A prominent area of exploration involves enabling large language models (LLMs) to function collaboratively. Multi-agent systems powered by LLMs are now being examined for their potential to coordinate challenging problems by splitting tasks and working simultaneously. This direction has gained attention due to its potential to increase efficiency and reduce latency in real-time applications. A common issue in collaborative LLM systems is agents’ sequential, turn-based communication. In such systems, each agent must wait for others to complete their reasoning steps before proceeding. This slows down processing, especially in situations demanding rapid responses. Moreover, agents often duplicate efforts or generate inconsistent outputs, as they cannot see the evolving thoughts of their peers during generation. This latency and redundancy reduce the practicality of deploying multi-agent LLMs, particularly when time and computation are constrained, such as edge devices. Most current solutions have relied on sequential or independently parallel sampling techniques to improve reasoning. Methods like Chain-of-Thought prompting help models to solve problems in a structured way but often come with increased inference time. Approaches such as Tree-of-Thoughts and Graph-of-Thoughts expand on this by branching reasoning paths. However, these approaches still do not allow for real-time mutual adaptation among agents. Multi-agent setups have explored collaborative methods, but mostly through alternating message exchanges, which again introduces delays. Some advanced systems propose complex dynamic scheduling or role-based configurations, which are not optimized for efficient inference. Research from MediaTek Research introduced a new method called Group Think. This approach enables multiple reasoning agents within a single LLM to operate concurrently, observing each other’s partial outputs at the token level. Each reasoning thread adapts to the evolving thoughts of the others mid-generation. This mechanism reduces duplication and enables agents to shift direction if another thread is better positioned to continue a specific line of reasoning. Group Think is implemented through a token-level attention mechanism that lets each agent attend to previously generated tokens from all agents, supporting real-time collaboration. The method works by assigning each agent its own sequence of token indices, allowing their outputs to be interleaved in memory. These interleaved tokens are stored in a shared cache accessible to all agents during generation. This design allows efficient attention across reasoning threads without architectural changes to the transformer model. The implementation works both on personal devices and in data centers. On local devices, it effectively uses idle compute by batching multiple agent outputs, even with a batch size of one. In data centers, Group Think allows multiple requests to be processed together, interleaving tokens across agents while maintaining correct attention dynamics. Performance tests demonstrate that Group Think significantly improves latency and output quality. In enumeration tasks, such as listing 100 distinct names, it achieved near-complete results more rapidly than conventional Chain-of-Thought approaches. The acceleration was proportional to the number of thinkers; for example, four thinkers reduced latency by a factor of about four. In divide-and-conquer problems, using the Floyd–Warshall algorithm on a graph of five nodes, four thinkers reduced the completion time to half that of a single agent. Group Think solved code generation challenges in programming tasks more effectively than baseline models. With four or more thinkers, the model produced correct code segments much faster than traditional reasoning models. This research shows that existing LLMs, though not explicitly trained for collaboration, can already demonstrate emergent group reasoning behaviors under the Group Think setup. In experiments, agents naturally diversified their work to avoid redundancy, often dividing tasks by topic or focus area. These findings suggest that Group Think’s efficiency and sophistication could be enhanced further with dedicated training on collaborative data. Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 95k+ ML SubReddit and Subscribe to our Newsletter. NikhilNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. With a strong background in Material Science, he is exploring new advancements and creating opportunities to contribute.Nikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Researchers from the National University of Singapore Introduce ‘Thinkless,’ an Adaptive Framework that Reduces Unnecessary Reasoning by up to 90% Using DeGRPONikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/This AI Paper Introduces MathCoder-VL and FigCodifier: Advancing Multimodal Mathematical Reasoning with Vision-to-Code AlignmentNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/This AI Paper Introduces PARSCALE (Parallel Scaling): A Parallel Computation Method for Efficient and Scalable Language Model DeploymentNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Google AI Releases Standalone NotebookLM Mobile App with Offline Audio and Seamless Source Integration

At this year’s Mobidictum Business Conference, Lior Shekel, Director of Strategic Partnerships at ironSource, walked through 5 steps to launch a hit hyper-casual game today - including tips for marketability testing, soft launching, and global launching. Let’s dive in.Step 1: Run a marketability test on social networksThe first step to launching a hyper-casual game is running an initial marketability test on social media networks - this tells you its relative potential for success in the market. Facebook is typically the best place to start - it has a simple integration, it’s relatively fast and cheap to use, and offers a vast audience. Essentially, testing on Facebook gives you a general idea whether your game prototype matches your KPI goals.If test results on Facebook look promising, try marketability testing on other social networks like Google, Snapchat and TikTok. This will give you even broader confirmation that your game stands out among the competition.Step 2: Run a marketability test on SDK networksOnce initial KPIs are looking good, now it’s time to test on SDK networks. Why? SDK networks offer the biggest audience possible, and the biggest opportunity for your game to scale up during the global launch. Just because a game passes marketability on Facebook, doesn’t necessarily mean it will scale on an SDK network later on.To understand marketability on SDK networks, we look at eCPM, which is IPM multiplied by CPI. Like the