Category: Asean

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Deploy Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist across any telephony environment

New standalone offering extends Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist beyond Zoom Phone, bringing AI-powered call handling capabilities to any existing phone system

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Zoom Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) today announced a standalone offering for Zoom Virtual Agent (ZVA) Receptionist, enabling organizations to add an AI-powered front desk to their existing phone system without requiring Zoom Phone, helping organizations improve customer responsiveness, extend business availability, and capture more opportunities.

For many businesses, inbound calls are opportunities to win a customer, book an appointment, or strengthen an existing relationship. Yet according to research, 71% of consumers find calling a business more stressful than the issue they’re trying to resolve, and 50% say they would switch to a competitor after a single bad experience.

With Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist, organizations can provide fast, always-available customer assistance through natural, conversational AI that answers calls, assists customers, and routes inquiries around the clock. With support for more than 10 languages, built-in live transcription, appointment scheduling, and intelligent call routing, Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist helps businesses deliver responsive customer experiences while enabling employees to focus on the conversations that matter most.

“Businesses shouldn’t have to replace their phone system to benefit from AI,” said Chris Moss, general manager of Zoom Phone. “Every inbound call is an opportunity to serve a customer or nurture a prospect. With the standalone Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist offering, organizations can quickly add an AI-powered front desk to their existing systems, helping them answer more calls, respond faster, and stay available around the clock.”

Extending AI Receptionist capabilities beyond Zoom Phone

Originally introduced as part of Zoom Phone, Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist is now available across existing business phone systems, making it easier for organizations to adopt AI without changing their communications infrastructure.

Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist helps organizations:

  • Answer and greet every caller with natural, conversational AI in multiple languages.
  • Resolve common customer needs by answering business questions, scheduling appointments, and providing after-hours support.
  • Connect customers to the right person with intelligent call routing and seamless handoff when human assistance is needed.

Organizations can now add an AI-powered front desk without changing their existing phone system, making it easier to improve customer responsiveness while preserving existing technology investments and avoiding major migrations.

Whether supporting a retail store, healthcare practice, law office, or growing small business, Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist helps ensure every caller receives timely, professional assistance while enabling employees to remain focused on serving customers.

Helping organizations capture every opportunity.

Since every inbound call has the potential to generate new business, appointments, or revenue, responsiveness is key to maintaining a competitive edge. During busy periods, after hours, or when employees are focused on helping customers in person, businesses often struggle to respond as quickly as customers expect.

By bringing AI receptionist capabilities to existing phone systems, Zoom is helping organizations improve responsiveness, extend business availability, and create better first impressions without disrupting the technology they already trust.

Available now

Standalone Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist is available for purchase online beginning today, starting at $29.99 USD per month/100 minutes, or $24.99 USD per month/100 minutes with annual billing. To learn more, visit Zoom.com.

Organizations can also explore Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist through a free trial program available to both new and existing customers.

About Zoom
Zoom (NASDAQ:ZM) is a system of action for modern work, turning live collaboration into completed results. From entrepreneurs to global enterprises, customers choose Zoom to seamlessly collaborate, communicate, and drive outcomes across meetings, phone, contact center, and more — all with the built-in assistance of Zoom AI. Founded in 2011, Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, CA. For more information, visit zoom.com.

Zoom Public Relations
Travis Isaman
[email protected]

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 9759489

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Booster Robotics’ Humanoid Robots Claim All Championship Titles at RoboCup 2026

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — At RoboCup 2026, the world’s premier robotics competition, teams competing on Booster Robotics’ humanoid robots swept all championship titles across the Small, Middle and Large divisions. This year, a total of 59 teams from around the world participated in RoboCup 2026, 38 of which competed on Booster robots, including but not limited to Badger Bots (USA), Bahia Robotics Team (Brazil), Berlin United (Germany), B-Human (Germany), HTWK Robots (Germany), HULKs (Germany), Inha-United (South Korea), KURA (UAE), NUbots (Australia), Pumas (Mexico), RedbackBots (Australia), RFC-Tsudanuma (Japan), Rhoban (France), RoboEireann (Ireland), Robo-Erectus (Singapore), Ruhrbot Devils (Germany), rUNSWift (Australia), SPQR Team (Italy), Tech United (Netherlands), UT AustinVilla (USA), whIRLwind Amsterdam (Netherlands), and others.

