 million annually.

About Venture Catalysts

enture Catalysts is India’s 1st integrated incubator for startups. It combines capital, mentoring and network for startups and has a presence in 47 cities across India with international presence in UAE, HK, UK, USA, Canada and Singapore. Venture Catalysts invests in the range of INR 2 - 15 crores per startup through a network of HNIs, Family Offices, CXOs, etc.

R Discovery and Springer Nature Partner to Create An Open-access Content Bank for Global Researchers

The partnership will enable researchers to access Springer Nature’s content in the form of daily recommendations on R Discovery 

R Discovery, a Cactus Communications (CACTUS) brand, has partnered with Springer Nature, global academic publisher, to help broaden the reach of open access (OA) content to the global researcher community. The inclusion of Springer Nature’s OA portfolio into R Discovery means that the platform offers its over 1.4 million researchers access to high-quality OA content in over 32,000 journals worldwide across a breadth of subject areas.

Commenting on the partnership, Abhishek Goel, CEO & Co-founder, CACTUS, said, “Helping the scientific community with access to a vast bank of content is one of our top priorities. Our aim is to bring the most relevant and recently published scientific literature to the fingertips of researchers across the globe. By providing access to full-text open-access papers, we can facilitate content discovery and help save reading time. With this association, researchers will now have access to some of the most valuable OA research published in Springer Nature via the R Discovery app.”

Till Moepert, Vice President Indirect Channels at Springer Nature said, “Researchers are at the heart of what we do and ensuring access and engagement with high-quality content is central to the advancement of knowledge and discovery. With a long history in OA, we are committed to supporting researchers with streamlined routes to high-quality content in the fields of science, technology, medicine and the humanities and social sciences, alongside our wider commitment to supporting open data and open research, for example by creating the largest linked open data set in SciGraph and supporting FAIR data projects through our Text and Data Mining API’s. Partnering with the Cactus Communications R Discovery App enables us to continue this rich tradition of making open research accessible through new platforms and avenues and supporting the research community with access to the widest possible content, tools, and services.”

Among a host of CACTUS products, R Discovery is used by researchers regularly for literature search via the app or the web version. It currently has over 32,000 journals covering over 9.5 million research topics across subject areas such as life sciences, biology, medicine, philosophy, political science, environmental science, social sciences, and psychology. With more than 30 million open access articles available and access to paywalled articles with one’s university credentials, R Discovery is one of the largest repositories of research that is accessible on the go.

Springer Nature is one of the first major publishers to make their content available to R Discovery. By combining Springer Nature’s expertise in publishing high-quality research with R Discovery’s online platform for millions of researchers, both organizations aim to deliver an upgraded and seamless experience for the communities they serve.

To know more please visit- R Discovery (Web | Android | iOS)

Cactus Communications (cactusglobal.com), a technology company accelerating scientific advancement. CACTUS solves problems for researchers, universities, publishers, academic societies, and life science organizations through innovative products and services developed under the brands Editage, Cactus Life Sciences, Researcher.Life, Impact Science, UNSILO, PaperPal and Cactus Labs. CACTUS has offices in Princeton, London, Aarhus, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, and Mumbai; a global workforce of over 3,000 experts; and customers from over 190 countries. CACTUS is considered a pioneer in its workplace best practices and has been consistently ranked a great place to work over the last several years.

About Springer Nature

For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, reused, and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies. As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan, and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature.

Content Marketplace Pepper Content Launches Entrepreneurial Program 'Pepperpreneur'

Pepper Content, a full-stack content marketplace, has launched an entrepreneurial program – Pepperpreneur. The program is a partner-driven catalyst program that helps companies with holistic content solutions at scale by leveraging the network and contacts of interested persons, who would in return earn a commission from the collaboration.

Although networking as a skill is highly sought after by people such as mentors, coaches, industry insiders, sales professionals etc. but contacts on their own remain untapped as far as their monetary value is concerned. This is where Pepperpreneur comes in. It seeks to monetize the network of an individual thereby making him/her an entrepreneur.

How does it work?

Through this program, an individual can introduce Pepper Content to a compatible organization that could scale from Pepper's holistic content services. Depending on the skill and experience of the person, Pepperpreneurs would be provided with guidance and training with respect to business and partnerships. On every partnership, the Pepperpreneur would earn a percentage of the total contract. Along with this, the partner organisations would receive content services from Pepper Content.

The financial benefit to all stakeholders is the mainstay of the program. Be it a budding entrepreneur or an established professional, it will stimulate the trajectory of their personal growth by advancing their clientele network, sales skill, and being part of the exclusive Pepper community.

Commenting on this, Rishabh Shekhar, Co-Founder, Pepper Content said - “At Pepper, we are constantly innovating content delivery while playing in the evolving creator economy. This space is relatively fresh and as such has unlimited potential. Pepperpreneur is one such initiative through which we are trying to expand opportunities that our platform can provide”.

