Author: Art Ryan

DoorDash rolled out Zesty, an AI-powered mobile app designed not for ordering food but for discovering where to eat next, marking a strategic move for the company. The standalone platform now in public beta in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area uses conversational artificial intelligence and social signals to help users traverse the crowded world of restaurant options without traditional searching or manual review-reading. The launch this week arrives at a moment when consumer habits around digital discovery are rapidly shifting. Data from PYMNTS Intelligence suggests roughly 30 million U.S. consumers have abandoned traditional search in favor of AI-driven, outcome-oriented interactions where the expectation is immediate, tailored answers rather than lists of links. From Logistic Platform…

A growing number of consumers will be able to shop for groceries in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, check out on DoorDash, and have their orders delivered from local grocery stores in as little as an hour. This experience is enabled by the new DoorDash app in ChatGPT, the companies said in a Wednesday (Dec. 17) press release. The DoorDash app in ChatGPT is live for select users and will expand to all customers within weeks, according to the release. To launch this new experience, users enable DoorDash in ChatGPT, ask the chatbot for meal or recipe suggestions, ask it to shop for the ingredients using the…

Big Tech’s artificial intelligence (AI) push is accelerating on multiple fronts, from productivity agents embedded in everyday software to deeper bets on infrastructure, content and consumer hardware. Google’s CC AI Agent Google has announced CC, a new AI agent integrated across Gmail, Google Calendar, and Drive designed to help users plan and manage their daily workflow. The agent generates a personalized “Your Day Ahead” briefing each morning, consolidating upcoming meetings, tasks and relevant context to help users prioritize efficiently. Users can also request CC to draft emails, set appointments, create calendar links, and capture ideas in natural language via email prompts. CC is available in early access…

Revenue platform Sequence has secured $20 million in new funding. The company says its Series A round, announced Tuesday (Dec. 16), will allow it to continue what it calls the work of eliminating “the most manual and painful parts of revenue operations.” This includes things like billing and invoice automation to real-time revenue recognition, with Sequence employing artificial intelligence to turn “days of work” into an automated workflow. “Despite innovation in spend management, payroll and payments in the last decade, revenue workflows (pricing, billing, collections, revenue recognition) have lagged behind,” the company said in a news release. Revenue and finance teams depend on “spreadsheets,…

Visa and cybersecurity and cloud computing company Akamai Technologies are collaborating to strengthen the trust layer in agentic commerce. This collaboration will integrate Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s edge-based behavioral intelligence, user recognition, and bot and abuse protection, the companies said in a Wednesday (Dec. 17) press release emailed to PYMNTS. By bringing together these solutions, the companies aim to help merchants identify a legitimate artificial intelligence (AI) agent and its intent, link the agent to the consumer it represents, and enable secure payment interactions, according to the release. “By combining the Visa Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s deep user recognition and threat intelligence,…

Amazon is reportedly in discussions to invest around $10 billion in OpenAI. That investment could value the artificial intelligence startup at upwards of $500 billion, Reuters reported late Tuesday (Dec. 16), citing a source familiar with the matter. That source said the talks between the companies are “very fluid.” Reuters added that its report followed an earlier one from The Information, which said Amazon aims to use Amazon’s Trainium chips, which compete with Nvidia and Google’s chips, and that this funding could open the door to a larger round with other investors. OpenAI is also hoping to sell an enterprise version of ChatGPT to Amazon,…

Key Highlights: If you are someone who posts a lot of Reels on Instagram, then you probably know about the Edits app. The company announced it back in April this year, as a move to give creators an easy way to edit their Reels, post directly to Instagram or Facebook, without leaving the app, and share those to family and friends. Now, the company is doubling down on what I’d like to call mobile-first video editing. AI effects powered by SAM 3 inside the Edits app Yesterday, Meta rolled out a fresh update for the Edits app that puts creators in the…

Key Highlights: There’s a big leadership shakeup about to happen inside Amazon’s artificial intelligence team. Yesterday, the company’s CEO, Andy Jassy yesterday announced that Rohit Prasad, the head of artificial general intelligence (AGI), will leave Amazon next year. Jassy describes the moment as an “inflection point” for its AI goals. Rohit Prasad has been the man behind Amazon’s AI efforts For those unaware, Prasad has been with Amazon since 2013. Ever since AI came onto the scene, he has been the man behind Amazon’s AI efforts. To give you an example, Alexa went mainstream as a popular voice assistant under…

While many sectors use AI mainly for back-office tasks, telecommunications involve live infrastructure where problems can escalate quickly and manual coordination often fails. As 5G densification, growing traffic, and increasing service complexity challenge old operational models, operators are bringing AI agents into production. This move helps stabilize networks, cut operating costs, and protect profit margins. AI agents in telecom are used carry out workflows that cross various operational areas. They monitor real-time network data, spot issues, link data from radio access networks and core infrastructure, and initiate fixes without waiting for human approval. These agents work within live systems, rather than on the organization’s periphery. According to a report from Google…

OpenAI has hired former U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne to lead the artificial intelligence (AI) startup’s work with governments. Osborne will join the company as “Head of OpenAI for Countries” and “lead our work helping governments build for the future with AI,” OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap said in a Tuesday (Dec. 16) post on X. “We increasingly hear from countries wanting to understand how AI fits into their economic strategy and ability to serve citizens in domains like healthcare, education and more,” Lightcap said. In his own post on X announcing the move, Osborne said that he will be based in London and that he believes OpenAI is “the most exciting and promising…