  • Large Division: Champion, Tsinghua Hephaestus; Runner-up, CAU Mountain&Sea; Third place, BISTU Water. All competed on Booster T1.
  • Middle Division: Champion, B-Human; Runner-up, HTWK Robots; Third place, Rhoban. All competed on Booster K1.
  • Small Division: Champion, Invic; Runner-up, Hamburg Bit-Bots; Third place, GeoHBots. Invic and GeoHBots competed on Booster K1 Air.

 

Middle Division: Champion, B-Human; Runner-up, HTWK Robots

Middle Division: Champion, B-Human; Runner-up, HTWK Robots

 

Booster's robots at RoboCup 2026

Booster’s robots at RoboCup 2026

RoboCup 2026

RoboCup 2026

The Champion Behind Champions

This widespread adoption signals a fundamental shift in what robotics competitions measure, from “who can build the robot” to “who can make the robot smarter.” In past years, teams spent much of their R&D resources building the robot itself from scratch, with significant effort going into mechanical design, hardware development, and basic locomotion control. This year marked a clear inflection point: leading teams focused almost entirely on pushing the boundaries of perception, real-time decision-making, and multi-agent coordination, while Booster Robotics served as the underlying platform, continuing to advance the robots’ core leg and foot locomotion capabilities, improving reliability in high-speed running, sudden stops and turns, fall recovery, and sustained motion. This separation of hardware and software lets complex code perform reliably in the real world.

RoboCup 2026

RoboCup 2026

Booster Robotics Builds a Global Embodied Intelligence Ecosystem

Booster Robotics recently launched Booster Studio, the world’s first integrated development environment (IDE) built for embodied intelligence, giving engineers, researchers, and developers worldwide a unified platform to program, simulate, and deploy humanoid robot behaviors more efficiently. At the same time, the company officially launched the Booster Champion 3v3 Soccer Tournament (champion.booster.tech/?lang=en), inviting developers and embodied intelligence enthusiasts around the world to compete, collaborate, and help build the future of embodied intelligence together. The competition will expand into more real-world scenarios going forward.

One of the youngest teams at RoboCup 2026 was from Pui Ching Middle School (Macau). Using Booster Studio, these young developers were able to develop, train, and validate their algorithms in a highly realistic digital environment before seamlessly deploying them onto real robots. From top research universities and leading labs to everyday developers and student teams, an open, shared ecosystem for embodied intelligence development is taking shape.

Booster Robotics IDE

Booster Robotics IDE

About Booster Robotics

Booster Robotics is a humanoid robotics company dedicated to bringing embodied intelligence into real-world deployment. At RoboCup 2026, teams competing on Booster robots swept every championship title across the Small, Middle, and Large divisions, extending Booster’s technical leadership in humanoid robotics. For more information, visit booster.tech. To learn more about Booster Studio, go to studio.booster.tech.

SOURCE Booster Robotics

Note: High-resolution images and video assets available upon request. Contact [email protected]

Media Contact: Booster Robotics | [email protected]

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

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GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 9759557

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Meltwater Expands Access to Meltwater MCP Bringing Actionable Intelligence Into the AI Tools Teams Already Use

Meltwater MCP is the only full-suite media intelligence platform that plugs directly into leading AI assistants, custom agents and AI workflows – with the ability to take action, not just answer questions

SAN FRANCISCO, July 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Meltwater, the global leader in actionable intelligence for PR, Communications and Marketing teams, today announced a major expansion of Meltwater MCP (Model Context Protocol). The release adds a new set of MCP tools that allow AI assistants to take action inside the Meltwater platform, helping teams access insights, create reports, and track alerts in real time.

Ask Meltwater, Inside Existing AI Tools

Meltwater has hosted MCP natively since June 2025, bringing unmatched real-time, cited media, social, and influencer intelligence directly into the AI tools teams already use. This allowed users to ask questions in plain language and receive trusted answers grounded in Meltwater’s licensed data which analyzes 1.3 billion-plus documents a day.

But teams no longer want AI assistants that simply summarize information. They want agents that can understand intent, work with trusted context, take action and learn from the intelligence assets a team has already built.