Why Content Entrepreneurship?

In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA) world, brands can be left in the lurch. Content as a strategy can help firms chart a definite course in choppy waters by doing away with ambiguity. Pepper’s main objective is to democratize access to quality content for each business out there and simultaneously create new opportunities in the creator economy.

Pepper is building impact and value for a $400 billion content marketing industry, globally. The company has grown 16x in terms of revenue in the last 14 months alone. The company recently raised funding of $14.3 million (Rs 110 crore) in a Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The leading and global full-stack content marketplace (SaaS) enables a perfect symphony between creators and brands. It is currently working with 100,000+ creators, and 2,500+ leading global customers such as Amazon, CB Insights, Unilever, Adobe, Adani Enterprises, HDFC Bank, P&G, and Google, and over 85% of all Unicorn startups in India.

About Pepper Content:

Pepper Content is a full-stack content marketplace (SaaS) that connects talented creators to organizations that require content. Founded by two young and passionate entrepreneurs Anirudh Singla and Rishabh Shekhar in 2017 at BITS Pilani campus, Pepper offers customized content solutions by mediating content from the best talent pool of creators across the nation through an AI-enabled platform.

MPOWER Financing Appoints Madhushri Verma as Strategic Communications Lead

Madhushri will spearhead public relations and corporate communications for MPOWER Financing's global business, including India

MPOWER Financing, a mission-driven fintech firm and the leading provider of education loans to promising international students and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, has announced its appointment of Madhushri Verma as Strategic Communications Lead.

Madhushri Verma, Strategic Communications Lead at MPOWER

In her new role, Madhushri will spearhead public relations and corporate communications for MPOWER Financing's global business, including India. She will work closely with the CEO and Director of Corporate Strategy from MPOWER’s office to develop and fuel MPOWER’s strategic communications.

Madhushri has over eight years of experience in corporate communications (both internal and external), brand management, public relations, reputation management, and crisis communications. In 2021, she was selected to India’s regional PR Awards’ 40 under 40 list in the startup PR segment.

"We are delighted to have Madhushri Verma as a part of the MPOWER team,” said Mr. Ashwini Kumar, General Manager (India) and Vice President of MPOWER Financing. “Her depth of knowledge in the field of communications will help us develop an impactful communication strategy and brand value. Madhushri’s vast experience, core values, and capabilities make her uniquely suited for this role at MPOWER Financing."

Speaking on her appointment, Madhushri remarked, “Access to financing for education resonates with me personally. Coming from a middle-class family, I can't emphasize enough the importance of education.” She continued, “Being part of MPOWER will be an exciting new phase for me, and I admire the brand for its mission and work culture. I am indeed thrilled to be part of the team that MPOWER is trying to fulfill for deserving students globally including students from India.”

Madhushri is a specialist in brand management, public relations, reputation management, and corporate communications. Before joining MPOWER, she was associated with startups like Samunnati, DriveU, Medibox, and KisanKraft. She started her professional journey as a business development intern at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in the UK. Madhushri has earned a master’s degree in public relations from the University of Bedfordshire and a bachelor’s degree in media science from NSHM, West Bengal University of Technology.

MPOWER Financing, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with employees worldwide, is a mission-driven fintech company and the leading provider of global education loans. Its proprietary algorithm analyzes overseas and domestic credit data as well as future earning potential to serve promising international and DACA students. MPOWER works with over 400 top universities across the U.S. and Canada to provide financing to students from over 200 countries. The MPOWER team consists heavily of former international students and provides students with personal financial education and career support to prepare for life after school.

MPOWER was named one of the best places to work, one of the best tech workplaces for diversity, and one of American Banker’s top fintech firms to work for five years in a row. MPOWER is backed by Tilden Park Capital Management, King Street Capital Management, ETS Strategic Capital, Drakes Landing Associates, Pennington Alternative Income Management, Zephyr Peacock, Breega, Potencia Ventures, Goal Solutions, Gray Matters Capital, Cometa, AI8, DreamIt, 1776, Village Capital, Fresco, K Street and University Ventures.

Shutterstock Acquires Pond5, the World's Largest Video Marketplace

The acquisition solidifies Shutterstock's position as the marketplace leader for premium editorial and commercial video and music content for creative professionals and enterprises

NEW YORK, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), the leading global creative platform for transformative brands and media companies, today announced the acquisition of Pond5, the world's largest video-first content marketplace for filmmakers, media organizations, and marketers worldwide. Pond5 is the world's leading online marketplace for royalty-free and editorial video, with customers including Netflix, Disney, NBC, BBC, Discovery Channel and The Wall Street Journal. Pond5's comprehensive collection includes 30 million licensable video clips, 1.6 million music tracks and 1.7 million sound effects assets.

