Author: Art Ryan

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes part of everyday business operations, companies rethink how they want these systems to behave. AI models generate quick predictions but often struggle to explain why the model chose a specific outcome. That lack of clarity leads to mistakes, customer friction and regulatory scrutiny. To avoid these problems, companies now turn to hybrid AI, an approach that blends machine learning with clear rules, human judgment and reasoning steps that people can trace. Why Companies Need AI That Explains Itself Hybrid AI blends machine learning with rules and human judgment, so organizations can see how an AI…

Alibaba.com plans to add agentic artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to its B2B eCommerce platform in December. The new AI Mode feature will help businesses discover, evaluate and engage with suppliers, the company said in a Friday (Nov. 14) press release. For example, AI Mode will deliver tailored recommendations to businesses in seconds by interpreting natural language queries, analyzing technical specifications, and comparing suppliers’ pricing, logistics, certifications and production capabilities, according to the release. Alibaba.com also aims to provide a fully automated, end-to-end trade experience by connecting AI Mode with the platform’s existing services such as secure payment, Trade Assurance and after-sales support, the release…

Thinking Machines, the artificial intelligence startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, is reportedly in talks to raise funding at a valuation of as much as $60 billion. Bloomberg reported Thursday (Nov. 13) that unnamed sources said that the talks are in their early stages and that the valuation could be $50 billion, $55 billion or $60 billion. Those figures would more than quadruple Thinking Machines’ $12 billion valuation from July, when it raised $2 billion, according to the report. The deal has not been finalized, and the terms could change, per the report. Thinking Machines did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. Murati announced…

World Labs has introduced Marble, a commercial world model designed to give artificial intelligence (AI) the ability to perceive, predict and interact with the physical world. The launch signals a shift in the AI landscape as companies move beyond language and image models toward systems that can generate and reason over 3D environments. Marble is the first product released by World Labs started by Fei Fei Li, which has concentrated its research on spatial intelligence and internal world modeling. The company said the goal is to push AI forward from reading and writing to understanding motion, geometry and cause and effect. A New…

The European Union is preparing to delay and ease major elements of its landmark Artificial Intelligence Act as regulators confront a reality that fast-moving AI systems are outpacing the structures built to govern them. According to Reuters, the European Commission is “proposing to pause parts of its landmark artificial intelligence legislation amid pressure from big tech companies and the U.S. government.” The Financial Times reported that Brussels is considering a “one-year grace period for high-risk AI compliance” and may delay transparency fines until 2027. PYMNTS noted that policymakers are weighing a “yearlong delay in full implementation” as part of a broader effort to give European industries more time to…

OpenAI released GPT-5.1, the latest version of its flagship model, describing it as a step toward faster reasoning, more reliable instruction-following and more personalized chat experiences. The launch builds on the company’s recent product momentum, including last month’s debut of ChatGPT Atlas, an artificial intelligence (AI) browser designed to turn the web into a working environment rather than a collection of tabs. GPT-5.1 arrives in two versions, Instant and Thinking. Instant is now the default model across paid ChatGPT tiers and is built for everyday speed and conversational use. Thinking supports more complex reasoning and adjusts its computation time based on task difficulty. OpenAI said…

xAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) company founded by Elon Musk, has raised $15 billion. That’s according to a report Thursday (Nov. 13) by CNBC, citing sources familiar with the matter who said the funding will help pay for the graphic processing units (GPUs) that power AI large language models (LLMs). Musk later denied the report, labeling it “false” on his X social media platform, much as he did following reports in September that xAi had raised $10 billion, valuing it at $200 billion. When xAI acquired X in March, the multibillionaire said the deal valued the former company at $80 billion and the latter at $33 billion…

Amazon and Walmart have spent decades defining the competitive perimeter of American retail, each shaping consumer behavior at enormous scale. But no matter the innovations around convenience and the ongoing race to turn commerce invisible and frictionless, there’s always been a bigger factor at play when it comes to consumer behavior. A factor so huge it also shapes the operational realities of both Walmart, Amazon, as well as the rest of the retail landscape. This factor is, of course, the macro environment. And today, as 2025 turns to 2026, that macro environment is being increasingly revealed as a challenging one…

FIS has released two of its key financial software products on Microsoft Marketplace. A press release issued Thursday (Nov. 13) by the Jacksonville, Fla.-based FinTech company stated that its Treasury Risk Manager – Integrity Edition and GETPAID software solutions are available to download from Microsoft Marketplace. The tools help banks and businesses manage their finances. “This collaboration with Microsoft enables us to deliver our cloud-native solutions globally on the trusted cloud platform, allowing businesses to leverage advanced capabilities with ease and providing them with a streamlined and simplified process,” FIS Treasury and Risk Management Head JP James said in the release. Per the release, the latest version of FIS’s Treasury Risk Manager…

The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open standard introduced by Anthropic in late 2024 to make artificial intelligence (AI) systems more useful in real-world business settings. At its core, MCP allows AI models such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to securely connect to business tools, databases and workflows. This foundational integration layer allows AI to move beyond generating passive insights and become an active enterprise agent that retrieves live operational data, updates records, and performs actions within approved systems. Before MCP, connections between an AI system and a business application often had to be custom built. A developer might need one integration for Salesforce, another for Slack and another for a legacy database,…

