Author: Art Ryan

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to ban state-level AI regulations. “For banks, payments firms and FinTechs leaning on AI for fraud detection, credit decisioning and customer-facing chatbots, the message is straightforward: the White House is seeking one federal playbook, not a patchwork of state requirements,” PYMNTS wrote. But making that order a reality could face legal and political opposition from states who want some say in how artificial intelligence (AI) is governed, Reuters reported Friday (Dec. 12). The report noted that Trump’s order, which instructs federal agencies to sue and withhold funding from states whose AI laws the White House…

The traditional holiday shopping journey, a linear path of keyword searches, doom-scrolling and multi-step checkouts, is being dismantled in real-time. This season is seeing the rise of agentic commerce, where AI not only suggests products but also actively intermediates transactions. Retailers expect AI-assisted commerce to play a larger role in how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products. To prepare, merchants reworked product data, payments infrastructure and discovery systems as conversational tools increasingly shape the path to purchase. As Karen Webster, CEO of PYMNTS, wrote, “ Systems designed for human attention and human decision cycles are now interacting with autonomous agents that…

OpenAI said it is adding more safeguards to its artificial intelligence (AI) models amid rapid advancements in all AI models. While the advancements in all AI models bring benefits for cyberdefense, they also bring dual-use risks, meaning they could be used for malicious purposes as well as defensive ones, the company said in a Wednesday (Dec. 10) blog post. Demonstrating the advancements of AI models, the post said that in capture-the-flag challenges, the assessed capabilities of OpenAI’s models improved from 27% on GPT-5 in August to 76% on GPT-5.1-Codex-Max in November. “We expect that upcoming AI models will continue on this trajectory; in preparation, we are…

Enterprise artificial intelligence is entering a new phase as companies that spent the past two years experimenting with large language models are now moving those systems into live environments. It’s causing a shift in investment and engineering resources toward inference infrastructure. Inference refers to the stage where a trained model processes new data and produces results. When a customer service chatbot answers a query or an AI system analyzes a financial document, that is inference at work. While training creates the model by processing vast datasets to learn patterns, inference applies that learned knowledge to perform specific tasks at scale. As…

Disney has reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, alleging copyright infringement by the tech company via its artificial intelligence tools. In the letter, Disney alleges that Google has used the entertainment company’s content to train its AI models and distributed copies of its work to consumers, Ars Technica reported Thursday (Dec. 11). Disney calls on Google to stop using that content in its AI tools and to prevent those tools from generating images of Disney-owned characters, according to the report. Asked about Disney’s letter by Ars Technica, a Google spokesperson said, per the report: “We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with…

Modern enterprise leaders have grown accustomed to major technological transitions arriving with a playbook. Cloud migration? There were frameworks, maturity models and reference architectures. Cybersecurity? Standards, best practices and step-by-step roadmaps proliferated. Even digital transformation, messy as it was, offered blueprints for customer journeys and operational overhauls. But today’s shift toward artificial intelligence feels different. Findings in the November 2025 The CAIO Report from PYMNTS Intelligence reveal that the greatest threat AI poses to enterprises today isn’t job loss. It’s unpreparedness. As firms rush to automate workflows and reengineer their talent models, most admit they lack the skills, processes and organizational clarity…

On Thursday (Dec. 11), The Walt Disney Company announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and a groundbreaking three-year licensing agreement that will allow the artificial intelligence firm’s Sora video model to generate short fan-created clips using more than 200 Disney-owned characters, settings and worlds. This is more than a creative collaboration; it’s a new intellectual property (IP) licensing paradigm: the first time a major studio has formally sanctioned a generative AI platform to use its copyrighted universe. For financial services, payments and FinTech professionals, this landmark deal is a crucial case study in how global enterprises are moving from a stance of litigation and restriction…

OpenAI has begun rolling out GPT-5.2, saying the new model is designed for professional knowledge work and unlocks “even more economic value for people.” GPT-5.2 is better than its predecessors at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools and handling multistep projects, the company said in a Thursday (Dec. 11) press release. “GPT-5.2 sets a new state of the art across many benchmarks, including GDPval, where it outperforms industry professionals at well-specified knowledge work tasks spanning 44 occupations,” the release said. The model is available in Instant, for everyday work and learning; Thinking, for deeper work; and Pro, for “questions where…

Pinterest plans to extend its performance advertising capabilities to connected TV (CTV) by acquiring CTV performance advertising platform tvScientific. The company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire tvScientific and, subject to regulatory review and other customary conditions, it expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2026, Pinterest said in a Thursday (Dec. 11) press release. The acquisition will enable Pinterest to bring to CTV the high-intent audiences it identifies on its platform, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) systems to deliver personalized recommendations and shopping experiences based on users’ activity, according to the release. The tvScientific platform will be…

Shopify this week introduced its Agentic Storefronts to put merchant products directly into the AI chat interfaces, where many shoppers now begin their product searches. The feature lets merchants publish their catalogs to artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot so that shoppers can ask questions, compare items and complete purchases in a single thread, per the company’s Wednesday (Dec. 10) announcement. Shopify said the update responds to a clear shift away from search pages and toward conversational interfaces where consumers describe intent directly to AI systems. Agentic Storefronts uses Shopify Catalog, a structured data system that formats attributes, pricing, availability and…