chart shows, the campaigns that generate the highest eCPMs will be the ones to top the SDK networks’ data science ad serving models, winning the most impressions and scaling the fastest. Essentially, the higher the eCPM, the more the purchasing power your campaign has on the network.Step 3: Implement ad monetizationOnce your game’s KPIs look promising on both social media and SDK networks, you’re almost ready for launch. But first, you need to maximize your monetization opportunities through the game content itself. This includes adding more levels, A/B testing different placement and creative strategies, determining a basic game economy, and more.This way, before launch, you’re putting yourself in the best position to profit from your game, while ensuring your users have the most positive and exciting experience possible.Step 4: Run a soft launchNow it’s time to soft launch your game - releasing the product ahead of the scheduled launch is an opportunity to simulate real-world interactions. Since you’ve already tested your marketability, you can confidently soft launch on every ad network possible to increase your buying power.Some hyper-casual studios choose to initially soft launch on social networks, then later on SDKs - but we see that the most successful cases soft launch everywhere at once. Let’s dive into two different soft launch strategies.Going all inThe first strategy, the “all-in” launch, focuses on scaling up quickly to find the profitable and scalable sweet spot. It starts with a higher-than-average bid (we recommend around 20% higher), giving you a higher eCPM, as we mentioned earlier (remember CPI, or bid, is a factor of eCPM). By spending extra money, you’re increasing your eCPM - so you can scale quickly and top the charts, but your profit KPIs will drop as a result. To retain your revenue, we recommend capping this campaign at $500-1000 daily.Next, you lower your bid each day by no more than 10% - increasing the budget cap simultaneously. This process usually takes around 3 days, helping you reach your sweet spot when you can start granular bidding - carefully setting and adjusting different bids according to their source behavior. You should bid per source based on the quality that it’s generating for you, such as increasing bids in sources with a good ROAS.Staying conservativeConversely, a conservative launch is much more stable - but because it prioritizes profit, it scales much more slowly. With this strategy, you start with your target bid, which means your budget will likely be smaller, but will soon grow. At this stage, it’s crucial to prevent your game from reaching its budget cap - it harms the game’s positive trend and growth potential.To start granular bidding within 4-5 days, you should also be monitoring ROAS from day 1.Comparing four games that used one of these two strategies - every single one hit the top charts, with games using the “all-in” strategy staying there for a slightly longer time. Most importantly, despite the strategy, the games’ total revenue was virtually the same at the end of the day.Staying ahead of the curveNo matter which soft launch strategy you use, we recommend first launching in the US - it’s the biggest market offering the highest bids and eCPMs. From there, we recommend waiting 2-3 days before launching globally. To get maximum scale from your top sources, it’s best to optimize based on ROAS source bidding. Eventually, you can go on “auto-pilot” mode by turning on automated ROAS optimizer campaigns within each ad network - reducing workload for the whole team.As you global launch, keep these tips in mind:- Timing is everything - launch close to the weekend for longer retention and more playtime- Utilize your top-performing creatives and test new creatives - this improves IPM, which therefore boosts eCPM (eCPM = IPM x eCPI)- Call your users to action using different interactive and playable end cards to increase IPMStep 5: Automate and scale upCongrats! You’ve now global launched your game, new users are joining every day, and LTV is becoming much more accurate. Now is the best time to automate user acquisition, so you and your team can not only focus on acquiring the users, but also the game itself - and you can buy users much more efficiently.Not only does automation free your time, but it also uses highly accurate data - many ROAS optimizers today bid on an extremely granular level, for example per user and per ad request. This expands your reach because you can adjust your bids all the time, while your optimizer continues to optimize to scale and profit.By launching your hyper-casual game in a thoughtful way, you’re ensuring it’s on the best path for success - from the earliest marketability testing stages, all the way through post launch and automation.

Hot water is like internet connectivity for most Verge readers: you just expect it to be there. But that’s unlikely to be the case this summer when tent camping at a music festival or road-tripping into the great unknown. That’s where BougeRV’s battery-powered shower comes in. The $310 “Portable Propane Outdoor Camping Water Heater” from BougeRV is not only optimized for search engine discovery, it also delivers a luxurious spray of hot steaming water to the unwashed, be they human, canine, or stubborn pots and pans. Charge up the battery, attach a propane canister, drop the pump into a jug of water, and you’re ready to get sudsing.It’s so useful and flexible that I’ve ditched my plans to install a permanent shower cabin and expensive hot water system inside my adventure van, even if I don’t completely trust it.8Verge Score$310The GoodBattery-powered portabilityTemperature controlAdjustable flow to save waterLots of safety featuresThe BadLots of hoses and cables to snagWeak shower head holderNo bag to carry all the accessoriesLongevity concerns$310 at BougeRVHow we rate and review productsMy current portable shower consists of an 11-liter water bag, a manual foot pump, and a spray nozzle. To make it hot, I have to heat water on the stove or hang the bag in the sun for several hours, yet it still costs over $150. For $310, the BougeRV heated shower seems like a bargain.The BougeRV system can produce a maximum heat output of 20,500 BTUs — about half of a typical residential gas water heater. It measures 15.75 x 6.7 x 14.57 inches (40 x 17 x 31cm) and weighs 13.2 pounds (6.21kg), making it compact and fairly lightweight with two big handles for easy carry. The hoses and cabling make it a little unwieldy — capable of chaos inside a small space unless handled with care.Assembly starts with screwing in an easy to find one pound (454g) propane canister that attaches at the rear of the unit. That’s the size BougeRV