BridgeView Marketing announced that its proprietary PR Rosetta Stone™ platform has earned both a Hermes Creative Awards Gold Award and recognition in the 32nd Annual Communicator Awards for innovation in AI-enabled PR measurement, earned media attribution, AI search visibility and executive-grade PR analytics.

The recognition underscores the growing importance of measurable PR ROI, AI discoverability and data-driven communications intelligence as organizations increasingly seek visibility into how earned media influences website traffic, AI-generated answers, search authority and sales-relevant engagement.

PR Rosetta Stone™ was recognized in the Hermes Creative Awards category “AI, Emerging Technology & Innovation | Emerging Technology Innovation.” The Hermes Creative Awards is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), one of the communications industry’s leading international competitions honoring excellence in marketing, branding, digital communications and emerging media.

BridgeView Marketing also earned recognition in the 32nd Annual Communicator Awards, one of the world’s largest and most competitive communications awards programs. The Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AIVA), an invitation-only body of more than 1,100 industry leaders, oversees judging for the program.

This year’s Communicator Awards jury included professionals from JPMorgan Chase & Co., FedEx, Netflix, National Geographic Society, Accenture Song, Critical Mass, NAACP and other leading organizations.

BridgeView Marketing joins an award-winning field that includes globally recognized organizations such as The Walt Disney Company, PepsiCo, Syracuse University and Marriott International.

A New Standard for AI-Powered PR Measurement and Earned Media Attribution

As AI reshapes online discovery, traditional PR reporting methods built around impressions, screenshots and advertising value equivalency (AVE) are increasingly failing to provide executives with meaningful business intelligence.

PR Rosetta Stone™ was developed to solve a growing industry challenge: how to connect earned media directly to measurable business outcomes.

The AI-enabled PR reporting dashboard combines:

• Earned media attribution
• Website traffic attribution
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) PR tracking
• Backlink authority analysis
• AI visibility signals
• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity discoverability insights
• Referral traffic intelligence
• Sales-relevant audience analytics
• Revenue intelligence reporting
• Executive-grade PR KPI dashboards

The resulting framework helps organizations better understand how authoritative media coverage contributes to:

• Website traffic growth
• Search engine visibility
• AI-generated answers
• Backlink authority
• Brand discoverability
• Referral traffic spikes
• Lead generation opportunities
• Revenue-aligned communications performance

“The communications industry is rapidly moving into an era where AI search visibility and earned media attribution matter as much as traditional media impressions,” said Michael Emerton, founder and CEO of BridgeView Marketing. “PR Rosetta Stone was developed to provide decision-grade PR analytics that help executives understand how media coverage impacts website traffic, AI discoverability, backlink authority, referral traffic and measurable PR ROI.”

Unlike legacy PR reporting models, PR Rosetta Stone correlates media coverage timing with GA4 website traffic analytics, referral traffic spikes and engagement activity to uncover measurable relationships between earned media performance and business visibility.

The platform was designed specifically for the AI search era, where editorial authority, backlinks and trusted third-party media mentions increasingly influence how organizations appear in:

• ChatGPT answers
• Gemini-generated responses
• Perplexity search results
• AI-powered search engines
• Traditional Google search rankings

AI Search Visibility Is Reshaping PR Measurement

Search behavior is rapidly evolving beyond traditional search engines.

Organizations are increasingly being discovered through AI-generated answers and conversational search platforms that prioritize authority, trusted editorial coverage, contextual relevance and backlink quality.

This shift is creating growing demand for PR analytics platforms capable of measuring:

• AI visibility
• AI search discoverability
• LLM visibility signals
• Earned media authority
• Website traffic attribution
• Revenue intelligence
• PR-driven lead generation

PR Rosetta Stone was developed to help bridge that visibility gap.

“The future of PR measurement is no longer about estimating awareness through vanity metrics,” Emerton added. “Organizations now need executive-grade PR analytics that show how earned media influences AI visibility, website traffic generation, lead intelligence and revenue-aligned business outcomes.”

About PR Rosetta Stone™

PR Rosetta Stone™ is an AI-enabled PR reporting and intelligence platform developed by BridgeView Marketing to help organizations measure earned media attribution, PR ROI, AI visibility, website traffic engagement and revenue-aligned communications performance.

The platform integrates earned media analytics, backlink authority measurement, GA4 PR tracking, AI visibility signals and referral traffic intelligence into a unified executive dashboard designed for the AI search era.

For more information, visit:
https://www.bridgeviewmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-services/pr-rosetta-stone/

About BridgeView Marketing

BridgeView Marketing is an innovative digital agency specializing in technology PR, AI-driven communications intelligence, SEO strategy, earned media visibility and measurable PR analytics. For more than two decades, the agency has helped technology companies strengthen search authority, increase media visibility, improve AI discoverability and align communications programs with measurable business outcomes.

The post BridgeView Marketing’s PR Rosetta Stone™ Wins Hermes Gold and Communicator Awards for AI-Driven PR ROI Measurement and AI Search Visibility Innovation appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

Globalization has created different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, and special economic zones. Entrepreneurs see an opportunity with these new spaces to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight by creating what is termed a “network state.”

The network state is a concept cultivated by influential and wealthy people (Joseph Lonsdale, Peter Thiel, Garry Tan, David Sacks, among others) who believe technology will collapse the economies of nation-states and democracies by sucking all the jobs and revenue out of them.

As the nation states die, they theorize, there will be chaos and violence. The network state concept emerged as a movement to create privatized cities that would be their own “countries” capable of surviving collapse. 

And, by the way, adherents of the network state believe it’s their job to help cause the collapse. This is called “acceleration.” They believe capitalism must accelerate toward “maximum destruction,” and that’s the only way to develop AI-enhanced societies properly.

Greenland is a territory where Dryden Brown, the head of a company called Praxis, has proposed a network state. Brown says he has $525 million in financing to build this enclave. The investors include Mark Andre, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and the Winklevoss twins.

Pop Up Cities

Tech sector elites have long expressed their desires to escape regulation and, as they see it, a failing democracy. The allure of tech-friendly havens unbound by legacy rules and regulations is attracting frustrated tech billionaires and millionaires.

