HarrisQuest Gets AI Assistant 'Lou'

Stagwell has launched Lou, an AI analyst within its brand tracking platform HarrisQuest. The new assistant is named after founder Louis Harris, and promises near-instant insights to support the platform's brand tracking and corporate reputation data, across 24 global markets.

HarrisQuest and Lou are part of the group's larger offering, known as The Marketing Cloud. Lou can be queried with voice or typing, and executes directly inside HarrisQuest, with full access to its data and analyses, 'unlike chat-based AI assistants layered onto generic dashboards', according to the firm. Lou's activity includes building custom segments, rendering custom reports, applying filters, and surfacing strategic insights, with most analyses are completed in less than ten seconds.

Lou's capabilities include Custom Audience Segment Building, Funnel and Competitive Diagnosis - identifying issues preventing sales; Customized Reports which can be saved to a permanent URL to continue building a knowledge base; and 'Boardroom-ready Outputs.' The company stresses a complete absence of hallucination or 'invented' data, and clarity about sources.

'We knew this insights agent was so powerful it had to be named in honor of Lou (our founder, Louis Harris),' comments Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema. 'Powered by over seventy years of proven research methodology and trusted brand data, Lou delivers expert-grade insights at scale and extends trusted intelligence to every corner of the organization.' Jonathan Gardner (pictured), CEO of HarrisQuest adds: 'Most AI in this category can summarize what has already happened. Lou is built to work directly in the data. It builds the cut, renders the view, applies the filters, and helps teams understand what changed, what matters, and where to look first. We didn't add AI to a dashboard. We put an analyst inside a measurement system.'

The division is online at www.harriquest.com and the group at www.stagwellglobal.com .