recommends, but you wouldn’t be the first to instead run a hose from your RV’s existing propane tank to the pressure regulator on the water heater. Two quick-connect water hoses — labeled blue and red for idiot-proof attachment — route the water from your chosen receptacle, through that gas furnace, and out through the showerhead. The long 2.5m (8.2 feet) shower hose allows for flexible placement of the heater.The small water pump measures just 2.24 inches (5.7cm) across, so it easily fits through the opening of standard jerry cans. The pump is electrically powered by the BougeRV unit, which is powered by its rechargeable battery, an AC wall jack, or 12V adapter that plugs into the cigarette jack of your vehicle or solar generator.My outdoor shower using a standard jerry can for water. Magnets hold the towel in place and I’d buy a magnetic shower head holder to complete the setup. Photo by Thomas Ricker / The VergeCan place the BougeRV system on my sliding tray for a gear cleaning station. A long press on the pump button bypasses the heater to save gas. Photo by Thomas Ricker / The VergeA makeshift outdoor sink. The included holder is too weak to hold the shower head in more extreme positions. Photo by Thomas Ricker / The VergeHank hates getting hosed off with cold water but enjoyed this lush heated rinse. (He rolled in dirt immediately after.) Photo by Thomas Ricker / The VergeThe 2500mAh / 12V (30Wh) integrated Lithium-ion battery takes about three hours to charge from the included charger. A full battery and one-pound (454g) canister of liquid propane gas can pump out about an hour’s worth of hot water before both run dry. The shower’s gas consumption rate is 20MJ/h. Alternatively, you can save gas with a long press on the pump button to put the shower into cold water mode — ideal for rinsing off your mountain bike, hiking shoes, or wet suit, for example.The dial on the front of the heater controls the size of the flame. I did a handful of tests, starting with water measuring between 13 and 16 degrees Celsius (55–61 degrees Fahrenheit) according to the display on the BougeRV water heater. With the dial turned all the way to the left, the water pouring from the shower head rose to 23–25C (73–77F) after just a few seconds. Turned all the way to the right, the temperature maxed out at a steamy 34–41C (93–105F) in about 30 seconds.Recycling the water can make it even hotter, if you dareRecycling the water can make it even hotter, if you dare. After two or three cycles on max, the heater boosted the temperature above 51C (124F) before the unit shut down with an error, by design. It’s not meant to exceed an average water temperature above 50C (122F). A simple on/off reset the E6 error.Water flow is between 2.2 and 3 liters per minute — well below what you can expect from a 9 to 12 L/min flow of a modern home shower. That’s still acceptable, in my opinion, and far superior to nothing, which is the typical alternative when camping away from home. The shower head has a rocker switch to toggle between hardish, mixed, and soft water flow rates as well as an on/off limiter button to help conserve water between lathers.It’s surprisingly quiet even with the pump turned on. There’s some rapid clicking to ignite the gas (followed by a whoosh of flame) whenever the flow of water returns, and the pump produces a low-level hum that’s quickly drowned out by the sound of spraying water.The water heater is also protected from tilts, bumps, and an empty water source. When I leaned my review unit over about 30 degrees, the unit shut off. It also shut off automatically after two minutes of trying to pump from an empty bucket. A master override on/off switch on the button prevents the unit from turning on accidentally if the on/off button on the front is bumped during transport or storage.I’m impressed by BougeRV’s water heater, but I’m a little concerned about its durability over time. After using it on the beach on a windy day, I ran into trouble once I returned inside: the heater didn’t heat and the water was reduced to a trickle out of the showerhead. It’s possible that some sediment trapped in the lines reduced the flow rate below the 1.2L/min required for ignition. Nevertheless, the issue was resolved after a few minutes of fiddling with the hoses and filters, and turning the unit on and off again. BougeRV offers a two-year warranty and says the water heater is rated at IPX4. So while it’s resistant to splashing water, there’s no assurance offered against dust and blowing sand. I do have a few other gripes. Those hoses can be a tripping and snagging hazard, and the plastic clip meant to hold the showerhead to one of the lifting handles is too weak to keep it from rotating and spraying your surroundings. I also wish BougeRV bundled the heater with an accessory bag to carry all the power adapters and hoses. And when putting the device away, you have to tip it forward to drain all the collected water from the inlet and outlet — there’s no automatic expulsion mechanism.But really, these are trivial issues for what the unit does at this price.1/8A cold water option is great for cleaning gear.Prior to this review, I had been in the late planning stages of having a shower cabin, water pump, gas heater, extra-large water tank, and all necessary plumbing installed in my Sprinter van. Total cost: about $4,000. I’m now convinced that a portable system like what BougeRV offers is a better option. Why pay so much for something so permanent that’s only used a few minutes each week, for maybe half the year?Instead, BougeRV’s $310 portable water heater can function as an outdoor shower during the summer months or be moved inside (with ventilation) when coupled with a portable shower curtain and basin, all for less than $600. That sounds like a better use of my money, and probably yours if you’re an aspiring vanlifer.And when the van is parked, I can bring those hot (or cold) jets of water anywhere my adventures might take me: to clean up after mountain biking in the muddy forest or kitesurfing in the salty sea, to wash the dog outside after rolling in shit again, or to take a refreshing shower during a sweaty four-day music festival.A near-identical water heater is sold under the Ranien and Camplux brands, but those have larger 4000mAh (48Wh) batteries and list for between $349 and $399. So it might pay to shop around.Photos by Thomas Ricker / The VergeSee More:

