Catalyst Blog

News and information related to Catalyst products and services.

Adding to our suite of AI tools, we now support AI assisted schedule creation. As with our template and image generation tools, you can now simply provide a description of what you want scheduled and our AI agent does its best to accommodate. This is a great time saver, particularly when building complex schedules with multiple conditions.

Generate with AI now available as a scheduling option


The primary advantage of using AI for schedule (and template generation for that matter), is in its inherent knowledge of all the scheduling condition types (or in the case of template generation zone and gadget types). This saves you the trouble of identifying appropriate conditions for a schedule, applying the correct values for those conditions, and ultimately building the set of conditions necessary to achieve the desired outcome. That's not to say the AI agent will always get it 100% correct, but will certainly help with surfacing applicable conditions which can easily refined to meet your exact requirements.


Here are a few examples:

"Schedule the July 4th template on all devices in the Office group. Schedule it for 3 days before and on the 4th of July."  
AI provides an overview the suggested schedule


Actual generated schedule ready for use



"Play my coffee shop template starting next Monday. Play it from 7 AM to 6 PM every day except Sunday."
Date and time ranges are determined automatically

Generated schedule can always be refined after generation



"I want to create a smart schedule for our summer promotional campaign in our shopping mall locations. We have new video content in the Summer Fest playlist. I'd like these to play on our outdoor displays during mall hours, which are 8 AM to 10 PM, Monday through Saturday. The campaign runs from June 1st to August 31st. We want to target young adults."

More sophisticated schedule with a number of specific conditions to be met

 
Actual generated schedule ready for use

 

"I need to create a schedule for our holiday sale campaign at our downtown store locations (within 5 miles of downtown Minneapolis). We have a new animated holiday-themed template that I want to display on all screens in the electronics department. The sale runs from December 20th to January 5th, and store hours are 9 AM to 9 PM every day. However, I want the template to only show when there are at least 10 viewers in front of the screen, and the viewers are primarily adults (over 60% adult viewers)." 

Schedule taking advantage of audience analytics and geolocation


Combine conditions any way you like to fine tune your content targeting




You can see where AI generation comes in handy when determining exact dates for use in date/time range conditions, or when building up combinations of conditions. The goal is to target your audience with the right content at the right time and we think these tools will help to that end.

As always, please let us know if you find these features valuable or how we might improve on them.

Today we are rolling out a suite of new features leveraging AI specifically for the content creation side of the digital signage equation. Sourcing content for digital signage can be a challenge and often involves a combination of stock media, pre-defined template layouts, and design tools such as Canva. It can be difficult to craft an effective message especially when not having much experience in the design world. These new tools will go along ways towards overcoming those challenges by essentially building an entire layout based solely on your description of what you want. This includes not only the content zones such as weather, news, slideshow, etc. - but also the background graphics and color scheme matching the requested theme.

Describe your template and let AI handle the design work


There are three main functional elements of this feature release:

  • AI-Powered Template Generation - Complete multi-zone layouts from simple descriptions
  • AI-Based Image Generation - Custom visuals created on demand
  • AI-Assisted Template Script Creation - Coding assistance for those utilizing template scripting

🎨 AI-Powered Template Generation

Transform Ideas Into Professional Layouts Instantly

Simply describe your vision, and our AI creates complete multi-zone digital signage layouts optimized for your specific use case.

Examples:

  • "Create a restaurant menu board with today's specials, weather, and social media feed"
  • "Design a corporate lobby display with company news, visitor information, and meeting schedules"
  • "Build a retail promotion display with product showcase, QR code, and store hours"

Key Benefits:

  • Instant Professional Results - No design experience required
  • Multi-Zone Intelligence - Smart content organization across different zones
  • Context-Aware Design - Industry-specific optimization for maximum impact
  • Customizable Foundation - Full control to refine and brand your layouts

When creating your design, include comprehensive details to meet your requirements. Refine your work through multiple iterations until you achieve your desired outcome. Templates remain fully editable for any future modifications.

🖼️ AI-Based Image Generation

Create Perfect Custom Visuals for Any Display

Our AI image generation creates stunning, original visuals tailored to your exact specifications and display requirements.

AI image generation

Multi-Aspect Ratio Support

Generate images perfectly sized for any screen configuration with support for landscape (16:9), portrait (9:16), and square (1:1) aspect ratios.