“This whole movement is about reinventing governance for the 21st century, inspired by start-ups and the internet,” says Patri Friedman, grandson of free-market economist Milton Friedman and founder of Pronomos Capital, a venture firm that invests in experimental cities.

Friedman seeks to create cities that operate like for-profit companies rather than under democratically elected officials. It’s reminiscent of Ayn Rand, who in Atlas Shrugged imagined a free-market enclave called Galt’s Gulch. The idea to create sovereign mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation, is a challenge to global order. However, traditional forms of governance will not be in play. “We are funding companies that will operate non-democratic cities,” Friedman says. “And if you’re not into that, you shouldn’t move there.”

One of the most advanced network state experiments is the Próspera domain. It is a gated private community in Honduras run by a Delaware-based company. The vision is to have a place where 1,000 residents can enjoy co-working spaces, a beach resort, and a golf course. As a “for-profit semi-autonomous zone,” Próspera will have low taxes, its own labour rules, and an arbitration system run by retired Arizona judges who hear cases online.

Another iteration of the network state is the “pop-up city,” which is a sort of weeks-long temporary brainstorming town. In 2025, Edge City hosted a month-long pop-up in Patagonia. Five hundred attendees, or “residents,” took part in projects focused on artificial intelligence and longevity.

The idea of the pop-up city is to create a space for what Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin calls a “micro exit.” This is a temporary exit to experiment, and then “go back and spread those learnings around the world,” as Timour Kosters says, co-founder of Edge City, which advertises itself as a “society incubator.”

Praxis, besides eyeing Greenland, recently announced plans to start a permanent “defence-focused spaceport city” called Atlas at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, which already houses Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

The Genesis of the Network State Concept

The principal architect of the network state is Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase. He reimagined nations as digital communities. His theory is that internet companies, internet currencies, and internet communities will eventually fuse with nation-states. 

By leveraging cryptographic security, Decentralised Finance (DeFi), smart contracts, and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Srinivasen sees network states as parallel institutions that offer greater autonomy and resilience against censorship or coercion.

There are now various companies working towards the idea of a network state, including Praxis, Zuzalu, Prospera, and Nation3.

Srinivasen’s network state prioritizes shared values and digital connection over physical borders, “aiming to achieve sovereignty through collective action and economic strength,” much like a startup society built from the internet up.

In 2025, Srinivasen held a Network State Conference in Singapore, where Ethereum, Coinbase, Solana, Telegram, and many others gathered to discuss how to materialize their cloud communities into the physical world.

How The Network State Works:

1. Gather like-minded people online who share a vision and set of values.
2. Develop an internal economy, currency, and governance (like a DAO).
3. Collectively purchase or build physical properties (houses, apartments, land) globally.
4. Digitally connect these scattered physical locations into a single, unified “state”.
5. Leverage its size and coherence to demand and eventually achieve sovereign status.

CONCLUSION

The principles championed by the cypherpunk movement of the 1990s laid the foundation for using encryption to secure privacy, resist surveillance, and empower individuals against centralized control. 

The network state sees itself as the fruition of cypherpunk ideologies. This digitally coordinated society can establish its own economic and political framework, ultimately challenging nation-states’ monopolies over governance and sovereignty.

The appeal of the network state lies in the ability to create new systems of governance and societal organisation without being constrained by historical legacies or bureaucratic inertia.

Encrypted messaging platforms, peer-to-peer data exchanges, and blockchain-based identity systems will allow network states to function while resisting external pressures to create, as Balaji Srinivasen says, “a future in which individuals have greater agency over their financial, political, and social lives, reshaping the landscape of statehood itself.”

SOURCES

Articles:

1. Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities https://www.ft.com/content/b127ee7a-5ac4-4730-a395-c9f9619615c7
2. Network States – Revolutionary Idea To Potential New Asset Class https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/12/20/network-states–revolutionary-idea-to-potential-new-asset-class/

Books:

1. Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian
2. Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age by Raymond Craib 
3. The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State by Michael Steinberger 

Other:

1. The Network State Conference https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJg2RipiXz8oDoMPCsmOVI_UEaSNbgjA6
2. balajis.com / https://balajis.com/p/network-state-conference
3. Lucid Q&A with Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Gil Durán https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI5aJhTVjVo
4. Mountainhead: 2025 movie written and directed by Jesse Armstrong

The post The Rise of The Network State appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

AI is the next logical evolution of the cloud. Google’s Gemini realized 34% YoY (Q3 2025) and 650 million users, while Microsoft’s Copilot/Azure) realized 39% YoY (FY Q4 2025) and 150 million Copilot users. The buildout has begun and will not slow down anytime soon. Meanwhile, in 2025, AI adoption transitions from experimental curiosity to essential operational infrastructure, with roughly 1 in 6 people worldwide using generative AI tools. 

BridgeView’s PR Services knows you can’t have AI without the cloud, and you can’t have the cloud without datacenters. That’s why we brought hi-tequity’s Ryan Friedman, who builds data centers, to the Data Center Post.  He is in a unique position to witness this AI transition. Anyone who has experienced the rise of the internet can certainly attest to this perspective and AI’s longevity. 

Enjoy Ryne’s insights, originally posted by Data Center Post at: https://datacenterpost.com/its-not-an-ai-bubble-were-witnessing-the-next-cloud-revolution/

Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft; these tech giants’ cloud services, Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure, respectively, are considered the driving force behind all current business computing, data, and mobile services. But back in the mid-2000s, they weren’t immediately seen as best bets on Wall Street. When Amazon launched AWS, analysts and investors were skeptical. They dismissed AWS as a distraction from Amazon’s core retail business. The Wall Street wizards did not understand the potential of cloud computing services. Many critics believed enterprises would never move their mission-critical workloads off-premises and into remote data centers.