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.  However, the recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores was met with some hype, particularly in its home country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, rather than ChatGPT by OpenAI — or something else,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a TV interview ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris. While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI still faces challenges in competing with the likes of OpenAI — and in doing so while keeping up with its self-definition as “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.” What is Mistral AI? Mistral AI has raised significant amounts of funding since its creation in 2023 with the ambition to “put frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” While this isn’t a direct jab at OpenAI, the slogan is meant to highlight the company’s advocacy for openness in AI. Its alternative to ChatGPT, chat assistant Le Chat, is now also available on iOS and Android. It reached 1 million downloads in the two weeks following its mobile release, even grabbing France’s top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store. This comes in addition to Mistral AI’s suite of models, which includes:  Mistral Large 2, the primary large language model replacing Mistral Large. Pixtral Large, unveiled in 2024 as a new addition to the Pixtral family of multimodal models. Mistral Medium 3, released in May 2025 with the promise of providing efficiency without compromising performance, and best for coding and STEM tasks. Devstral, an AI model designed for coding and openly available under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially without restriction. Codestral, an earlier generative AI model for code, but whose license banned commercial applications. “Les Ministraux,” a family of models optimized for edge devices such as phones. Mistral Saba, focused on Arabic language. In March 2025, the company introduced Mistral OCR, an optical character recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make it easier for AI models to ingest. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Who are Mistral AI’s founders? Mistral AI’s three founders share a background in AI research at major U.S. tech companies with significant operations in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch used to work at Google’s DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and chief scientist officer Guillaume Lample are former Meta staffers. Co-founding advisers also include Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from health insurance startup Alan, as well as former digital minister Cédric O, which caused controversy due to his previous role. Are Mistral AI’s models open source? Not all of them. Mistral AI differentiates its premier models, whose weights are not available for commercial purposes, from its free models, for which it provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license. Free models include research models such as Mistral NeMo, which was built in collaboration with Nvidia that the startup open sourced in July 2024. How does Mistral AI make money? While many of Mistral AI’s offerings are free or now have free tiers, Mistral AI plans to drive some revenue from Le Chat’s paid tiers. Introduced in February 2025, Le Chat’s Pro plan is priced at $14.99 a month. On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes its premier models through APIs with usage-based pricing. Enterprises can also license these models, and the company likely also generates a significant share of its revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which it highlighted during the Paris AI Summit. Overall, however, Mistral AI’s revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources. What partnerships has Mistral AI closed? In 2024, Mistral AI entered a deal with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership for distributing its AI models through Microsoft’s Azure platform and a €15 million investment. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) swiftly concluded that the deal didn’t qualify for investigation due to its small size. However, it also sparked some criticism in the EU.  In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a deal with press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to let Chat query the AFP’s entire text archive dating back to 1983. Mistral AI also secured strategic partnerships with France’s army and job agency, shipping giant CMA, German defense tech startup Helsing, IBM, Orange, and Stellantis. In May 2025, Mistral AI announced it would participate in the creation of an AI Campus in the Paris region, as part of a joint venture with UAE-investment firm MGX, NVIDIA, and France’s state-owned investment bank Bpifrance. How much funding has Mistral AI raised to date? As of February 2025, Mistral AI raised around €1 billion in capital to date, approximately $1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes some debt financing, as well as several equity financing rounds raised in close succession. In June 2023, and before it even released its first models, Mistral AI raised a record $112 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round — Europe’s largest ever — valued the then-one-month-old startup at $260 million.  Other investors in this seed round included Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, JCDecaux Holding, La Famiglia, LocalGlobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina, and Xavier Niel. Only six months later, it closed a Series A of €385 million ($415 million at the time), at a reported valuation of $2 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from existing backer Lightspeed, as well as BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Salesforce. The $16.3 million convertible investment that Microsoft made in Mistral AI as part of their partnership announced in February 2024 was presented as a Series A extension, implying an unchanged valuation. In June 2024, Mistral AI then raised €600 million in a mix of equity and debt (around $640 million at the exchange rate at the time). The long-rumored round was led by General Catalyst at a $6 billion valuation, with notable investors, including Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and others. What could a Mistral AI exit look like? Mistral is “not for sale,” Mensch said in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Of course, [an IPO is] the plan.”  This makes sense, given how much the startup has raised so far: Even a large sale may not provide high enough multiples for its investors, not to mention sovereignty concerns depending on the acquirer.  However, the only way to definitely squash persistent acquisition rumors is to scale its revenue to levels that could even remotely justify its nearly $6 billion valuation. Either way, stay tuned. This story was originally published on February 28, 2025 and will be regularly updated.