Software company Harness has been valued at $5.5 billion following its latest funding round. The firm’s Series E, announced Thursday (Dec. 11), was led by Goldman Sachs and brought in $200 million. “AI has rewritten the first half of software engineering,” Jyoti Bansal, Harness co-founder and CEO, wrote on the company blog. “The second half — everything after code — is where the next chapter will be defined. Delivering software safely, reliably, and with confidence is bound to be the biggest differentiator for modern engineering teams.” He added that the “investment accelerates our ability to build the systems that make that possible: unified intelligence, deep context, and…

Stripe has introduced a new solution designed to help brands and eCommerce platforms sell through multiple artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The new Agentic Commerce Suite is designed to help businesses get “agent-ready” by making their products discoverable, simplifying their checkout and allowing them to accept agentic payments, Ahmed Gharib, product lead, agentic commerce at Stripe, said in a Thursday blog post. “The Agentic Commerce Suite will help significantly expand the number of businesses that can start selling on AI agents,” Gharib said in the post. Stripe’s launch of this solution follows the introduction of the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) that the company co-developed with OpenAI and released in…

The long-awaited Federal government campaign to quash state-by-state AI regulations is on. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Dec. 11 directing the federal government to establish a new national approach to artificial intelligence and to push back against state-by-state AI rules the administration says are slowing U.S. innovation. For banks, payments firms and FinTechs leaning on AI for fraud detection, credit decisioning and customer-facing chatbots, the message is straightforward: the White House is seeking one federal playbook, not a patchwork of state requirements. In the order, titled “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” the White House frames AI…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — Uber announced a major strategic expansion into artificial intelligence at the Global AI Show 2025, introducing its new division AI Data Solutions — a global-scale data engine built to power the next generation of AI models across every industry. The division, led by Mohit Bhatia, Head of SMB Business, AI Data Solutions, has been developed over the past 18 months and formally launched six months ago. The Global AI Show marks the first public showcase of the new vertical in the Middle East, a region undergoing unprecedented AI-driven transformation. “Uber has always been about scale, precision,…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — Snowflake, the global Data Cloud company, reinforced its leadership in enterprise AI and data modernization at the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi. Frederick Khoury, Solution Engineer based in Dubai, showcased how Snowflake is reshaping the way organizations interpret, interact with, and operationalize their data — regardless of type, scale, or complexity. At the heart of Snowflake’s vision is Snowflake Intelligence, a groundbreaking capability that gives businesses the power to “talk to their data” using natural language. This new paradigm dramatically accelerates insights and democratizes access to advanced analytics across every industry. “We’re unlocking the ability for…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — BigBear.ai, a global leader in AI-driven decision intelligence, announced its expansion into the United Arab Emirates during the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi. Carl Napoletano, Chief Operating Officer, detailed how the company is taking artificial intelligence from experimentation to execution — transforming AI from a promising technology into a mission-ready operational capability. “For us, AI must have purpose,” Napoletano said. “When we operationalize AI — when we embed it directly into decision-making, intelligence workflows, and mission operations — it becomes a strategic asset that elevates readiness, accelerates response, and improves national and commercial outcomes.” With its…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — L3XY AI, a global HR technology innovator with over two decades of recruitment expertise, showcased its groundbreaking AI Interview Platform at the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi. Led by Roshan “Rosh” Abbas, Director of Global Operations, the company is redefining how organizations evaluate, hire, and elevate talent in a world reshaped by artificial intelligence. From the early era of paper CVs to the rapid rise of AI-generated résumés, L3XY AI has witnessed — and now leads — one of the most significant paradigm shifts in recruitment. The company’s mission is clear: to eliminate inefficiency, reduce hiring…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — [Date] — Operator AI, one of the region’s fastest-growing artificial intelligence companies, made waves at the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi as Ignacio Kindelan, Commercial Lead and Co-Founder, introduced the world’s first AI-native ERP platform — a transformative operating system designed to automate every core function of a modern business. From sales and marketing to finance, HR, and customer service, the Operator AI platform adapts to how each organization works, creating a personalized digital backbone powered by advanced AI agents, intelligent workflows, and real-time data insights. The platform differentiates itself from traditional incumbents — Salesforce, Microsoft…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — NYU Abu Dhabi captivated global audiences at the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi as Nikolaos Giakoumidis, Commercial Lead for AI and Robotics, showcased a series of pioneering advancements that unite artificial intelligence with embodied, real-world robotics. These innovations position the university as a driving force behind the UAE’s ambition to become a global leader in advanced technology, automation, and the knowledge economy. Giakoumidis explained that NYU Abu Dhabi is spearheading the next frontier of physical AI, where cognitive, perception-driven AI agents are seamlessly integrated with robots capable of navigating, interacting, and making decisions autonomously. The university’s…

Abu Dhabi, UAE — Skillsoft Global Knowledge, a global leader in instructor-led technology training, spotlighted its influential role in shaping the UAE’s AI workforce during the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi. Representing the organization, Moatasem El-Assal, Sales Manager for Global Knowledge UAE, shared insights on how the company is accelerating national digital readiness through hands-on, practical AI education. A subsidiary of Skillsoft, Global Knowledge brings decades of expertise from its U.S. origins to Europe and the Middle East, offering structured, in-person training programs in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced information technology. Its mission aligns closely with the UAE’s strategic…