As we all know, the naysayers were wrong, and cloud computing took off, redefining global business. It turbo-charged the economy, creating trillions in enterprise value while reducing IT costs, increasing application agility, and enabling new business models. In addition, the advent of cloud services lowered barriers to entry for startups and enabled rapid service scaling. Improving efficiency, collaboration, and innovation through scalable, pay-as-you-go access to computing resources was part of the formula for astounding success. The cloud pushed innovation to every corner of society, and those wise financiers misunderstood it. They could not see how this capital-intensive, long-horizon bet would ever pay off.

Now, we are at that moment again. This time with artificial intelligence.

Headlines appear every day saying that we’re in an “AI bubble.” But AI has gone beyond mere speculation as companies (hyperscalers) are in early-stage infrastructure buildout mode. Hyperscalers understand this momentum. They have seen this movie before with a different protagonist, and they know the story ends with transformation, not collapse. The need for transformative compute, power, and connectivity is the catalyst driving a new generation of data center buildouts. The applications, the productivity, and the tools are there. And unlike the early cloud era, sustainable AI-related revenue is a predictable balance sheet line item.

The Data

Consider these most recent quarterly earnings:

• Microsoft Q3 2025: Revenue: $70.1B, up 13%. Net income: $25.8B, up 18%. Intelligent Cloud grew 21% led by Azure, with 16 points of growth from AI services.
• Amazon Q3 2025: Revenue: $180.2B, up 13%. AWS grew 20% to $33B. Trainium2, its second-gen AI chip, is a multi-billion-dollar line. AWS added 3.8 GW of power capacity in 12 months due to high demand.

• Alphabet (Google Parent) Q3 2025: Revenue: $102.35B, up 16%. Cloud revenue grew 33% to $15.2B. Operating income: up nearly 85%, backed by $155B cloud backlog.
• Meta Q3 2025: Revenue: $51.2B, up 26%. Increased infrastructure spend focused on expanding AI compute capacity. (4)

These are not the signs of a bubble. These are the signatures of a platform shift, and the companies leading it are already realizing returns while businesses weave AI into operations.

Bubble or Bottleneck

However, let’s be clear about this analogy: AI is not simply the next chapter of the cloud. Instead, it builds on and accelerates the cloud’s original mission: making extraordinary computing capabilities accessible and scalable. While the cloud democratized computing, AI is now democratizing intelligence and autonomy. This evolution will transform how we work, secure systems, travel, heal, build, educate, and solve problems.

Just as there were cloud critics, we now have AI critics. They say that aggressive capital spending, rising energy demand, and grid strain are signs that the market is already overextended. The pundits are correct about the spending:

• Alphabet (Google) Q3 2025: ~US $24B on infrastructure oriented toward AI/data centers.
• Amazon (AWS) Q3 2025: ~US $34.2B, largely on infrastructure/AI-related efforts.
• Meta Q3 2025: US $19.4B directed at servers/data centers/network infrastructure for AI.
• Microsoft Q3 2025: Roughly US $34.9B, of which perhaps US $17-18B or more is directly AI/data-center infrastructure (based on “half” of capex).

However, the pundits’ underlying argument is predicated on the same misunderstandings seen in the run-up to the cloud era: it confuses infrastructure investment with excess spending. The challenge with AI is not too much capacity; it is not enough. Demand is already exceeding grid capacity, land availability, power transmission expansion, and specialized equipment supply.

Bubbles do not behave that way; they generate idle capacity. For example, consider the collapse of Global Crossing. The company created the first transcontinental internet backbone by laying 100,000 route-miles of undersea fiber linking 27 countries.

Unfortunately, Global Crossing did not survive the dot-com bubble burst (1990-2000) and filed for bankruptcy. However, Level 3, then CenturyLink (2017), and Lumen Technologies knew better than to listen to Wall Street and acquired Global Crossing’s cables. Today, Lumen has reported total 2024 revenue of $13.1 billion. Although they don’t specifically list submarine cable business revenue, it’s reasonable to infer that these cables are still generating in the low billion-dollar revenue figures—a nice perpetual paycheck for not listening to the penny pinchers.

The AI economy is moving the value chain down the same path of sustainable profitability. But first, we must address factors such as data center proximity to grid strength, access to substation expansion, transformer supply, water access, cooling capacity, and land for modern power-intensive compute loads.

Power, Land, and the New Workforce

The cloud era prioritized fiber; the AI era is prioritizing power. Transmission corridors, utility partnerships, renewable integration, cooling systems, and purpose-built digital land strategies are essential for AI expansion. And with all that comes the “pick and shovel” jobs building data centers, which Wall Street does not factor into the AI economy. You need to look no further than Caterpillar’s Q3 2025 sales and revenue of $16.1 billion, up 10 percent.

Often overlooked in the tech hype are the industrial, real estate, and power grid requirements for data center builds, which require skilled workers such as electricians, steelworkers, construction crews, civil engineers, equipment manufacturers, utility operators, grid modernizers, and renewable developers. And once they’re up and running, data centers need cloud and network architects, cybersecurity analysts, and AI professionals.

As AI scales, it will lift industrial landowners, renewable power developers, utilities, semiconductor manufacturers, equipment suppliers, telecom networks, and thousands of local trades and service ecosystems, just as it’s lifting Caterpillar. It will accelerate infrastructure revitalization and strengthen rural and suburban economies. It will create new industries, just like the cloud did with Software as a Service (SaaS), e-commerce logistics, digital banking, streaming media, and remote-work platforms.

Conclusion

We’ve seen Wall Street mislabel some of the most significant tech expansions, from the telecom-hotel buildout of the 1990s to the co-location wave, global fiber expansion, hyperscale cloud, and now, with AI. Just like all revolutionary ideas, skepticism tends to precede them, even though there’s an inevitability to them. But stay focused: infrastructure comes before revenue, and revenue tends to arrive sooner than predicted, which brings home the point that AI is not inflating; it is expanding.

Smartphones reshaped consumer behavior within a decade; AI will reshape the industry in less than half that time. This is not a bubble. It is an infrastructure super-cycle predicated on electricity, land, silicon, and ingenuity. Now is the time to act: those who build power-first digital infrastructure are not in the hype business; they’re laying the foundation for the next century of economic growth.