This acquisition solidifies Shutterstock's position as the premium destination for its global customer community for unique access to editorial content, video footage and music. Integrated with Shutterstock's workflow applications, this expansive content library enables Shutterstock's global customer community to create with confidence, and provides value to Pond5's 115K+ contributors, by expanding the distribution of their content to new regions and customers. Shutterstock Studios customers are also able to leverage their access to the offering, integrating clips from Pond5's unparalleled offering into powerful short form and long form content.

Pond5 combines their vast collection – which can be seen in various destinations, ranging from films and TV shows including Succession and The Queen's Gambit, to YouTube videos, video games and Super Bowl ads – with a best-in-class search experience that makes it seamless for creators to find what they need, even for the most unpredictable and niche content searches.

Since its inception in 2006, Pond5 has built an expanding contributor network of over 115,000 active contributors across 180 countries, who upload over 2.5 million assets each month. Additionally, Pond5's premium editorial content partners, such as Reuters, PA Media and British Movietone, will provide Shutterstock's global customer community access to up-to-the-minute and archival news footage.

"The acquisition of Pond5 provides immense value for our global customer base, with unparalleled access to one of the largest collections of editorial and commercial video content in the world," said Jon Oringer, Interim Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock. "Our contributors will also benefit from having their work showcased on Pond5's platform, expanding their portfolio to new customers."

Jamie Elden, Chief Revenue Officer at Shutterstock said, "With this acquisition, we are able to offer our customers across global agency, corporate, and media channels access to one of the largest premium archival collections in the industry. Shutterstock is constantly reinventing, and this acquisition brings together powerful creators and exceptional content to ensure our customers have world class video, music and editorial collections at their fingertips."

Tom Crary, CEO at Pond5 said, "We could not be more thrilled to join forces with Shutterstock to lead the video and music space. Our combined editorial offerings will be a competitive force in the market, and offer additional choice to customers with highly exclusive editorial video content."

Transaction Highlights: 

• Consideration for the transaction consists of $210 million of cash paid at closing
• Further scales Shutterstock's video business and expands Shutterstock's editorial offering with unique and high-quality exclusive video content
• Complementary customer base with powerful relationships with the world's largest media outlets, social media platforms, and OTT streaming companies
• Maintaining 2022 revenue and adjusted EBITDA margin guidance
• Immediately accretive to 2022 adjusted EBITDA, even after one-time transaction related costs

CapM Advisors acted as financial advisor, and Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP acted as legal advisor to Shutterstock. Jefferies LLC acted as financial advisor, and Goodwin Procter LLP acted as legal advisor to Pond5. Investors can find a link to the presentation materials on the Pond5 transaction at https://investor.shutterstock.com

About Shutterstock, Inc.

Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), is the leading global creative platform for transformative brands and media companies. Directly and through its group subsidiaries, Shutterstock's comprehensive collection includes high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations, 3D models, videos and music. Working with its growing community of over 2 million contributors, Shutterstock adds hundreds of thousands of images each week, and currently has more than 405 million images and more than 25 million video clips available.

Headquartered in New York City, Shutterstock has offices around the world and customers in more than 150 countries. The Company also owns Pond5, the world's largest video marketplace, TurboSquid, the world's largest 3D content marketplace, PicMonkey, a leading online graphic design and image editing platform; Offset, a high-end image collection; Shutterstock Studios, an end-to-end custom creative shop; PremiumBeat, a curated royalty-free music library; Shutterstock Editorial, a premier source of editorial images and videos for the world's media; Amper Music, an AI-driven music platform; and Bigstock, a value-oriented stock media offering.

For more information, please visit www.shutterstock.com and follow Shutterstock on Twitter and on Facebook.

About Pond5

Pond5 strives to create world-class storytellers by providing creators of all types with the content they need to tell stories, share knowledge, and inspire audiences.

Driven by a commitment to its passionate and growing global community of more than 115,000 professional visual and audio artists, Pond5 provides a platform where creative work can flourish, and artists can make a sustainable living with industry-leading revenue shares. Pond5 serves the needs of creators across industries—from individual users to major corporations—with competitive pricing and an array of purchase options including a unique pay per item model. Purchases are backed by a broad and flexible license, a best price guarantee, and a dedicated team standing by to provide expert assistance.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding guidance, industry prospects, future business, future results of operations or financial condition, future dividends, our ability to consummate acquisitions and integrate the businesses we have acquired or may acquire into our existing operations, new or planned features, products or services, management strategies, our competitive position and the COVID-19 pandemic. You can identify forward-looking statements by words such as "may," "will," "would," "should," "could," "expect," "aim," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "predict," "project," "seek," "potential," "opportunities" and other similar expressions and the negatives of such expressions. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, those discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as in other documents that the Company may file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of such risks, uncertainties and factors, Shutterstock's actual results may differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements discussed in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made only as of this date and Shutterstock assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law