OverviewBacked by Craig Zingerline, Growth Minded is a boutique micro-agency focused on helping early stage through growth startups grow. We're looking for a Director of Lifecycle Marketing & Growth Strategy to help us increase our client engagement capacity, as well as work on internal projects. To learn more about Craig, please visit his Growth Mentor profile, or check him out on LinkedIn.What we doClients hire us to help them find, convert, and retain customers. We work from high level strategy down into channel level tactics, and every layer in-between. As a company and team we care deeply about solving the challenging problems our customers face, and typically own major components of the marketing side of their business. We focus first on growth strategy development, then deliver tactics through a thoughtful, experiment driven approach. Our customers trust us with their business - and we take our work seriously.The roleWe are looking for a talented growth marketing with deep experience running lifecycle marketing programs and building growth strategies. Our ideal candidate has a blend of in-house client-side experience plus agency experience, but candidates with strong lifecycle marketing and growth strategy chops will be considered regardless of exact background. We care deeply about partnering with hardworking, thoughtful, and intellectually curious individuals who are strong lifecycle marketing experts, have world class growth strategy chops, are talented at writing and content framework development, are strategic thinkers, and who have the ability to go deep into the weeds, helping execute campaigns for our clients.Strong client facing skills are a must - you must present well, be able to take feedback and think on the fly, and bring thoughtful, actionable work to the company each day.Job OverviewAs the Director of Lifecycle Marketing & Growth Strategy, you will own the growth strategy and execution of lifecycle marketing campaigns across various channels, focusing on customer acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization. You will work closely with client product, marketing, sales, and analytics teams to drive user growth, create scalable strategies, and optimize conversion pathways to help our clients achieve and exceed their growth goals.Key Responsibilities- Develop comprehensive lifecycle marketing strategies for clients- Lead client relationship management, serving as the primary strategic point of contact- Design and optimize multi-channel customer journeys to maximize engagement, conversion, and retention- Analyze customer data to identify segmentation opportunities and personalization strategies- Write, design and implement email marketing campaigns- Oversee push notification, SMS, and in-app messaging strategies- Implement automated flows with sophisticated triggers- Monitor campaign performance, conduct A/B testing, and provide data-driven recommendations- Set up reports and dashboard on performance- Monitor and identify deliverability issues, as well as implement both technical and content steps to improve deliverability- Build strategies around list cleaning and list hygiene- Ideate and implement ideas on list growth- Present campaign results and strategic insights to clients with clear ROI measurements- Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies in lifecycle marketing- Develop client proposals and participate in new business pitchesData-Driven Decision Making:- Analyze data to understand the effectiveness of growth initiatives, measure KPIs, and make informed decisions.- Use customer segmentation and cohort analysis to uncover opportunities to increase user engagement and LTV.Nice to have's include:- Deep understanding and audit of the client’s current state of growth.- Design and execute growth strategies that cover the entire customer lifecycle, including acquisition, conversion, retention, and expansion.- Identify new growth opportunities for our clients through data analysis, customer insights, and market research.- Rank the opportunities and present evidence as to the order in which execution of the strategy should follow.- Lead A/B testing initiatives and growth experiments to improve customer acquisition and conversion rates.- Develop an experimentation framework to quickly validate ideas and scale winning initiatives.Collaboration and Leadership- Collaborate with both internal and client teams across marketing, product, and sales to ensure alignment in growth efforts.- Act as an owner within our small company, doing what it takes to help our clients succeed.-Ability to diplomatically assess tradeoffs between competing objectives.Requirements-Proven experience in a growth role, preferably at a startup or fast-paced environment within an agency.-Strong understanding of growth metrics and KPIs, including CAC, LTV, churn, and conversion rates.-Deep experience with lifecycle marketing (email, sms, push)-Deep experience with one or more of the following platforms: Kit, Hubspot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Iterable, Customer.io, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, etc.- STRONG copywriting and content skills. Almost everything we do requires great content. We have an in-house editor that you can leverage but you'll need to be leading efforts on content for multiple clients. - Deep interest and/or experience in leveraging AI tools to boost your productivity. We are a high output company even though we're small in size. We prefer candidates who are already deeply leveraging AI, but at a minimum, you should have the desire to learn new tools to increase your productivity. -Strong ability to learn as you go.-Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment.-Analytical mindset with strong experience using data to drive decision-making.-Hands-on experience with marketing tools and analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, HubSpot, Mixpanel).-Excellent communication skills and the ability to work cross-functionally.-Passionate about user experience, data-driven decision making, and continual learning.-Hardworking, thoughtful, and intellectually curious—a self-starter who values continuous improvement and collaboration.Why Join Us?-Be a part of an exciting growth journey at a dynamic company that is in growth mode ourselves.-Work with a talented, passionate, and collaborative team.-Enjoy opportunities for professional growth, creativity, and autonomy.To apply, fill out the form below. About the roleWe're going to offer a strong starting salary with a monthly bonus plan. Benefits are included.Base Compensation: $85,000 to $100,000 USD or local currency equivalent based on experience in this type of role. Bonus: Profit share to be reviewed as part of job offer. We're profitable and growing, and profit share potential is high.Potential for equity in the company will be considered after an initial evaluation period.