Meltwater MCP meets this need, moving beyond simply answering questions to allow AI tools to build on existing projects within the Meltwater platform. Teams can simply ask their preferred AI tool for an overview of breaking news coverage, a brand health report, or a brief on trending social media topics, without having to log in to Meltwater and start a search from scratch. The results can be saved, re-used and referenced again by an AI agent that knows the purpose behind them.

Access to Trusted Intelligence Across Your Organization

Not everyone who needs a Meltwater answer has platform access, so they often turn to generic AI tools that respond from open-web data rather than trusted, sourced intelligence. This means that generic results often sound confident while being outdated, incomplete, or simply wrong. Meltwater MCP closes this gap with a single, governed connector that brings Meltwater’s licensed data into any compatible AI assistant, letting teams ask questions in plain language and get cited, verifiable answers without a custom integration or specialist help.

“Intelligence shouldn’t require a specialist to unlock it,” said Chris Hackney, Chief Product Officer at Meltwater. “Meltwater MCP means the analyst, the executive, and the intern can all ask the same question and get the same quality of answer, grounded in real Meltwater data, right inside the AI tools they already use every day.”

“Teams shouldn’t have to pick between the AI tool they already love using and the data they actually trust, but that’s the tradeoff most integrations force on them,” said Aditya Jami, Chief Technology Officer at Meltwater. “Meltwater MCP means they don’t have to. It’s one connector, fully governed, bringing real Meltwater intelligence into whichever assistant a team is already using. And now, they can act on it too, not just ask about it.”

Now Generally Available to Meltwater Customers

Meltwater MCP is now generally available to Meltwater customers. It builds on more than a year of customer pilots and provides MCP-based access to its data and content in production. The release reflects Meltwater’s commitment to empowering leaders with the intelligence they need to set a new standard in PR, Communications, and Marketing.

To learn more about Meltwater’s MCP offering, visit meltwater.com.

For more information, please contact:
Kelly Costello
Corporate Communications Director
[email protected]

About Meltwater
Meltwater is the global leader in actionable intelligence for PR, Communications, and Marketing teams. By analyzing 1.3 billion pieces of content daily, Meltwater transforms media, social, and AI signals into intelligence that leaders rely on to make faster, more confident decisions. With 27,000 customers worldwide, Meltwater is the intelligence platform global brands trust to stay ahead.

Meltwater: Intelligence you can act on. 
Learn more at meltwater.com.

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 9758635

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Meltwater Expands Access to Meltwater MCP Bringing Actionable Intelligence Into the AI Tools Teams Already Use

Meltwater MCP is the only full-suite media intelligence platform that plugs directly into leading AI assistants, custom agents and AI workflows – with the ability to take action, not just answer questions

SAN FRANCISCO, July 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Meltwater, the global leader in actionable intelligence for PR, Communications and Marketing teams, today announced a major expansion of Meltwater MCP (Model Context Protocol). The release adds a new set of MCP tools that allow AI assistants to take action inside the Meltwater platform, helping teams access insights, create reports, and track alerts in real time.

Ask Meltwater, Inside Existing AI Tools

Meltwater has hosted MCP natively since June 2025, bringing unmatched real-time, cited media, social, and influencer intelligence directly into the AI tools teams already use. This allowed users to ask questions in plain language and receive trusted answers grounded in Meltwater’s licensed data which analyzes 1.3 billion-plus documents a day.

But teams no longer want AI assistants that simply summarize information. They want agents that can understand intent, work with trusted context, take action and learn from the intelligence assets a team has already built.

Meltwater MCP meets this need, moving beyond simply answering questions to allow AI tools to build on existing projects within the Meltwater platform. Teams can simply ask their preferred AI tool for an overview of breaking news coverage, a brand health report, or a brief on trending social media topics, without having to log in to Meltwater and start a search from scratch. The results can be saved, re-used and referenced again by an AI agent that knows the purpose behind them.

Access to Trusted Intelligence Across Your Organization

Not everyone who needs a Meltwater answer has platform access, so they often turn to generic AI tools that respond from open-web data rather than trusted, sourced intelligence. This means that generic results often sound confident while being outdated, incomplete, or simply wrong. Meltwater MCP closes this gap with a single, governed connector that brings Meltwater’s licensed data into any compatible AI assistant, letting teams ask questions in plain language and get cited, verifiable answers without a custom integration or specialist help.