Real-World Applications:

Restaurant Industry:

  • "Generate a mouth-watering image of our signature burger for the main menu display"
  • "Create a cozy coffee shop atmosphere image for our entrance display"

Retail Environments:

  • "Design a summer sale background with beach vibes for our ultra-wide storefront display"
  • "Generate product lifestyle images showing our athletic wear in action for square social zones"

Corporate Communications:

  • "Create professional team collaboration imagery for our conference room displays"
  • "Generate abstract corporate background patterns in custom dimensions for our lobby video wall"

Advanced Features:

  • Brand Consistency - Use your brand colors, style, and aesthetic preferences
  • Seasonal Adaptation - Automatically adjust imagery for holidays and seasons
  • Real-time Generation - Create new visuals on-demand as your content needs evolve
  • Quality Optimization - Images generated at optimal aspect ratio for your specific display needs

⚡ AI-Assisted Template Script Creation

Simplified Custom Template Functionality

Transform static displays into intelligent, responsive experiences with AI-generated scripts that react to real-time data, user interactions, and environmental conditions. Template scripting is generally reserved for special use-cases where low level access to the system and individual template elements are required. Now with AI assistance, you can simply describe the functionality you require and AI will generate the necessary scripting. While we still consider scripting a job for those with some technical background, this feature saves a tremendous amount of time when building out new functionality.




What You Can Create:

  • "When the user clicks the Hot Spot, show the 2nd item in the slideshow"
  • "Display the QR code zone only when the playlist is on the 3rd slide"
  • "Refresh the web zone every 5 minutes, and also when the template is initialized"
  • "When serial data is received, show the slide with tags corresponding to the serial data"

** Currently limited to our Android based players


Available Now

All three AI-powered features are free to use and are rolling out now. Note the template generation and scripting are only applicable for multi-zone templates which are not available on Basic service levels.

Ready to experience the future? These aren't just incremental improvements – they're fundamental changes in how digital signage content is created, managed, and optimized. We see tremendous potential for AI across the Revel Digital platform and are excited to unveil new capabilities as our technology advances and integrations become more refined.

Please let us know what you think, we always appreciate your feedback.



 Today we are rolling out Acquaint, a unique addition to the Revel Digital ecosystem which leverages agentic AI on the edge to provide a truly interactive experience for your users. AI has seen dramatic, exponential growth recently and for good reason. The latest AI models have reached a point to where interacting with an AI agent is largely indistinguishable from a human. While AI, or something akin to AI, has been utilized in some form or another for a number of years in the digital signage space, it has mostly been for object/face detection, people counting, or more recently image generation. The next gen AI models have much more capability in the agent space where AI is used as a tool for interpreting user requests, analyzing various forms for data, potentially acting on that data, and generating a response in a human friendly format. The general term for this is agentic AI and is commonly utilized alongside LLMs, or large language models, and various tools for retrieving and acting on data.

So what is it?

Essentially Acquaint is a side-kick for digital signage which can provide a human like interface to your kiosks, signage, or even in a headless environment. Acquaint is able to listen for and interpret a question, infer a response based on scheduled content, and provide a concise, human friendly response either to a display, or audibly. While there is no strict requirement for an actual display component (e.g. kiosk), the Acquaint bot is able to trigger content or perform other actions on your signage based on the context of the user interaction. 

Use cases

Food lockers

An example use case for Acquaint are self-service food lockers which are gaining popularity as a way to provide hot food options in corporate break rooms or for restaurant take-out. These are fully automated with a kiosk for food selection and purchase. In this instance Acquaint has been integrated as an agent for answering questions not only on the available food items, but also on any other aspect of the interaction including questions on how to make a purchase. When someone approaches the locker, Acquaint will initiate a conversation. The user has the ability to simply ask questions with Acquaint both answering audibly and triggering specific actions on the kiosk such as presenting the purchase screen for a specific food item.

Hotel concierge

Another example is a hotel kiosk which acts as a concierge. Hotel operators would schedule content for Acquaint which might include local entertainment and food options, shuttle schedules, available hotel amenities, etc. When paired with digital signage, Acquaint would be able to present on the display information related to the users query such as a website or a video managed by the Revel CMS. As with the food locker use case, the convenience is the ability to simply ask a question without having to navigate the traditional menu systems that would found on traditional touch screen kiosks.

How does it work?