Time spent in apps always peaks during the holiday season. The key to making that uplift work for your user acquisition is tackling it from all angles - from optimizing existing channels to expanding into new ones. That way, you can generate the installs and ROAS you need to start the new year off right.That’s why we invited three ironSource experts to this edition of our Angles of Acquisition webinar series:- Noa Eckstein, Head of Business Operations at ironSource Luna, covered building holiday-themed creatives that spike IPM - Sarah Chafer, VP US Sales at ironSource Sonic, discussed how to set up an offerwall campaign that'll generate record ARPU - Jess Overton, Director of Demand at ironSource Aura, walked through setting up an on-device campaign at a time when everyone's buying new phones Read on for a summary of the webinar or watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvewwdzvVBMConsumer insights during the holidaysTo kick off, Marketing Director at ironSource Lauren Baca set the scene with consumer insights during the holidays pulled from ironSource and M&C Saatchi Performance’s holiday marketing playbook:- 75% of consumers plan on purchasing clothes and footwear as gifts this year, making them the most popular gifts across all generations. - 65% of consumers plan to spend more or the same on holidays gifts this year compared to last year - 28% of consumers plan to start shopping in the fall and 27% of consumers plan to start shopping on Black Friday or Cyber MondayDownload the report for more data and insightsWith a better understanding of how consumers plan to shop and celebrate this season, Lauren passed the mic to our ironSource experts to break down some best practices for optimizing UA - from how to build holiday-themed creatives to making the most of a unique ad unit all the way to how to leverage a time when everyone's buying new phones.How to build holiday-themed creatives that spike IPMNoa explained that while the holiday season feels quite special, the marketing problems you face during the winter months are the same problems you face every other season - you need to find the best content and creatives, you need to optimize key channels, and you need to utilize your data better. The only difference? Your creatives get a holiday makeover.During the holidays, people tend to be their most emotional - it’s a time for nostalgia and thinking about friends and family. This emotion is a key ingredient to building high-IPM creatives - the goal is always to get users to go from seeing a creative to actually feeling something that encourages them to download, and the holidays are a time when that’s even more feasible.So if IPM has the potential to be so high, why wouldn’t you invest in building holiday creatives? Noa covered a few reasons why some studios might choose not to:- Holiday creatives can cost a lot to run and need more resources and attention to build, but may only run for a very short amount of time - Most creatives don’t end up scaling and often fail - it is more challenging to find the winning creative within such a short time period - Users who see a holiday-themed creative may expect to play a holiday-themed game, so you might need to adjust your gameplay or pay closer attention to user quality. - On the flip side, there are tons of data that show why you should invest in building holiday creatives, according to data from the ironSource Luna platform:- IPMs are significantly higher throughout the holiday season due to more engagement in apps and on phones (2021, US, iOS)- In fact, game installs surged 3x during the week of Christmas (2021, US, Facebook)- Advertisers test 2x the amount of creatives during the holidays, which means you don’t want to be left behindLooking deeper, Noa explained that building holiday-themed creatives can have a positive impact on your team and collaboration:- It’s an opportunity to refresh, prevent fatigue, and get creative in a unique way - Holiday elements trigger a lot of emotion leading to higher intent- You can create a really healthy dialogue between your creative team, UA team and product team as everyone works on holiday plansNext, Noa gave us some proof and walked through case studies. First, she presented a game studio that works with ironSource Luna that changed the sword in their playable ad to a Christmas tree, which had a huge impact on IPM during the holidays. It performed so well that the studio chose not to deactivate the creative after the holidays - and it remained the top-performing creative even two months after Christmas day. In another example, the holiday-themed creative was a top performer until the end of April.Last, Noa showed what happened when Luna tested three different Halloween-themed creatives for a game studio. For the first one, the Luna team took an existing high-performing creative and just put a Halloween theme on top of it. For the second one, Luna replaced a mermaid’s head with a pumpkin head and changed the pointer to a witch's hand. Neither of these variations are showing positive results yet - but that may change the closer we get to Halloween! For the third variation, Luna built a creative where the witch is playing the Halloween-themed game, which became one of the most successful creatives for this title and led to a 20% higher D7 ROAS.So how can you find this same success without heavy production?- Use real footage of real people that show pure emotion - Test holiday figures - snowflakes, witches, pumpkins - to spice it up - Give the pointer and buttons a holiday theme, like Santa Many advertisers are taking advantage of this time of year to increase performance, but you need to weigh that against the internal resources you have to build a new set of creatives. There are other ways to optimize your holiday strategy, such as with the offerwall - which leads us to our next angle.How to set up an offerwall campaign that'll generate record ROASNext up, Sarah Chafer discussed best practices for running offerwall campaigns during the holidays. First, she started with a brief background, explaining that the offerwall is a user-initiated, rewarded in app marketplace with three main constituents: developers use the offerwall to grow revenue, user retention, and app engagement, without cannibalizing IAP. Advertisers use the offerwall to reach a unique, quality audience that is looking for a transaction of some sort and will remain highly engaged in the app. Consumers engage with the offerwall for app discovery and brand discovery, all while getting further and deeper into the app they’re already using.So, how does this all work together - how do the advertiser and consumer come together in that moment or transaction? Sarah ran through a few of the most popular offerwall pricing models to help advertisers get campaigns started:Cost per engagement (CPE): Here, advertisers only pay when a user installs an app and completes a specific engagement event. This is all about getting users deeper down the funnel. Ask yourself, what do you want the user to do to remember the app and what would encourage them to use it again?Multi-reward cost per engagement (MR-CPE): In this pricing model, you pay in incremental steps as a user works towards completing a deep engagement event. This way, you can reward the user for completing more actions - not only installing and opening, but installing, opening and downloading