The eighth annual Really Amazing Awards, hosted by Oxford Bus Group at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, brought together employees from Oxford Bus Company, Carousel Buses, Pulhams, Thames Travel and City Sightseeing Oxford.

The evening, full of laughter from stand-up comedian Ivo Graham, shone a spotlight on individuals and teams who have gone above and beyond in their roles.

Luke Marion, managing director of Oxford Bus Group, said: “It was wonderful to spend the evening together and celebrate the people who have delivered really amazing work across the business.

“We also recognised our colleagues who have given a significant number of years’ service to the company.

“They should all be proud of their achievements and role in providing an excellent service to our valued passengers.”

Long service was a central theme of the night, with eight colleagues recognised for a combined 235 years of dedication.

Oxford Bus Company mechanic Craig Evans and facilities manager Andy Seeney were both honoured for 40 years of service.

Several awards were given out on the night, most of which were based on staff nominations.

The gold award in the Star of the Year category went to airline driver Barry Duke, who has recently been on secondment at Thames Travel as operations and control co-ordinator.

The silver award was presented to tour guide Lesley Sammons, whose efforts helped City Sightseeing Oxford earn the title of ‘Worldwide Operator of the Year’, while Pulhams touring coach driver Justin Howell received the bronze award.

Oxford Bus Company’s CCTV team – comprising Steve Williams, Kyle Norburn, Sam De Gouveia and Paul Versey – won the A-Team award for their improvements to the company’s video systems.

Carousel’s High Wycombe depot was named Depot of the Year, thanks in part to its new VIP Bus Driver Academy, upgraded facilities and planned service expansions for 2025.

Alex Knox was named Manager of the Year after stepping up to become assistant operations manager at Oxford Bus Company in 2025, while Lorna Earp received the Unsung Hero award for her behind-the-scenes work maintaining vehicles and facilities at Pulhams’ Cheltenham depot.

The Rising Star award went to Paul Versey, who has retrained and contributed in several roles across the group, including as an engineer at Pulhams.

Other honourees included Thames Travel’s Kenny Hawkins, named Engineer of the Year, and Carousel controller Sam Edmondson, who won the Above and Beyond award.

Long-serving staff recognised on the night included airline driver Gilbert Rae, who marked 30 years with the business.

Sprinklr has released its Spring ’26 update for its customer experience platform, adding new artificial intelligence tools across marketing, customer service and insights.

Version 26.4 focuses on broader use of AI agents and copilots, alongside controls to help large organisations test, monitor and govern automated systems. It also includes updates to social listening, customer feedback analysis and contact centre operations.

One of the main additions is Autonomous Evaluation, a customer service feature that logs AI agents’ behaviour and tests their responses. It is designed to give companies clearer evidence of how automated agents perform as more customer issues are handled without human intervention.

The service update also includes a more proactive version of Agent Copilot, which can now provide real-time prompts to staff during service interactions, with a focus on metrics such as first call resolution and average handle time.

In workforce management, the release introduces automatic shift bidding to allocate schedules in line with employee preferences. It also adds guided service analytics to bring key performance indicators together in one place.

Marketing tools

For marketing teams, Marketing Copilot now includes conversational tools that explain changes in campaign performance, summarise engagement and generate analytics widgets. A Deep Research function also produces structured analysis with citations to support decision-making.

The update adds root cause analysis for sudden changes in campaign results and a dashboard that compares performance before and after boosted content. In social selling, teams can now monitor seller profile performance on LinkedIn.

Content workflows have also been updated. Marketers can now access TikTok’s Commercial Music Library for video content and use new workflows tied to Canva’s digital asset management system to import creative material while maintaining internal controls.

Listening and feedback

On the insights side, AI Topics has been updated to enable generative AI to remove irrelevant material and identify social and conversational mentions more precisely. The aim is to improve social listening by reducing noise in large data sets.

Sprinklr has also introduced governed customer profiles that combine feedback and signals from different channels into a single view. This is intended to give teams a more consistent picture of customers without switching between separate systems.

Web surveys have been expanded with broader global support, including one-click localisation, governance controls and sampling tools. Action Plans, a task management feature within the platform, has also been extended across the insights products so teams can assign follow-up work and track progress within the same system.

Platform controls

Another theme in the release is oversight of AI systems. AI+ Studio, Sprinklr’s no-code workspace for building and managing generative AI agents and workflows, now includes bulk testing and AI telemetry, enabling companies to review behaviour at scale.

Other platform updates include integration management via the Sprinklr Marketplace, automated ingestion via a connector with CRON scheduling, guidance via Sprinklr Assist, and compliance controls via what it calls DRP 2.0.

Sprinklr serves customer-facing teams across social media management, marketing, advertising, customer feedback and contact centres. More than 1,600 enterprises use the platform, including Microsoft, P&G and Samsung, as well as 59% of the Fortune 100.

In customer feedback software, Sprinklr pointed to recent recognition in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Voice of the Customer Platforms as it outlined the latest expansion of its VoC tools. The new Customer Feedback Copilot is intended to turn feedback into trend views, comparisons and drill-down analysis.

“With the Spring ’26 Release, we’re taking a major step forward in how enterprises drive outcomes with AI,” said Karthik Suri, Chief Product and Corporate Strategy Officer, Sprinklr. “As AI Agents resolve more customer issues autonomously, we’re giving teams the transparent, test‐backed validation they need to trust and scale them. Paired with a more intuitive AI+ Studio and smarter copilots across the Sprinklr suite, these advancements help brands turn automation into measurable impact – and ultimately into more seamless, personalized moments of customer delight.”

The Bradford-based grocer is to shut the Budgens store in Abingdon, on Sunday, April 12 for a makeover.

Morrisons is to turn the shop at Peachcroft Shopping Centre in Peachcroft Road into its new Daily brand of convenience stores.

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Peachcroft’s shop will be the first Morrisons in Abingdon. Other Daily convenience stores have recently opened in Botley, Blackbird Leys, Bicester, Wallingford and Thame.

Signs outside the shop confirm the new Morrisons Daily in Abingdon will open a week and a half after Budgens closes on Thursday, April 23.

Morrisons has full-size supermarkets in Banbury and Carterton.