“Intelligence shouldn’t require a specialist to unlock it,” said Chris Hackney, Chief Product Officer at Meltwater. “Meltwater MCP means the analyst, the executive, and the intern can all ask the same question and get the same quality of answer, grounded in real Meltwater data, right inside the AI tools they already use every day.”

“Teams shouldn’t have to pick between the AI tool they already love using and the data they actually trust, but that’s the tradeoff most integrations force on them,” said Aditya Jami, Chief Technology Officer at Meltwater. “Meltwater MCP means they don’t have to. It’s one connector, fully governed, bringing real Meltwater intelligence into whichever assistant a team is already using. And now, they can act on it too, not just ask about it.”

Now Generally Available to Meltwater Customers

Meltwater MCP is now generally available to Meltwater customers. It builds on more than a year of customer pilots and provides MCP-based access to its data and content in production. The release reflects Meltwater’s commitment to empowering leaders with the intelligence they need to set a new standard in PR, Communications, and Marketing.

To learn more about Meltwater’s MCP offering, visit meltwater.com.

For more information, please contact:
Kelly Costello
Corporate Communications Director
[email protected]

About Meltwater
Meltwater is the global leader in actionable intelligence for PR, Communications, and Marketing teams. By analyzing 1.3 billion pieces of content daily, Meltwater transforms media, social, and AI signals into intelligence that leaders rely on to make faster, more confident decisions. With 27,000 customers worldwide, Meltwater is the intelligence platform global brands trust to stay ahead.

Meltwater: Intelligence you can act on. 
Learn more at meltwater.com.

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 9758635

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Bitget Wallet Hits 100M Users — and Payments Just Overtook Trading

Bitget Wallet’s shift from trading to payments shows how crypto is becoming part of everyday finance, not just a vehicle for investment

Bitget Wallet Hits 100M Users — and Payments Just Overtook Trading

Bitget Wallet Hits 100M Users — and Payments Just Overtook Trading

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, July 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bitget Wallet, a self-custodial crypto wallet for everyday finance, announced it has surpassed 100 million users globally, and that for the first time in the platform’s history, daily payment users now outnumber traders. More than half of those users are based in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where people are increasingly using crypto wallets as global stablecoin accounts to save, get paid, and spend locally, rather than to trade.

That shift shows up in the data. Bitget Wallet Cards issued have surpassed 150,000 worldwide, available across 50+ markets and spendable at 150M+ merchants. Global card spending reached $31M in the first half of 2026, a 191% increase from H2 2025. In emerging markets specifically, card spend grew by 416% in the same period, showing that financial habits are forming faster in these regions than the global average. Globally, card users averaged 10 payments per month at an average transaction size of $28, consistent with everyday purchases at a frequency that reflects payment as routine. Active cardholders in the US, Europe, and Asia average between 10 and 14 swipes a month — on par with how often consumers use a debit card — while emerging markets like LatAm are catching up fast from a lower base.

The conditions driving it are structural, and specific. In Nigeria, the official naira lost over 40% of its value against the dollar in 2024; in Argentina, the peso lost a comparable share. Conventional remittance corridors into these markets still charge 5–8% per transfer on average. At the same time, both countries are among Bitget Wallet’s fastest-growing markets — a direct connection between local currency instability and demand for a stable, low-cost, borderless account. In Southeast Asia and South Asia, the platform’s two largest user regions, mobile-first payment infrastructure already exists; Bitget Wallet’s QR payments and bank transfer rails plug into habits that are already formed.

“The next wave of users in these markets doesn’t think of this as crypto,” said Alvin Kan, COO of Bitget Wallet. “They have a balance in dollars, they spend it, they get paid into it, and they move it across borders. The account just happens to be onchain. What the data is showing us is that this is becoming routine, and what starts as routine in these markets tends to define what global finance looks like next.” In a COO letter published, Kan reflects on the turning points that shaped the platform over the past eight years.