a coupon or making a purchaseCost per action (CPA): You’ll pay when a user completes a quiz, action on a website, or purchases from a brand. This is the most common format during the holidays and it can be used in a lot of creative ways. Cost per install (CPI): You’ll pay each time a user installs your app, which is really about getting your app out there in the market and driving app discovery. Surveys: Pay when a user completes a survey to help you better understand user behavior - how they feel, what are their thoughts, what are they into, etc. Next, Sarah dove into best practices for mastering this ad unit during the holidays - saying that the most important thing to keep in mind is timing.There are tons of new devices entering the market - all the major players are releasing the latest versions of their best-selling devices and if you’re an early adopter of technology, you may already have one. Device sales increase heavily starting now and many will end up wrapped up as gifts. Starting with the offerwall now can help you be top of mind as new devices enter homes globally. Second, with holiday shopping starting earlier this year compared to last year according to our report, it’s important to remind users that the holidays are coming and that right now is the time to shop. You can provide this sense of urgency in your messaging, which we will discuss in the next section. Third, level up with currency sales and double down on rewards on key shopping days, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Consumers will be inclined to engage with an offer that gives them extra rewards. As an advertiser, you can double down on your bid - the reward is higher, the traffic is higher. In fact, we’ve seen around a 35% lift in conversions during previous currency sales. Once the timing is right, how do you get your creative to capture all the great offerwall traffic?Stay competitive with special promotions, also known as currency sales. We know that users are looking for deals - 40% said that rewarded ads influence their purchasing decisions according to our report. Whether you’re offering a sale or special package, get creative and switch it up frequently to stay fresh, unique and competitive. Going back to providing a sense of urgency, it’s important to be reminding users not only to shop but who to shop for. Include “gifting” and “holiday” in your messaging and add holiday-themed graphics to your creatives, which are consistent reminders that the holidays are coming. You can even call out someone in particular with phrases like - “for that someone special in your life,” or “for your pet” to get consumers thinking about their gift lists. The Tapjoy offerwall has a shopping tab, which gives consumers a better understanding of what our advertisers do by highlighting their packaging, merchandising, and best-selling products. Give the shopper an idea of who your brand is and what will be shipped to their home.Overall, the offerwall is an excellent touchpoint to reach high-intent users that will drive high ROAS. If you’re looking to expand your touchpoints even further, on-device advertising is a unique way to take advantage of the new phones entering the market - covered by Jess Overton.Setting up on-device campaigns when everyone's buying new phonesJumping off of Sarah’s point that there are tons of new devices sold, unboxed, and unwrapped this time of year, Jess shared that 51% of consumers plan to give a new device as a gift for the holidays. With each new device, consumers get access to new forms of entertainment - Jess even alluded it to the world’s greatest mall. Ultimately, how consumers decide to interact with their devices is a function of the apps they download and engage with.Jess shared that 95% of users that will be unboxing new devices this Christmas will be downloading apps in the first 48 hours. During those 48 hours, consumers will install 60% of the apps they’ll download for the lifetime of the device. If you look at your device's home screen and ask yourself, “when was the last time you downloaded a bunch of apps?”, it’s probably been a while. That’s the power of capturing a download at device activation.ironSource Aura partners with top device manufacturers and mobile carriers to deliver app discovery experiences directly to users on their devices so you can get your app discovered at key moments during the device lifecycle, whether it’s during device activation on Christmas morning or after a major operating system update. On-device marketing enables dynamic bidding and endless opportunities for optimization, which is largely impossible on traditional preload channels. Being able to meet users at moments when they're ready to discover and experiment with new apps along with first-class optimization capabilities means that on-device marketing is a channel that converts potential users into high-value customers.There are three things to keep in mind about running on-device during the holiday season. First, holiday-ify your creatives. Second, you can reach a range of demographics for your app and price accordingly. Third, sit back and watch that LTV rack up.Holiday-ify your creativesData shows that tailoring your on-device creatives to the audience and the placement can generate a significant uplift in performance. For example, you can add a holiday graphic or theme, such as a Santa hat, to your app icon on the device setup placement. Or you can show real people in the holiday spirit on the full-screen offer placement.Reach a range of demographics and price accordinglySecond, you need to ensure the bid for each demographic. This is especially important during the holidays, because you only get one shot. There’s only one Christmas morning, consumers only unbox your device once, which means you as the advertiser have to get your bids right the first time. So pay attention to price and understand which demographics are most important to your campaign.To paint a better picture, Jess broke down demographics of device activations last Christmas: the Boomer group is slightly less represented, with 15% activating new devices. 29% of activations came from Gen X, 25% from Millennials, and 21% from Gen Z. Bottom line? The on-device channel is a great way to get in front of hard-to-reach demographics, such as the older than 55 group. For Gen Z who are bombarded with ads, the on-device channel cuts through the noise and gives you a way to reach these users in a different mindset.Prepare for long LTVOn-device channels are a much slower burn in terms of LTV and app engagement. When you think about Christmas morning and setting up your new device, you might download a travel app, food delivery app, a few shopping apps, a bunch of games, but you’re not ordering food right away or booking your next trip on Christmas. Ultimately, you’ll see users start to engage more at D14 or D30, and this effect is even more significant during the holiday season. After all, we spend a lot more time on our phones and dabbling with apps.Having a multi-channel approach to your holiday advertising strategy is critical, and being well-informed on how to optimize all of those components is a huge benefit. If you’ve made it this far, you should have all of the best practices you need to drive high-performing creatives, create an offerwall strategy that converts, and leverage a time period high in device activations.