The post It’s Not An AI Bubble — We’re Witnessing the Next “Cloud” Revolution appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

IN THE BEGINNING…

Since the founding of BridgeView, I recognized the decision-making power that unified dashboards presented. For decades, I witnessed how the tech industry embraced the benefits of intrinsically coded software that increases visibility by cutting horizontally across siloed data sources to extract and unify information in an easy-to-understand format on a single pane of glass, e.g., a dashboard.

Throughout the 1990s, the tech industry was blind to the benefits of how software could provide decision-makers with valuable information about the health of the hardware that their companies run on. In fact, most hardware manufacturers include their monitoring software with their switches and routers. In this era of infrastructure build-out, organizations’ on-premises switches, wide-area networks (WANs), and routers were often comprised of different vendors, each with its own brand of “afterthought” monitoring software. Rudimentary data was gathered, but nothing worked as a cohesive system. But the industry was sensing the benefits of robust reporting.

In the early days of data center construction, pre-cloud, I had clients produce dashboards that collected energy use and data center aisle temperature for data center optimization. At this point, organizations could see how their data center portfolios were performing and optimize accordingly. I often compared this type of interface to an automobile’s dashboard, e.g., you probably would never buy a car without a dashboard that shows fuel level, charging voltage, oil temperature, and miles per hour.

​I then began exploring how to build a unified dashboard for my company’s PR campaigns. However, in 2006, it was cost-prohibitive for a small start-up PR agency to spend 10s of thousands of dollars to create such a thing. This was a time when Microsoft was still charging $100s to use its office suite. I knew there was gold there, but I did not have the capital to mine the IP mountain. But! Things were quickly changing.

​In the mid-2000s, Amazon introduced the industry to the “cloud,” and computing became “elastic.” Soon, software became “a service,” and I was getting closer to realizing my vision. Companies were now leveraging this elastic computing power to sell software services. New organizations quickly sprang up that purchased fractional computing to customize software services for their clients.

Storage and compute power prices had come down at this point, though they were still out of reach for a small agency. I spoke with a software developer about bringing my vision of a unified PR dashboard to life. After weeks of digital whiteboarding, we had a process mapped out. Then came the horse pill, the development price. Developing this accounted for nearly 10% of my company’s net revenue. I still had the passion, but not the profit.

The problem is that agencies tend to point to impressions and outdated advertising value equivalency (AVE) metrics—vanity numbers that don’t connect press coverage to website traffic, lead generation, or revenue. Without placement-level ROI, executives are left making million-dollar budget decisions in the dark.

AI BRINGS IP TO THE PEOPLE WITH VIBECODING

​Now, you don’t need to know code to code thanks to a new AI trend called “vibecoding.” AI tools are enabling non-technical people to create apps and websites by typing prompts into a text box. Put in a prompt, and these tools will create a design, choose a software package and programming language, and then build what you want.

​Engineers these days are becoming increasingly surprised by how little coding they need to do. From punch-card programming to machine code, to Java and Python, coding has evolved. We are now in the “agent” era. AI agents are autonomous software systems that can perceive their own digital environments, use reason to pursue goals, and take actions on your behalf to complete tasks, rather than simply waiting to respond to prompts.

​BRIDGEVIEW MARKETING BRINGS PR ROSETTA STONE™ TO THE INDUSTRY

​And now, finally! I have my PR reporting system that shows real business impact. BridgeView Marketing is launching PR Rosetta Stone™, an AI-enabled reporting system that finally shows executives exactly how earned media drives website traffic, search visibility, AI discoverability, and revenue-relevant engagement.

​Unlike legacy PR reports, PR Rosetta Stone™ provides decision-grade intelligence by unifying:

• Earned media performance across all placements
• Backlink quality using MOZ authority scoring
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) traffic intelligence
• Large Language Model (LLM) visibility signals for AI-era discoverability
• Sales-relevant web traffic insights to identify potential leads

The result? A push-button analysis that replaces subjective guesswork with verifiable impact.

This matters because search has evolved beyond Google. AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity now play a critical role in brand discovery. These systems value the same signals that strong PR delivers: authority, quality backlinks, editorial credibility, and consistent earned media.

CONCLUSION

Most PR agencies still report using metrics from the pre-digital era. PR Rosetta Stone™ brings measurement into the AI age. This new approach provides a more realistic, cost- and ROI-based view of the work being done, making the data highly usable for executive presentations. The way PR Rosetta Stone™ hierarchically weights MOZ authority, audience reach, and follower credibility is both unique and highly valuable. Even more powerful is the aggregated correlation of referral traffic and media coverage spikes.

With the introduction of PR Rosetta Stone™, BridgeView Marketing is redefining how PR value is measured—transforming earned media from a subjective exercise into a measurable, revenue-aligned business function.

PR Rosetta Stone™ is currently available to retainer-based clients as part of BridgeView Marketing’s PR services.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4tmyvCH

About BridgeView Marketing: For over two decades, BridgeView Marketing has specialized in technology-driven PR and communications, delivering earned media strategies and measurable outcomes for tech companies worldwide.

The post HOW BRIDGEVIEW LEVERAGED AI TO CREATE THE MOST INNOVATIVE PR REPORTING appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

This article delivers an essential wake-up call to business leaders about the urgent need for robust data governance frameworks before the wild west of unsecured AI development becomes a playground for cybercriminals. 

By helping CIOSO Global articulate these complex security challenges in accessible terms, BridgeView has enabled an important conversation about balancing innovation with protection—a message that couldn’t be more relevant as cybercrime costs are projected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025. The piece provides actionable guidance for implementing security-first AI strategies, making it an invaluable resource for organizations navigating this new frontier.

Thank you, AI Journal, for originally posting this article: https://aijourn.com/citizen-developers-ride-unbridled-llm-coding-ai-manifest-destiny/

Every new frontier brings both pioneers and peril. Artificial intelligence is no different. Its  rapid democratization is allowing this profound, paradigm-shifting technology to be used by a wider audience well beyond the data scientists and trained coders. 

