Navori Debuts Built-In-House, AI-Based Audience Measurement Platform

February 23, 2021 by Dave Haynes

The Swiss CMS software firm Navori has taken the interesting step of developing its own AI-driven audience measurement software, pairing it with the company’s long-established digital signage CMS software.

Called Aquaji, an computer vision-based marketing analytics software is aimed at the retail and QSR sectors, and for digital out-of-home advertising networks.

As with the third-party computer vision toolsets already in the market, Aquaji counts unique visitors and gathers demographic data, length of stay, wait time and attention span KPIs over segmented time slots spanning from hours to months.”

Aquaji helps businesses understand consumer habits and profiles, create new opportunities for growth and profitability through stronger visitor engagement, and support a more thorough business intelligence ecosystem.

The new software is the outcome of three years of Navori Labs research and development in applied artificial intelligence. The homegrown solution leverages computer vision software to analyze and assess visitor metrics, behavioral patterns and marketing activities in ways that helps businesses better manage their physical spaces. 

The software differs from existing products by combining the latest mathematical models of computer vision, which improves the accuracy rate for detection from the standard 60 percent to 95 percent.

The platform has a native API that can also send audience information to programmatic platforms, helping advertisers re-evaluate ad content and placement decisions, and access data to feed their internal business intelligence platforms and data science systems for deeper analysis. 

“Navori Labs has developed several new innovative applications through our investment in computer vision technology, and Aquaji is a true breakthrough as a turnkey AI-driven solution for physical business growth,” says Jerome Moeri, CEO, Navori Labs. “Digital signage software and marketing analytics have long been disparate pieces of the customer experience, with the former focused on messaging and content delivery, and the latter responsible for audience measurement and qualification. We now offer true interoperability across visual communication and business intelligence through a complete omnichannel marketing approach. We are empowering physical businesses with a more interactive and fully integrated solution to improve their customer experience strategy and overall business performance.”

Right now, Aquaji works with dedicated or on-premise security cameras, and is cloud-based. An on-premise version will also be released.

This is an interesting development. Standalone companies such as Quividi, AdMobilize, InReality, VSBLTY and a handful of others are already in the market with computer vision audience measurement systems that are designed to pair with digital signage CMS platforms, and Navori has worked with some of them.

There are also open source libraries for computer vision out there, notably Intel’s OpenVino.

Some software companies have taken the view that if someone has already developed a capability, and it is open for integration, that’s the low barrier to entry to offering computer vision capability as an add-on. You get the two platforms playing nice, and re-sell that capability – leave all the expensive R&D to a partner.

The flip side, like what Navori has unveiled, is rolling your own and having the flexibility on its design, roadmap, functionality and pricing. Not saying this is the plan, but if winning a big software licensing deal meant throwing in the analytics piece for free, that can happen. You can’t do that when you are re-selling someone else’s AI software.

Navori made me aware of this development a few days ago, so I grabbed Moeri for a podcast interview that will be up tomorrow. He goes into the rationale behind Aquaji – which sounds, by the way, like a Japanese anime character – and also touches more broadly on what the company is up to, including the pursuit of acquisitions.

Leave a comment