Senior Environment Artist – Unannounced Game | Irvine, CABlizzard EntertainmentIrvine California 92618 United States of America50 minutes agoApplyTeam Name:Unannounced ProjectJob Title:Senior Environment Artist – Unannounced Game | Irvine, CARequisition ID:R025360Job Description:At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations - only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people.We are looking for a Senior Environment Artist to help us craft a new, unannounced game for Blizzard. As a key member of the development team, you will be responsible for delivering high-quality environment artwork through artistic and technical knowledge. You understand how to effectively build, integrate, and optimize a variety of environment asset types as well as how to support the gameplay experience. You are comfortable operating in a dynamic environment, navigating fluid deadlines and changing priorities with purpose.This role is anticipated to be a hybrid work position, with some work on-site and some work-from-home. The potential home studio for this role is Irvine, CA.Responsibilities:Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like ours, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:Working closely with the art director, collaborate with designers, artists, code, materials, VFX and lighting departments to help deliver game environments to a world-class standard .Use your knowledge of environment art creation to deliver work from iterative prototyping to final execution.Create artifacts (content creation briefs, workflow techniques) to guide the work of internal and external artists.Remain current on industry trends including advancement in commercial game engines and workflow efficiencies.Be comfortable touching many aspects of environment work including asset creation, texture work, material creation, composition and set dressing, foliage, geology, roads, and terrain.Proactively identify risks and propose solutions within the area of environment art creation.Minimum RequirementsExperience7+ years of experience in AAA environment art.Proven experience, having shipped multiple major titles in a relevant role.Experience working with a AAA game engine with strong understanding of implementation and integration.Knowledge of many aspects of environment art creation including strong proficiency in industry-standard 3D workflows.A portfolio, with examples and detailed breakdowns, showcasing your practical work.Strong understanding of authoring PBR content.Experience collaborating to develop better workflows and technology.Key AttributesA team-oriented approach to your work, understanding the importance of collaboration, and partnering with all departments.The ability to Inspire others with an enthusiastic approach to game development and improving core skills.Self-motivated ability to push initiatives forward.Extra PointsExperienceExperience working through early development R&D phases of a project is a plus.Solid understanding of game art creation outside of environment art ( e.g. lighting, VFX, characters, animation, rendering).An interest in photography and cinema.Experience creating and handling photogrammetry data.Expertise in 3D composition, form, balance, and color theory.Your PlatformBest known for iconic video game universes including Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. ( www.blizzard.com ), a division of Activision Blizzard, which was acquired by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment experiences. Blizzard Entertainment has created some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed and genre-defining games over the last 30 years, with a track record that includes multiple Game of the Year awards. Blizzard Entertainment engages tens of millions of players around the world with titles available on PC via Battle.net®, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.Our WorldActivision Blizzard, Inc., is one of the world's largest and most successful interactive entertainment companies and is at the intersection of media, technology and entertainment. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Diablo®, Candy Crush ™ and Bubble Witch™. Our combined entertainment network delights hundreds of millions of monthly active users in 196 countries, making us the largest gaming network on the planet!Our ability to build immersive and innovative worlds is only enhanced by diverse teams working in an inclusive environment . We aspire to have a culture where everyone can thrive in order to connect and engage the world through epic entertainment. We provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered!The videogame industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners.We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications ? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com . General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.RewardsWe provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/ .In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $80,800.00 - $149,400.00 Annual. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

NVIDIA has revealed that they have managed to break AI performance barriers with their Blackwell architecture, which is credited to a round of optimizations and hardware power. NVIDIA Manages To Further Optimize Blackwell For Large-Scale LLMs, Fuels Up The Race For "Token Generation" Speeds Team Green has been making strides in the AI segment for quite some time now, but the firm has recently stepped up through its Blackwell-powered solutions. In a new blog post, NVIDIA revealed that they achieved 1,000 TPS, which is also true with a single DGX B200 node with eight NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. This was done on Meta's 400-billion-parameter Llama 4 Maverick model, which is one of the firm's largest offerings, and this indicates that NVIDIA's AI ecosystem has made a massive impact on the segment. With this configuration, NVIDIA can now achieve up to 72,000 TPS in a Blackwell server, and, like Jensen said in his Computex keynote, companies will now flaunt their AI progress by showing how far they have come with token output through their hardware, and it seems like NVIDIA is entirely focused on this aspect. As to how the firm managed to break TP/s barriers, it is revealed that they employed extensive software optimizations using TensorRT-LLM and a speculative decoding draft model, bagging in a 4x speed-up in performance. In their post, Team Green has dived into several aspects of how they managed to optimze Blackwell for large-scale LLMs, but one of the more significant roles was played by speculative decoding, which is a technique where a smaller, faster “draft” model predicts several tokens ahead, and the main (larger) model verifies them in parallel. Here's how NVIDIA describes it: Speculative decoding is a popular technique used to accelerate the inference speed of LLMs without compromising the quality of the generated text. It achieves this goal by having a smaller, faster “draft” model predict a sequence of speculative tokens, which are then verified in parallel by the larger “target” LLM. The speed-up comes from generating potentially multiple tokens in one target model iteration at the cost of extra draft model overhead.  - NVIDIA The firm utilized an EAGLE3-based architecture, which is a software-level architecture aimed at accelerating large language model inference rather than a GPU hardware architecture. NVIDIA says that with this achievement, they have shown leadership in the AI segment, and Blackwell is now optimized for LLMs as large as the Llama 4 Maverick. This is undoubtedly a massive achievement and one of the first steps towards making AI interactions more seamless and faster. Deal of the Day