Eight years ago, Bitget Wallet launched as a trading tool for crypto natives. In the last two years, the product was substantially rebuilt around a different use case: the infrastructure that today spans card issuance across 50+ markets, QR payment rails across Southeast Asia and LatAm, and direct bank integrations serving users in Nigeria, Mexico, and Bangladesh didn’t exist at the last major milestone. The Onchain Payments Matrix, the settlement infrastructure behind these flows, now spans 80+ payment rails across 100+ currencies and has settled more than $177 billion in stablecoin volume.

More insights and the full data report can be found on the Bitget Wallet blog.

About Bitget Wallet
Bitget Wallet is a self-custodial crypto wallet built for everyday finance. Since 2018, it has given 100M+ users worldwide an onchain account to save, spend, and invest in crypto, supporting 1M+ tokens across 130+ blockchains, 100+ fiat currencies, Visa/Mastercard crypto cards, and localized payment methods. Its security is backed by industry-standard key encryption, a real-time risk engine, independent audits, and a US$300M+ user protection fund. In 2022, Bitget Wallet raised a US$100M funding round led by Dragonfly. For media information, visit web3.bitget.com.

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For media inquiries, contact [email protected]

Disclaimer: For informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies are subject to high market risk and volatility. No profit is guaranteed. You are strongly advised to conduct own research before investing at your own discretion. Nothing on this page shall be construed as financial advice or solicitation. Past performance does not indicate future results.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4c5f4bdd-196f-4cdb-b17b-fb9a8ed0e5bf

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 1001211698

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World First: KFSH Jeddah’s Single-Session Stem Cell Protocol Sets a New Global Standard Balancing Donor Safety and Treatment Efficiency

KFSH Jeddah’s Single-Session Stem Cell Protocol Sets a New Global Standard Balancing Donor Safety and Treatment Efficiency.jpeg

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah has successfully developed and implemented the world’s first protocol of its kind, using an algorithm to accurately estimate the expected stem cell yield from each donor. The protocol enabled stem cell collection to be completed in the first session for 100% of male donors and 94.9% of all donors, while eliminating the need for third and fourth collection sessions altogether.

JEDDAH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, July 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah has successfully developed and implemented the world’s first protocol of its kind, using an algorithm to accurately estimate the expected stem cell yield from each donor. The protocol enabled stem cell collection to be completed in the first session for 100% of male donors and 94.9% of all donors, while eliminating the need for third and fourth collection sessions altogether.

The protocol is designed to limit repeat collection sessions and the risks they can pose to donor safety. Figures from the U.S. National Marrow Donor Program show that repeat sessions raise a donor’s likelihood of being hospitalized for recovery sixfold. By reducing how often sessions must be repeated, the protocol addresses that risk directly and sets a new global benchmark that balances donor safety with treatment efficiency.

For patients, the protocol has improved the outcomes of stem cell transplantation. Survival reached 91.2 percent at 100 days after transplant, above the global average and a key marker of early recovery. The results were documented in a study published in Blood Global Hematology, a journal of the American Society of Hematology.

“Sparing healthy donors from repeated stem cell collection sessions is both a clinical and an ethical priority,” said Professor Ashraf Dada, Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at KFSH Jeddah and the study’s principal investigator.

He explained that the algorithm, developed over three years and tested on 138 donors, enabled the medical team for the first time to plan the opening session with close to 92 percent accuracy in predicting how many cells would be collected. This improves the donor’s experience and safety, supports advance planning of the collection process, and speeds treatment for patients awaiting a transplant.

The breakthrough reflects KFSH’s broader drive to harness data and scientific analysis in advancing specialized care, allowing treatment to be tailored to the clinical condition and needs of each donor and recipient. It also reinforces the hospital’s standing as a pioneer of advanced medical solutions, in line with its vision to be the optimal choice for every patient.

King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre is ranked first in the Middle East and Africa and 12th worldwide among the top 250 academic medical institutions for 2026. Brand Finance named it the most valuable healthcare brand in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East for 2026, and Newsweek has listed it among the World’s Best Hospitals, World’s Best Smart Hospitals, and World’s Best Specialized Hospitals for 2026.

For more information, visit www.kfshrc.edu.sa or contact our media team at [email protected]

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/996242ac-8228-4f18-8b68-1755c2f639cd

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 9758172