Acquaint has been integrated into the Revel Digital ecosystem as a first class device with manageability similar to any other device in the CMS. Content is scheduled to the Acquaint bot similar to a traditional signage player, which the bot then uses as reference material for it's intelligence. For example, let's say you have a number of PDF's with marketing material you wish to associate with the bot. Simply upload those PDF's to your Revel Digital account, add those items to a playlist, and schedule the playlist to Acquaint. This scheduling allows for fine grained control over what the bot 'knows' based on your scheduling conditions such as date and time. Say for example you have a restaurant kiosk with separate menus for lunch and dinner. It would make sense to schedule the two menus based on time of day in order to limit Acquaints knowledge to only the relevant menu items.

The technology

Acquaint is using the latest hardware from Nvidia to power AI on the edge with the ability to run 100% offline - no internet connection required. Edge based AI provides faster response times than cloud based solutions by eliminating the latency and sometimes intermittent nature internet connections. Acquaint is also utilizing the very latest AI models to ensure not only quality inferencing, but also high quality text-to-speech audio.

Specialized AI hardware from Nvidia

The future?

It has become clear that AI is here to stay, the question becomes where does it actually have utility and long-term value. We think these conversational AI agents certainly have a place, especially with the recent advancements in AI which are remarkable in their ability to understand and communicate in ways that feel surprisingly natural.

As these technologies keep improving, we see many ways they could shake things up — from customer service and education to healthcare and creative work. It’s an exciting time, and we’re just starting to see what’s possible.


For more information on Acquaint please visit our website:

https://www.reveldigital.com/acquaint-agentic-ai-for-digital-signage



Revel Digital is happy to announce availability as an out-of-the-box CMS option on the new Amazon Signage Stick. This new hardware from Amazon is derived from the Fire TV stick, but with a singular focus on digital signage applications. This new hardware has a number of important features critical for a successful digital signage deployment.


Designed specifically for digital signage

Easy Set up

Deploy a device in minutes with intuitive out-of-the-box setup and registration.

Kiosk Mode

Unattended operating environment for ensuring the Revel Digital player app is always running.

High performance

Quad-core SoC, 4K video streaming and playback and high-bandwidth Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.

Engineered With Security In Mind

Secure boot loader, data encryption and regular updates keeps your signage safe and running smoothly.


Easy to install and conceal from view


Simple to Deploy & Manage

The Revel Digital player app works out-of-the-box on Signage Stick for streamlined deployment. From initial startup to live content, setup in most cases can be performed in less than a few minutes. The user friendly nature of its design and strong feature set make the Amazon Signage Stick well suited for a wide variety of applications and various sized deployments.


Feel free to contact us with any questions or head over to the Amazon site for more details.

 Just a notice that the phone number associated with our SMS based functionality has changed. This number is associated with messages you may receive related to our automated alerts as well as the number used to send commands to your devices.

Old number: +1 702-872-2887

New number: +1 269-468-0908

Note that no action is required regarding this change other than possibly whitelisting the number on your mobile devices.

For more information on how SMS can be leveraged see our articles here:

Triggering content via SMS:

https://support.reveldigital.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056401931-Sending-commands-via-SMS-text-messaging

Managing automated alerts:

https://support.reveldigital.com/hc/en-us/articles/28241962376461-Alerts-and-Network-Monitoring


A number of new social networking platforms are gaining traction, emphasizing free and open architecture.

With the launch of our new social feed gadget, we now support several of these platforms, including Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and others that utilize federated social protocols, collectively known as the Fediverse. These protocols provide users with greater control over their content, empowering creators and offering an alternative for those seeking a fresh social networking experience.

Logos of newly supported social networks left to right: Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, & the Fediverse

Sharing posts on your digital signage is as easy as adding the user ID, feed link, or social address from your platform of choice and that’s it! Your gadget is now configured to showcase all the latest posts from your favorite curator, organization, or online personality.

 A Bluesky post displayed by the gadget shows 'card' element, author, date, body, & QR code

For greater flexibility, the gadget can be tailored to meet your exact digital signage needs with support for dynamic screen orientation, content filters, custom text or image style, and more. For more detailed setup instructions, please see our social feed gadget support article.

We hope you find this new gadget to be a welcome addition to our current offering of social gadgets. Please note, that our gadget library currently includes solutions for social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and now Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and more, via the new social feed gadget. At this time X/Twitter isn't supported due to restrictions with their API usage.

We hope you like the new gadget and get a handle on it soon. As always we appreciate any feedback to help us better improve our services. Happy posting!