Data analytics/artificial intelligence (AI) firm Databricks is reportedly raising $4 billion in a new funding round. This Series L round would value the company at $134 billion, up 34% from its last session of funding during the summer, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday (Dec. 16). Ali Ghodsi, Databricks’ co-founder and CEO, told the WSJ the company plans to use the new funding to invest in its core data-analytics products and AI software, while also letting its workers engage in secondary share sales. The company, among the most valuable private firms in Silicon Valley, also plans to hire around 600 fresh college graduates…

The threats snowballed in 2025. Cyberattacks stopped being episodic crises and instead became a persistent condition of doing business. A persistent and costly condition. So much so that one of the world’s largest cyber insurance firms, Beazley, announced last month it was reducing its U.S. cyber business in order to maintain underwriting discipline and rate adequacy in the face of unsustainable rates in the cyber market following several high-profile breaches. Still, Beazley may not have much luck elsewhere around the globe. In the U.K. alone, cyber insurance claim payouts are up 230% from the year prior. There was the $2.5 billion-plus Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack this fall, which is thought to be the most economically…

BBVA said it has formed a strategic partnership with OpenAI to embed generative artificial intelligence (AI) directly into the bank’s core operations, moving beyond pilot programs and positioning AI as a default organizational layer across the company. The Spanish banking group said it will deploy ChatGPT Enterprise across its global workforce and work with OpenAI to co-develop AI systems spanning core banking functions, including internal productivity, software development, risk analysis and customer engagement. The partnership formalizes a shift BBVA has been building toward over the past year with OpenAI pilots. Unlike many banks that continue to test generative AI for specific use cases, BBVA is taking an enterprise-wide approach. BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila framed the move as a continuation of…

Rivian Automotive unveiled a custom artificial intelligence (AI) chip and a comprehensive autonomy platform designed and engineered in-house. The announcement, made at the company’s first “Autonomy & AI Day” in Palo Alto, California, marks a departure from reliance on third-party computing solutions such as Nvidia’s processors. Rivian said its new silicon and software architecture will power next-generation driver assistance and automated capabilities, starting with its upcoming R2 vehicle line and future vehicles beyond. Rivian’s announcement highlights a broader shift in the EV industry toward vertical integration of hardware and software. The company described the custom chip as engineered specifically to meet the demands of…

Key Highlights: Although Meta might not be making progress with its Llama Large Language Model (LLM), there is something it’s working on and is quite serious about. Here, I’m referring to Meta’s Segment Anything family. Speaking of which, the company has unveiled SAM Audio. That’s a new AI model that promises to make sound separation feel almost as intuitive as pointing at something on a screen and saying, “That, I want that.” Meta’s SAM Audio model can isolate audio using three different kind of prompts At its core, SAM Audio is designed to isolate specific audio elements from messy, real-world recordings. Imagine…

Nvidia announced on Monday (Dec. 15) the debut of the Nemotron 3 family of open models designed to power transparent, efficient and specialized agent-centric AI across industries. The lineup includes Nano, Super and Ultra models that leverage a hybrid latent mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture to deliver higher throughput, extended context reasoning, and scalable performance for multi-agent workflows. Developers and enterprises can access these models, associated data and tooling to build and customize AI agents for tasks ranging from coding and reasoning to complex workflow automation. Open-Source Models Explained Open-source AI models are large pretrained neural networks whose weights and code are publicly available for download, inspection, modification and redistribution. By contrast with closed or proprietary models controlled by a single provider,…

Artificial intelligence (AI)-focused cybersecurity firm Resemble AI has raised $13 million. The new funding, announced last week, will help Resemble protect organizations amid what it says is a surge in deepfake cyberattacks, what it dubbed the “deepfake crisis.” “The numbers tell a stark story,” the company said in a news release. “Deepfake-related fraud caused $1.56 billion in losses in 2025 alone, and its predicted generative AI could enable up to $40 billion in US fraud losses by 2027. Bad actors are using increasingly sophisticated AI tools to create deepfakes that are nearly impossible to distinguish from authentic content, putting organizations at unprecedented risk.” Resemble said its…

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC)’s 2025 annual report, released Friday (Dec. 11), was notable for its finding that 20% of student loan are delinquent. But there were other findings as well. The report offers a generally calm assessment of U.S. financial stability. It said that markets and institutions “performed well,” and that core markets and infrastructure remained resilient through a brief spike in volatility in early April. It added a cautionary note: asset prices have rebounded and in some areas remain elevated relative to fundamentals. The report also argued that stability policy is shifting from traditional credit-cycle concerns toward market mechanics and operational resilience.…

Nvidia has acquired SchedMD and said it will continue to distribute that company’s open-source Slurm software. Slurm, a workload management system for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), is used in more than half of the top 10 and top 100 systems in the TOP500 list of supercomputers, Nvidia said in a Monday (Dec. 15) blog post. The two companies have been collaborating for over a decade, according to the post. With the acquisition, Nvidia will continue to invest in Slurm’s development “to ensure it remains the leading open-source scheduler for HPC and AI”; offer open-source software support, training and development for Slurm to SchedMD’s customers; and develop and distribute Slurm…

Key Takeaways: GPT-5.2 for Professional Productivity and Agentic Workflows OpenAI Introduces GPT-5.2, Designed to Boost Professional Productivity and Agentic Workflows GPT-5.2, OpenAI’s newest model family, is rolling out to ChatGPT users and developers with a clear focus on professional productivity. Rather than positioning the release as a single breakthrough feature, OpenAI is framing GPT-5.2 as a set of models optimized for real-world knowledge work—supporting complex projects that require reasoning, long-context understanding, tool usage, and sustained execution. The GPT-5.2 release includes three variants designed for different types of work: OpenAI says this separation allows users to choose between speed, depth, and…