AT Internet & Piano
Customer FAQ
Here we answer all your questions about the announcement of the merger between AT Internet and Piano.
WHO IS PIANO?
Piano (https://piano.io/) is a publisher of a range of innovative software products that act across the entire customer journey to orchestrate user experiences and drive engagement, conversion, monetization, and audience retention.
Piano works with more than 300 clients and leading global organizations:
- In Europe, its main customers are Le Parisien, Axel Springer, Olympia-Verlag GmbH, Madsack, Funke, BBC Global News Limited, Bonnier, The Independent, Telegraph Media Group Ltd, The Economist, RCS, Prensa Iberica, and The Spectator.
- In the United States and elsewhere, they work with CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, NBC Sports, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Gannett, LinkedIn, TechCrunch, Prometheus, Penske, Singapore Press Holdings, South China Morning Post, The Mainichi, MIT, and others.
In 2020, Piano was recognized as one of the most innovative technology companies worldwide and among the fastest growing in the world by Red Herring, the World Economic Forum and Deloitte. It also received the Product of the Year Award from the Business Intelligence Group.
IS IT AN AMERICAN COMPANY?
Yes and no. Yes, because Piano’s headquarters are in the US, as are their financial partners. However, most of its HR and all its R&D are based in Europe. So about 20% of the staff is based in the US, 6% in Asia and 74% in Europe. For example, Piano’s CFO and CTO are based in Europe. The CEO of the new company is American but based part-time in Amsterdam. In addition, the French Lafayette Group is now one of the major private shareholders. AT Internet SAS is still an entirely French company, under French law (and the same goes for the German and UK subsidiaries).
WHAT ARE THE PIANO PRODUCTS?
Piano has a wide range of modules that can be activated throughout the user experience, from acquisition to retention:
- Composer, to create and personalize your user experiences
- Piano DMP, to develop user profiles and audience segments, and then use the data for multi-channel advertising campaigns
- VX, for subscription commerce and entitlements
- Piano ID, to personalised and automate the management of its user accounts
- ESP, to send newsletters, campaigns, personalised and automated e-mails, at every stage of the customer’s lifecycle.
WHAT WILL BE THE LEGAL NAME OF THE NEW ORGANIZATION?
In the short term, the company name will not change. The phrase “A Piano Company” will be added just below the AT Internet logo.
WHO ARE THE SHAREHOLDERS OF THE COMPANY FROM NOW ON?
AT Internet’s financial shareholders are withdrawing. Piano is buying back 100% of AT Internet’s shares, while the founding majority shareholder of AT Internet (Lafayette Group, the Llorens family) becomes a shareholder of Piano. The Lafayette Group does not have a majority but is at a level comparable to that of the private founders of the new company.
WILL THERE BE CHANGES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY?
All AT Internet managers remain in place, either with the same or extended scope. Mathieu Llorens remains CEO of AT Internet and will represent the company on Piano’s board of directors. Trevor Kaufman, founder, and CEO of Piano will take over responsibility for the group worldwide.
WILL ALL JOBS BE SAFEGUARDED?
Yes. All jobs will be safeguarded. Better still, to meet the many challenges that lie ahead, we intend to recruit new talent in the coming months.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THE OFFICE IN MERIGNAC?
AT Internet teams will stay at the office in Mérignac, which will grow. The other offices will also continue: we will maintain offices in London, Paris, and Munich. In addition, we will now have a decentralized, networked organization, with Piano already having 11 offices around the world, with impressive efficiency in the management of multicultural teams. They have already been using collaborative methods and tools since the company was founded.
WHAT ARE THE PLANNED INTEGRATIONS BETWEEN THE PIANO AND AT INTERNET PLATFORMS?
In the immediate term, there is an opportunity for AT Internet to power the reporting of a major, multi-publisher project for which LinkedIn has contracted with Piano. This provides the opportunity for the combined company to show its identity, entitlement, and reporting capabilities to approximately 50 new media companies in 2021.
Beyond that initial project, the technical and functional integration between the two solutions is currently being defined. Workshops between the product teams will take place in the coming weeks to define use cases that will create value. Some will be implemented in the short/medium term, capitalizing on the existing possibilities of the two platforms. Others will require more substantial developments and therefore integration into the respective roadmaps. We will keep you informed on this subject as soon as more precise information is available.
WHAT ABOUT MIGRATION TO ANALYTICS SUITE DELTA?
Analytics Suite Delta will continue to be enhanced with new features and will follow a particularly ambitious roadmap. Customers using mainly the previous version (Analytics Suite 2) can start to prepare the migration to the new platform to benefit from all the new features. Information on this migration is available in the dedicated section of the Help Centre, and of course from your usual contacts.
WILL MY CONTRACT CHANGE IN TERMS OF PRIVACY SAFEGUARDS?
The merger is, at present, purely a change of shareholder. AT Internet SAS continues to exist. All contracts signed before the merger continue with the same guarantees and commitments:
- 100% ownership of the data (contract + general terms of use + DPA)
- Processing and storage within the EU (DPA)
- AT Internet continues to act as data processor
- The privacy-by-design approach will be applied in the future integration of Piano and AT Internet products
WILL THE PRICE OF MY SUBSCRIPTION CHANGE AND WILL THERE BE ANY CHANGES TO THE INVOICING?
This merger with Piano has no impact at this stage on the charges applied by AT Internet and the price of the subscription. Invoicing will therefore not be affected by this merger.
WILL MY BUSINESS CONTACTS CHANGE?
Piano and AT Internet sales teams will merge in the coming weeks and months. This merger will potentially lead to a growth in organisation and new contacts in the long term but, for the foreseeable future, your AT Internet contacts will not change and remain at your disposal.
WILL THE VARIOUS SERVICES CHANGE (CUSTOMER SUPPORT, PARTNERSHIP POLICY)?
We anticipate only enhancing the services we offer our customers. AT Internet consultants will therefore continue to deliver these services as we have always done. The presence of Piano offices in the Americas will soon make it possible to extend AT Internet’s support activity over extended hours, as we are already doing from our Singapore office.
WILL YOU STILL HOST THE DIGITAL ANALYTICS FORUM (DAF)?
Yes, we are committed to hosting the DAF in the autumn of 2021, of course if the health situation permits. However, it is possible that the themes covered will change a little and include topics such as conversion, monetization, and audience retention, beyond analytics.
WHERE WILL THE DATA BE STORED FROM NOW ON?
We guarantee that data storage IS and REMAINS within the European Union.
IS THE ANALYTICS SUITE SOLUTION STILL ELIGIBLE FOR THE CNIL EXEMPTION?
Yes, our clients continue to benefit from the exemption from the prior collection of consent granted to us by the CNIL, based on our full compliance with the following conditions:
- Collection of data strictly necessary for the provision of the service expressly requested by the user
- A purpose limited to the sole purpose of audience measurement
- General compliance with the GDPR
IS IT STILL POSSIBLE TO BENEFIT FROM HYBRID MEASUREMENT?
Yes. We will continue to provide our customers with our exclusive Hybrid Measurement solution, which offers unique safeguards in terms of data quality, while ensuring full compliance with current regulations (GDPR, ePrivacy, CCPA…).