As AI tools trickle down into more untrained hands, large language models (LLMs) now guide untrained individuals through complex coding processes at blinding speed, ushering in the age of the citizen developer. However, these Python-slinging developers create a lawless cloud zone of half-baked or abandoned coding projects. Unchecked, these projects dramatically increase the number of available attack vectors and expose corporations to a new host of vandals who can ride in and hold corporate data hostage.   

Reports describe this growing data governance problem and how it has already increased cyberattacks: 13% of organizations have reported breaches of AI models or applications, and among those breached, 97% lacked proper AI access controls. What’s even more concerning is that 63% of breached organizations either don’t have an AI governance policy or are in the process of developing one. All this is unfolding as cybercrime is projected to cost businesses up to $10.5 trillion by 2025. 

The Expanding Attack Surface  

The rise of citizen developers, non-engineers using AI-powered tools to build applications and conduct analyses, is spreading organizational data across previously controlled boundaries. From a cybersecurity perspective, this new trend widens the attack surface area.  

AI tools require data; without it, they are ineffective. When business users feed sensitive datasets into unsecured AI environments, they will unknowingly increase the organization’s overall attack surface area by lowering the walls around their fort, leaving their organization vulnerable beyond traditional IT perimeters. The result is a two-tier problem: rapid AI development and inadequate AI governance. 

The Governance Imperative 

Before allowing AI-based analytics access to any dataset, organizations must first ask: 

1. Do we have the correct security in place to process data in this manner?  
2. Has the data been appropriately cleansed for the specific analyses being conducted? 

These questions are not mere formalities but the foundation of responsible AI deployment. Any outliers must be evaluated for their potential usefulness in modeling rather than automatically discarded. Each of these decisions has implications for the integrity of AI outputs and underlying data security. 

The framework connecting exploitability, vulnerability, and probability of exposure becomes critical when considering AI workflows. Threat actors more readily breach systems where sensitive data flows freely, and even more enticing are citizen developer environments that lack the security controls present in traditional IT systems. Increased access points and inadequate governance surrounding valuable data are exactly the combination of factors that get the attention of cybercriminals. 

Building a Security-First AI Strategy 

Security-first goes beyond maintaining compliance. Effective AI deployment requires key operating principles. These principles must be executed, managed, and tracked against compliance requirements and organizational policies. A formal management program is key to this approach; the program must be well-governed, systematically tracked and built for managing exceptions. In this manner, organizations can maintain visibility into where their data flows through AI, who has access to it, and how it’s being used. 

The challenge extends beyond access control. There is a risk when retaining data and allowing for necessary data replication through citizen developer programs. Frameworks must be implemented that appropriately protect data for confidentiality and compliance while allowing business-user AI tool access. 

Success requires a combination of security engineering and data governance disciplines anchored in clearly defined risk tolerance, transparency, and shared responsibility guidelines. Security teams must work in tandem with the organization’s data stewards, and citizen developers cannot operate without understanding the implications of their data usage. 

The Path Forward 

The democratization of coding is AI’s manifest destiny. However, this migration comes with risks, and organizations must implement robust data governance frameworks. Otherwise, they may find themselves open to hostile attacks perpetrated by the weaponization of their coding projects. The fact remains, data becomes ammunition for threat actors exploiting inadequately secured AI-based projects. 

The solution does not restrict innovation; instead, it installs guardrails that enable secure AI deployment at scale. Governance policies must clearly define ownership, accountability, and escalation paths. Training programs must also teach citizen developers the fundamentals of security. This establishes clear policies for AI governance and implements technical controls that enforce data protection requirements without stifling creativity. 

The data in AI pipelines must be checked for accuracy, compliance and biases, as well as for lawful processing rights, cleansing integrity, and proper outlier treatment. Organizations should implement automated tools, combined with manual oversight, for proper vulnerability assessments. Code reviews should examine both algorithms and software for potential security flaws. 

As untrained coders leverage AI on a journey to application boomtown, the question is: How do you mitigate risk while cultivating enthusiasm? Those organizations that succeed will be the ones that see data governance as the sheriff of AI security. Without established guidelines, democratized AI will become the lawless wild west ruled by black-hatted hackers. 

The post Citizen Developers & LLM Coding appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

Equally important is the strategic placement of client stories on high-quality online news sites that include authoritative backlinks. These backlinks not only enhance credibility and trust with readers but also deliver measurable business value by improving search visibility, domain authority, and long-term discoverability of client expertise.

Originally posted by Cyber Security Intelligence at https://www.cybersecurityintelligence.com/blog/ai-has-enabled-cyber-crime-to-become-industrialised-9100.html

Quorum Cyber has published its 2026 Global Cyber Risk Outlook report, detailing a significant evolution in cyber threats driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platforms. The analysis, based on incidents across more than 350 organisations worldwide in 2025, indicates that cyber crime has entered a more industrialised phase. This development allows even poorly skilled attackers to launch sophisticated operations, with nation-state actors automating up to 90% of intrusions using AI tools.

The report highlights how AI-enabled tooling and accessible RaaS platforms have lowered entry barriers for criminals, expanding their reach and accelerating attack speeds. Organisations now confront shorter detection windows and heightened risks, as attackers move beyond traditional methods.

Rising Ransomware Groups & AI Integration

The number of newly formed ransomware groups rose by 30% in the 12 months to October 2025, fuelled by the emergence of white-label RaaS platforms that enable quick branding of criminal operations. This trend has professionalised cyber crime, allowing groups to operate like businesses. Early evidence points to a nation-state-backed group employing AI agents, such as those from Claude, to handle up to 90% of intrusion activities, marking a notable escalation in automated threats.

Quorum Cyber’s Chief Executive Officer, Federico Charosky, commented, “Over the past year, we have witnessed a marked acceleration in the capability and ambition of threat actors. The proliferation of AI-enabled tooling, combined with an increasingly professionalised cybercriminal economy, has lowered barriers to entry and expanded the reach of even modestly skilled actors.” The report draws from intelligence, incident response, and counter-extortion efforts to provide guidance on mitigating these risks.

Surge in Vulnerabilities & Tactical Shifts

Global vulnerability disclosures increased by 21%, exceeding 35,000 for the year to October 2025, amplifying opportunities for exploitation. Cybercriminals are increasingly abandoning slow encryption tactics in favour of faster, lower-cost data exfiltration attacks, which allow quicker monetisation of stolen information.

