Every industry is hunting for ways to make AI genuinely useful, and this year’s SmartBrief Innovation Awards in AI honor the teams that are getting it done. Winners span education, finance, marketing, the public sector, cybersecurity/IT and our general innovation category, with every entry reviewed by expert judges from ITPro and SmartBrief. Here are the ventures that rose to the top of a strong field of nominees.
Winners in education
Otus AI from Otus
Otus AI gives every educator, from district leaders to classroom teachers, a way to explore student data in plain language and act on what they find. Ask which schools saw the strongest math growth among multilingual learners and the platform instantly produces charts and reports drawn from assessment, attendance, behavior and intervention data. The same AI helps teachers form instructional groups, grade assignments, draft communications to families and plan lessons without leaving the tools schools already use. Otus says 141 districts will use Otus AI in the 2026-27 school year, reaching 485,000 students.
From our judging panel:
I love this takes away the fluff and it is all about the data. It gives insights on the student and connects all data into a single platform with a clean UX. I like how teachers can ask everyday questions to glean true data insights and that it works across districts and integrates seamlessly with existing tech stacks.
CoGrader AI Grader from CoGrader
CoGrader helps K-12 teachers grade student writing faster while giving every student specific, rubric-aligned feedback. The platform uses Gemini and OpenAI large language models to evaluate individual pieces and also group common errors into a list of skills for classes as a whole to work on. Teachers import work from their learning management system or upload photos of handwritten pages, choose one of 500+ state-aligned rubrics or their own, and receive a drafted score with criterion-level feedback in minutes. They then review and approve these grades before students see them. The company reports that more than 100,000 teachers at over 16,000 US schools use the platform, which can also spot plagiarism and text that was likely written by AI.
From our judging panel:
The UX and interface are simple and easy to work through, and the design is very clean. The platform itself has a large data set and gives reasoning for each grading criterion. CoGrader gives teachers back time that can be spent with students and encourages more writing, while giving students real feedback to improve skills.
Honorable mentions
- AI Coach, Edthena
- ParentSquare Intelligence, ParentSquare
Winner in finance
ASUS ExpertCenter Pro ET900N G3 from ASUS
The ASUS ExpertCenter Pro ET900N G3 is a deskside AI supercomputer built to help organizations develop and run demanding AI workloads locally. Based on NVIDIA DGX Station architecture and powered by the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, it delivers up to 20 petaFLOPS of FP4 AI performance and 748GB of coherent memory in a single system. That memory pool matters for agentic workflows, where fleets of agents researching, using tools and keeping long working histories can strain memory and cache as much as raw processing speed, and running inference locally avoids cloud rate limits and unpredictable per-token charges.
From our judging panel:
The concept and idea are good: having essentially a small data center rather than using cloud data. From a security angle, this is great. On-premise eliminates data security risks (data leakage) associated with public cloud APIs. Financial firms will also benefit from an enterprise agent computer that can support a complete, consequential AI workflow at the desk.
Winner in marketing
NIVO
NIVO is Innovid’s AI foundation, built directly into its omnichannel advertising infrastructure to turn marketing intelligence into action. Specialized AI agents handle trafficking, QA, taxonomy, reporting, optimization and predictive creative, transforming briefs, emails and spreadsheets into launch-ready campaigns while marketers stay in control. In pilots with Canvas Worldwide, FanDuel, Optimum, Paddy Power and Tailwind EMEA, Innovid reports up to 90% better workflow efficiency than manual campaign setup, 40% less media waste and 45% more impactful creative.
From our judging panel:
This is an all-in-one tool creating a singular platform for everything a marketer and marketing team needs, with the added bonus of connecting agents with humans, as well as across agencies, brands, and publishers. NIVO automates heavy administrative burdens (trafficking, QA, taxonomy and dynamic creative delivery) but still keeps the human (marketer) in the loop.
Honorable mention
- Agents as a Service, Brainlabs
Winner in public sector
Alli from PMG
Alli is PMG’s proprietary AI-powered marketing operating system, unifying audience intelligence, planning, activation, creative optimization and measurement in one connected platform. It pairs live behavioral signals from platforms such as Amazon, YouTube, Reddit, Roku, Spotify and Netflix with AI workflows, and its Ask Alli feature lets strategists, planners and executives question complex datasets in natural language. Alli’s agentic automation saved more than 1,000 hours across Dutch Bros’ 280-plus store openings, and for Blue Buffalo, Prime Day event revenue rose 36% year over year.
From our judging panel:
At the core of this is the ability to push experimentation for brands and marketing strategies. The product bridges the gap between raw consumer data, real-time strategy and agentic execution. It unifies cross-channel planning, creative intelligence and automated campaign management into a single natural-language workspace, which improves operational efficiency and business outcomes.
Winners in our general innovation category
Togal.AI from Togal.AI
Togal.AI uses AI models trained on more than 3 million construction plans to read blueprints and automate the “takeoff” — the time-consuming process of measuring spaces and counting materials before a project breaks ground. Work that once took estimators hours or days can be done in minutes, freeing them to focus on pricing, strategy and bidding more projects. The company counts more than 8,000 users in 30 countries, and general contractor Coastal Construction says the tool cut its preconstruction work by 50-65%, saving about $3.2 million in 2025. Its new Assemblies technology extends the automation to materials, labor and equipment.
From our judging panel:
There is always a shortage of housing but a deluge of red tape and complexity to wade through to solve the problem. Infusing a modern technology like AI into the mix frees up employees to work elsewhere in the process where human judgement is most needed. Togal’s version is AI-native, which gives it a speed and accuracy advantage over others in the market.
DisplayNet Connect for AI Agents from DVIGear
DisplayNet Connect for AI Agents is an MCP server that lets system engineers design, deploy and troubleshoot a complete DisplayNet AV-over-IP system using natural language. It is the first AVoIP platform with native Model Context Protocol support, so it works out of the box with MCP-compatible agents such as Claude, OpenAI Codex and Google Antigravity. Engineers describe the outcome they want, and the agent translates it into a valid configuration, composes integrations with other building systems and reviews logs when something breaks. Tasks that took hours or days of programming or log review can now take minutes.
From our judging panel:
Anything that can lower barriers to entry has to be a good thing, particularly in traditionally complex fields. The idea of intent rather than syntax is very compelling and means this solution is not only powerful, but highly usable. It does one thing, and it does it well.
Honorable mentions
- OmniSTAR, OneRail
- PaperStream AI, RICOH
- DryvIQ AI-Powered Content Intelligence, DryvIQ
- Revibe, Samsung and Pearson
- Securly AI Transparency, Securly
- Kovr, Fortreum
Winner in cybersecurity/IT
Cohesity Gaia from Cohesity
Cohesity Gaia is an enterprise search solution that lets authorized users ask questions in plain language and get answers drawn from data already protected by Cohesity, across files, emails, databases and other repositories. It applies generative AI and retrieval-augmented generation where the data already lives, so sensitive information isn’t copied into separate AI environments and existing security, governance and access controls stay in place. Bethany Children’s Health Center cites up to 99% faster compliance reporting, and manufacturer JSR is using Gaia to help employees find knowledge across files, SharePoint and OneDrive.
From our judging panel:
The data existing is not the main obstacle, but access to it and deriving meaning so it can be turned into actionable insight remains a barrier for many. As I understand it, Cohesity Gaia solves the fundamental bottleneck holding back enterprise AI adoption: secure data access. Instead of asking enterprises to trust a new external model, Gaia securely bridges gaps among a variety of deep corporate archives, and its use of model context protocol makes it worthy of high commendation.
Honorable mention
- Optiv Market System, Optiv
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