From foundation matching and real-time consultations to generative marketing and supply chain forecasting, artificial intelligence (AI) is getting integrated into nearly every part of the beauty business. A McKinsey analysis found that beauty companies integrating AI into personalization and media campaigns reported conversion uplifts of up to 40%, with marketing productivity gains reaching 20%. Yet, as Vogue reported, the sector still faces trust and inclusivity challenges as algorithms learn to interpret the full spectrum of human skin and identity. Big Brands, Big Tech Large beauty brands are treating AI as both a growth engine and a creative backbone. Glossy reported that Estée Lauder, following a market value decline driven by weak…

Target is introducing new technology features to help customers shop for the holidays. The new features, announced Wednesday (Nov. 12), include gift recommendations powered by artificial intelligence (AI), as well as store navigation assistance and shopping list scanning. “We know so many of our guests love shopping our stores with their phones in hand, and when they use the Target app in-store, their basket sizes are nearly 50% higher as they discover more of what they love,” Cara Sylvester, chief guest experience officer, Target, said in a news release. “We’re committed to making the shopping experience this year even more connected, personal and intuitive,…

Dubai, UAE – On 26–27 November 2025, Madinat Jumeirah will host DATE — a Digitization, AI & Emerging Technology Summit, where technology meets investment and deals take shape. An initiative by Trescon, D DATE will bring together government leaders, global innovators, investors, and technology visionaries to explore how emerging technologies — powered by cloud, hybrid, and hyper-converged infrastructure — are shaping industries and translating innovation into tangible business outcomes. Co-located with CARE – Climate Action, Renewable Energy & Sustainability Forum, DATE will create a powerful convergence of technology and sustainability — highlighting how digital innovation, AI, and emerging technologies can…

Amazon is introducing a series of AI-powered solutions to help business clients. These new offerings, announced Wednesday (Nov. 11), include the new Amazon Business Assistant which is available to Amazon Business at no added cost. “The assistant combines Amazon’s deep understanding of purchasing with smart conversational support to provide organizations with instant, interactive, and easy-to-follow recommendations on using and configuring an Amazon Business account,” the release said. In addition, the assistant recommends ways to buy more efficiently based on purchase history and will continue to learn as time goes on through user interactions and feedback ratings. Users can find the Amazon Business Assistant…

Ant International’s Alipay+ has added iris authentication features to its smartglasses-embedded payment solution. The addition to GlassPay is the result of partnerships with “leading smart glasses producers” and is a “global first,” Ant said in a news release Wednesday (Nov. 12). “Riding on rapid advances in AI, smart glasses are emerging as a new gateway for interactive commerce by bridging physical and digital consumer experiences,” the release said. “The device integrates instant try-ons, interactive shopping and simplified checkout wherever the customer is. By industry estimates, consumer adoption of smart glasses could grow almost sevenfold between 2024 and 2029 to 18.7 million units globally.” Iris…

Fei-Fei Li, known as the “godmother of AI,” argues that the current era of artificial intelligence (AI), dominated by large language models and image classifiers, has reached its limits. In her new essay, “From Words to Worlds,” she writes that while machines have mastered text and images, they still lack the grounding needed to understand space, motion and consequence. “We’ve built machines that can read and write,” she wrote, “but not ones that can see, move and live in the world.” Why AI Needs Spatial Intelligence Li’s central point is that without spatial intelligence, the ability to perceive geometry, depth, movement and the relationships between objects,…

Merchants, independent software vendors (ISVs), independent sales organizations (ISOs) and financial institutions (FIs) all play vital roles in the payment ecosystem. Those roles used to overlap or compete, but today they increasingly depend on one another to deliver integrated, data-driven experiences. Maverick Payments Vice President of Product Justin Downey told PYMNTS that success across the ecosystem begins with clearly defining each participant’s role and creating the ideal conditions for collaboration rather than competition. “There are areas where players serve different roles,” Downey said. “They could look at it as competing for client acquisition, but there’s really an area where they can collaborate and grow together,…

Traditional cross-border payment systems weren’t built for today’s global workforce. Millions of creators, freelancers and on-demand workers now expect to be paid instantly. And in many countries with volatile fiat currencies, they want that payment in digital dollars. These micropreneurs don’t want to wait days for transfers or lose money to fees to accelerate their paydays. Their expectations for speed, flexibility and transparency are exposing just how out of step existing banking infrastructure has become for this new segment of worker. It’s even leading to a shift in how money moves, with Visa, the world’s largest payment network, piloting a…

Models, compute and infrastructure dominate AI headlines, but the deeper transformation is unfolding quietly behind them. This week’s tech roundup surfaces the incremental systems work, platform upgrades and engineering shifts that show how AI is weaving itself into the core of global production, communication and decision-making. Meta Shares New Insights on GEM, Its ‘Central Brain’ for Ads In a Monday (Nov. 10) press release, Meta shared new details about GEM, short for Generative Ads Model, which it calls the “central brain” of its global advertising network. The system, already deployed across Meta’s platforms, combines reinforcement learning and multimodal generation to design, test and optimize ad creatives in real time. GEM continuously retrains on billions of impressions,…

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 11 November 2025: The Dubai AI Festival is set to make a monumental return in 2026, this time expanding to the Dubai World Trade Centre to accommodate the overwhelming surge in international participation and interest. As the flagship event of Dubai AI Week, the third edition of the festival is expected to surpass all previous records, building on the success of the 2025 edition which welcomed over 10,000 attendees. The upcoming event, scheduled for 7–8 April 2026, will bring together more than 20,000 participants, 500+ investors, 200+ global speakers, and 200+ exhibitors from 120+ countries.…