Average ransom demands have escalated sharply across sectors, with a 179% increase in financial services and a 97% rise in manufacturing. Nation-state actors linked to Russia, China, and Iran continue to pose major threats to the public sector through sustained espionage campaigns, while North Korea-associated groups are estimated to have generated over $2 billion from cyber crime in 2025.

Sector-Specific Impacts

The outlook includes companion reports for nine industries, tailoring insights to specific risks. In financial services, high-value data attracts financially motivated and state-linked actors. Healthcare and pharmaceuticals saw a 26% rise in cyber activity, driven by ransomware and access brokers targeting operational disruptions. Manufacturing faces vulnerabilities from operational technology and supply chains, with ransomware demands nearly doubling.

• Higher education experienced a 73% increase in data breaches, pressured by open networks and valuable research data.

• Professional services, including legal, noted a 43% uptick in ransomware targeting and 20% more data breaches.

• Energy and utilities contend with geopolitical tensions, while public sector threats stem from service disruptions.

• Housing and construction deal with sensitive tenant data, and retail faces risks from digital sales and customer information.

Nation-State & Broader Threats

Threat actors from Russia, China, and Iran remain dominant in public sector attacks, supplemented by North Korean groups, organised crime, and hacktivists adapting their methods. Governments in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia have updated cybersecurity legislation to bolster national defences.

Quorum Cyber advises shifting to proactive resilience, leveraging intelligence-led security. Defensive AI is maturing, aiding early anomaly detection and efficient investigations. This report emphasises the need for organisations to anticipate threats through enhanced collaboration and managed services. 

The post AI Has Enabled Cyber Crime To Become Industrialised appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

Portsmouth, NH — February 10, 2026 — BridgeView Marketing, an innovative digital agency integrating tech PR and marketing, today announced the launch of PR Rosetta Stone™, a proprietary, AI-enabled PR reporting and intelligence system designed to show executives exactly how earned media drives their company’s website traffic, search visibility, AI discoverability, and revenue-relevant engagement.

Search now extends beyond Google, with AI platforms playing an increasingly important role in brand discovery. These platforms value authority, quality backlinks, editorial credibility, and consistent earned media. Holistic reporting standards are lagging, as legacy PR agencies rely solely on metrics such as impressions and outdated advertising value equivalency (AVE) figures. 

These vanity metrics do not link press coverage to website visits or traffic sources, nor do they provide ROI per media placement. Without placement-level ROI, marketing leaders and executives lack a clear understanding of PR impact when making budget decisions or comparing success to monthly retainers.

PR Rosetta Stone applies a decision-grade framework that assigns placement-level value to each earned media placement using a weighted model of authority, reach, and website credibility. The automated report correlates coverage timing with Google Analytics (GA4) referral traffic and on-site engagement, making PR impact easier to validate and communicate while uncovering potential sales leads.

“The way PR Rosetta Stone hierarchically weights MOZ authority, audience reach, and follower credibility is both unique and highly valuable, with the calculation framework itself serving as a clear differentiator. Even more powerful is the aggregated correlation of referral traffic and media coverage spikes, which finally answers the question executives care about most—how press coverage actually drives awareness, engagement, and website traffic,” said Miranda McCurdy, Head of Brand and Inbound Demand, Quorum Cyber. 

C-Level Visibility at AI Speed

PR Rosetta Stone was built to finally close the visibility gap. Unlike traditional PR reporting, its push-button analysis unifies the following data into a single dashboard reporting structure:

• Earned media performance.
• Backlink quality. 
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) traffic intelligence.
• Large Language Model (LLM) visibility signals.
• Sales-relevant web traffic insights. 

The resulting report provides a decision-grade framework that replaces legacy vanity metrics with verifiable impact.

Pricing and Availability

Designed for the AI era, the reporting system is part of BridgeView Marketing’s PR services and is currently available to retainer-based clients.

“With the introduction of PR Rosetta Stone, BridgeView Marketing is redefining how PR value is measured—transforming earned media from a subjective exercise into a measurable, revenue-aligned business function,” said Michael Emerton, CEO and Founder, BridgeView Marketing.

For more information on Rosetta Stone, please visit https://www.bridgeviewmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-services/pr-rosetta-stone/

About BridgeView Marketing

For over two decades, BridgeView Marketing has specialized in technology-driven PR and communications. Formed as a nimble, boutique partner without the bloated overhead of agency pricing, its members leverage their technology training to deliver earned media strategies and measurable outcomes, while the company’s webmasters produce SEO-compliant websites. For more information, please visit: bridgeviewmarketing.com.

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Vibecoding is commonly used shorthand for how AI tools are enabling non-technical people to create apps and websites by typing prompts into a text box. All you need is an idea. Describe what you want — summarize podcasts, organize bookmarks into a searchable database, make an app which scans the contents of a fridge to assist with packing a child’s lunch for school — explain the gist (the vibe), the AI writes the code for you, and whoa, it’s done! You now have an app to do that thing you’ve always wanted to be able to do.

Cursor, Replit, Bolt, and Lovable are all vibecoding tools. Give them a prompt, and they will create a design, choose a software package and programming language, and then build what you want. This can take minutes or several hours, depending on the project’s complexity. Unrestricted use is limited, and paid tiers unlock additional features.

A widely used vibecoding tool today is called Claude Code. The program was introduced by Anthropic in 2025. Here are two ways it has been used:

• A man created a program that sorts his daughters’ laundry. He created a database of the articles of clothing. Now, if he doesn’t know whose shirt is whose, he shows the shirt to his phone camera, and it tells him which of his three daughters’ piles of clothing to put it into.
• A man who owns a welding business built an AI assistant that connects to his calendar, Google Sheets, and Gmail account, so he can easily create estimates, track job progress, and organize contracts.

Vibecoding, however, is not just a toy for hobbyists. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said that AI-generated code made up more than one-fourth of all new code deployed at Google. And that statement was made over a year ago. Ricursive Intelligence, founded by two former Google employees, is automating the creation of artificial intelligence itself. AI that improves the creation of AI.​

Ricursive’s goal is to make AI systems that can improve the design of computer chips. Better chips, better AI systems. “Recursion” is a term that refers to a mathematical function or procedure that feeds itself. After some information is generated, the program uses it to generate more information, and this process can go on forever. The company is less than a year old, has fewer than 10 employees, and was recently valued at $4 billion.

Engineers these days are somewhat surprised by how little coding they need to do themselves anymore. From punch-card programming to machine code, to Java and Python, coding has evolved, and we are now in the “agent” era. AI agents are autonomous software systems that can perceive their own digital environments, use reason to pursue goals, and take actions on your behalf to complete tasks, rather than simply waiting to respond to prompts.

So, if you feel like you’re way behind on the coding curve, do not worry. You can now make a wish and watch it come true with AI An agent will create your code, work with you to tweak it, and then minutes later, you’ve completely organized your daughter’s upcoming wedding in the fall — invitations sent, rooms booked, food good-to-go, and now all that’s left is for the wedding singer to get in tune.

The post Vibecoding And Why We Do It appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

Victoria Durgin’s conversation with Quorum Cyber’s CEO, Federico Charosky paints a vivid, but alarming picture of the 2026 cybersecurity landscape while pointing out MSSPs must focus on the fundamentals of cybersecurity and augment with AI where it makes sense. 

Enjoy this enlightening and informative piece of journalism captured by Channel Insider: https://www.channelinsider.com/security/managed-services/quorum-cyber-security-outlook-2026/

As AI enables faster phishing, identity abuse, and automated attacks, Quorum Cyber expects cyber risks to intensify in 2026.

CEO Federico Charosky says providers that prioritize operational security fundamentals and measurable outcomes will be better positioned to deliver value as threat volumes rise.

AI is scaling phishing, identity abuse, and supply chain risk

To Charosky, much of what drove security conversations in 2025 will do the same this year, and he expects similar conversations taking shape throughout much of the next 12 months.

“I don’t think trends really have a yearly cut off,” Charosky said.

In particular, he expects the following to remain priorities for his team and its customers this year:

• AI is fueling the industrialization of existing threats, meaning things like sophisticated phishing attempts and other attacks can now be carried out a larger scale than ever before.
• Third-party supply chains remain vulnerable to threats and open businesses to a variety of risks they might not be prepared for.

“2025 was the year that threat actors scaled identity abuse and social engineering, for sure,” Charosky said. “It’s a lot harder to trust what you see now.”

To address this, Charosky says, organizations need to stop chasing tools and start understanding the processes and operations that build a stronger security posture.

“Security is now a managed operating system,” added Charosky. “Customers are adjusting to this and prioritizing outcomes, not dashboards. It’s not about buying more things, it’s about operationalizing things moving forward.”

Why Quorum Cyber is cautious about AI-led security strategies

While AI is widening the attack surface and scaling the sheer amount of potential attacks, Charosky does not see it as the only pathway to success for MSSPs and other provider businesses.

“Everybody is running to AI, but I haven’t really seen anyone make it valuable yet,” Charosky said.

Charosky isn’t anti-AI; he says Quorum Cyber has continued to experiment with where to best apply it in workflows and has found value within the technology.

Still, the provider is deliberately not promising a full-spin shift that others in the industry have focused on as the only opportunity for growth this year.

“Our core strategy isn’t changing. We are threat-led and action-based in everything we do. We’re going to consider how we can use AI to do that better, of course, but we’re not changing course entirely,” Charosky added.

Emphasizing the fundamentals remains key to Quorum Cyber and its clients

When considering both the widening attack surface brought by AI and the ongoing gaps in third-party risk management, Charosky stresses the basic truths of security are still the most important.

“I think the way to do this right is still in the fundamentals. We can navigate the new landscape if we do the core things right,” said Charosky.

Those fundamentals, Charosky says, return the focus to understanding the threats approaching a business and building the best possible set of actions to address them.

While areas like MDR are now what Charosky considers table stakes for providers to offer, they are still a crucial part of a holistic security posture.

Quorum Cyber research shows ransomware and vulnerability spikes

The provider also recently released its own security research. The 2026 Global Cyber Risk Outlook was derived from incidents and investigations observed across over 350 global organizations ranging in staff size from 10 to 10,000 throughout 2025.

The findings point to faster, more automated attacks that will challenge MSSPs relying on static tooling models.

Key findings from that outlook include:

• The number of newly formed ransomware groups increased by 30% in the year to October 2025
• Global vulnerability disclosures rose 21%, surpassing 35,000
• Early evidence of a nation-state group using AI agents to automate up to 90% of an intrusion
• Cybercriminals are increasingly shifting away from encryption toward faster, lower-cost data exfiltration attacks
• New white-label RaaS platforms enabling rapid launch of branded criminal operations
• Average ransom demands surged across multiple sectors, including 179% in financial services and 97% in manufacturing
• Nation-state threat actors associated with Russia, China, and Iran remain the top threats to the public sector, while North Korea-linked actors likely earned over $2 billion from cybercrime in 2025

The outlook also includes companion reports focused on nine industry sectors, including energy, financial services and insurance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, higher education, housing and construction, legal and professional services, manufacturing, public sector, and retail.

Each companion report outlines sector-specific threat dynamics and practical considerations for strengthening cyber resilience.

How MSSPs can demonstrate value as threats intensify

Quorum Cyber was recognized as the 2025 Microsoft Security MSSP of the Year, as well as a 2025 Microsoft Security Partner of the Year Award finalist. The provider continues to focus its portfolio on quality, not necessarily quantity, of services offered.

Charosky is confident the moves made by his team over the past year have strengthened how Quorum Cyber goes to market for existing and new clients.

He is also confident the rise in sophisticated threats, paired with higher demands from customers, is beginning to highlight the types of partners actually equipped to offer managed security services.

“There was a lot of noise in the market, frankly. If we can parse that out, I can define and defend my value to clients,” Charosky said. “I think what’s exciting is that customers are starting to get it and understand what we can really bring them in terms of value.”

Charosky says the differentiator for Quorum Cyber remains its focus on continuous improvement for clients. As he notes, clients want to see how a provider can help them continuously become more secure over time.

“Our customers, we’ve seen, will pay for value. As long as we can demonstrate to them what the outcomes are that we’re helping them achieve, they see how we provide that value,” Charosky said.

The post Quorum Cyber CEO on AI Threats and Security Outcomes in 2026 appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

We brought Jephy Pothen of SecurityBridge forward and helped him produce this article to underscore the value of SAP GRC. He knows that advantage matters because SAP environments remain some of the most targeted systems in the enterprise, yet many organizations still confuse audit-readiness with security: SAP GRC supports governance and compliance, but it does not provide real-time threat detection, continuous monitoring, technical vulnerability visibility, or ABAP custom-code scanning. 

Originally posted by the GRC Report at https://www.grcreport.com/post/why-governance-tools-miss-what-hackers-exploit, this is a must-read for anyone concerned with SAP.

Key Takeaways

• Compliance Does Not Equal Security: SAP GRC supports audits and controls but does not protect against live cyber threats.
• Lack of Real-Time Detection Creates Exposure: Without continuous monitoring, attackers can operate undetected for extended periods.
• Periodic Risk Assessments Are Insufficient: Scheduled reviews leave gaps that attackers can exploit between cycles.
• Integration Gaps Weaken Security Posture: Poor connectivity with SIEMs, endpoint tools, and scanners creates blind spots and slows response.
• Technical Vulnerabilities Go Unseen: SAP GRC does not identify misconfigurations, missing patches, or custom code flaws.
• Custom ABAP Code Is a Major Risk Vector: Unscanned custom code introduces exploitable weaknesses such as SQL injection and hardcoded credentials.

Deep Dive

SAP systems store sensitive business data, run mission-critical processes, and ensure that operations continue uninterrupted. However, having the SAP GRC product suite or similar governance, risk, and compliance tools does not cover all aspects of system security. Relying on them to keep you safe is a recipe for infiltration.

Relying on compliance with audit requirements doesn’t mean that you are protected against cyberattacks. In addition, governance tools (such as GRC) do not detect cyber threats as they occur, and ensuring you are ready for a scheduled audit does not guarantee immunity from attacks. Poor integration with other components of your security ecosystem, inability to real-time scan for lateral movement vulnerabilities, and overlooking the regular scanning of ABAP (advanced business application programming) code are all problems that need addressing.

This article will explain these inadequacies, omissions, and how to address them.

Compliance ≠ Security

The first thing to understand is that compliance does not necessarily equate to security. SAP GRC can help manage risk and ensure compliance with internal controls and regulations. However, as stated earlier, merely meeting audit requirements does not guarantee protection against cyberattacks. Locking your front door may satisfy stipulations in your insurance policy, but if you leave the windows open, burglars can still gain entrance. Compliance will not prevent cyberattacks.

No Real-Time Threat Detection

The second element to understand follows logically from the first: you must have real-time threat detection. Tools such as GRC are not designed to detect cyber threats as they happen. Notifications of attack will not be delivered if someone is attempting to log in with false credentials or accessing sensitive data at unusual times of the day (ie, outside regular business hours). If you do not have real-time detection, hackers may have already infiltrated your system days or even months ago.

Reactive Risk Models

It’s common for GRC tools to put risk assessments on a periodic schedule—say monthly, quarterly, or annually. If you’re delaying evaluation of risks for weeks or months, then you’re leaving your organization exposed. Itś essential to adhere to these schedules to avoid elevated risk exposure.

Poor Integration = Blind Spots

It’s common for GRC tools to have difficulty integrating with other components of your security ecosystem. For example, suppose these tools are not connected to SIEM systems, endpoint tools, or vulnerability scanners. In that case, you will have blind spots in your overall security posture and slower incident response times.

Lack of Vulnerability Management

Many organizations are unaware that SAP GRC does not scan for technical vulnerabilities. This results in problems such as outdated kernel patches, insecure transport, or misconfigured parameters that are not detected. These are just a few areas it misses. Vulnerabilities in custom code can also be exploited, and transport layers can become areas of risk, as well. Without automatic scanning and prioritization, your team may remain unaware of these weaknesses.

Too Narrow a Focus

GRC platforms have too narrow a focus. They primarily concentrate on identity and access management. What they do not concentrate on is determining who has access to specific resources and whether that access aligns with your policies. Once hackers penetrate your systems, they can move laterally, exploit vulnerabilities, or deploy malware—none of which is addressed by identity management tools.

Custom Code: The Silent Risk

And lastly, custom code is a silent risk. Most SAP environments rely heavily on custom ABAP code. However, custom code is often overlooked during standard security reviews. If you’re not scanning this code regularly, you render yourself susceptible to significant issues such as SQL injection, hardcoded passwords, and insecure integrations. These are some of the hackers’ favorite weaknesses; attackers love them because they’re hard to detect and easy to exploit.

Your SAP Landscape Requires a Strategy

The ability to detect threats as they occur is crucial. Real-time monitoring gives you immediate visibility into suspicious activities, policy violations, and unauthorized changes. Continuously scanning your SAP environment for vulnerabilities and ranking them based on severity is paramount for prioritizing fixes. And when your SAP alerts are connected to your SIEM, you can respond to threats in context and act quickly and effectively.

Additionally, automated code scanning tools enable you to identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Embedding security checks into your development process (also known as DevSecOps) will help ensure that every new release is thoroughly vetted and secured. This will reduce attack surfaces and create a culture of security in your SAP lifecycle.

Conclusion

System governance, proper detection, and reliable vulnerability management, along with an integrated system that covers the entire SAP stack, are optimal protection. GRC tools have importance, but they do not provide complete protection. A strong SAP security posture requires:

• Real-time monitoring and threat detection
• Automated scanning for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations
• Integrated response and visibility across systems
• Custom code analysis and DevSecOps practices

When these pieces work together, you can be assured that you have proactive security, as opposed to reactive.

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