Author: Art Ryan

President Sheikh Mohamed has witnessed the exchange of an agreement between the UAE and the US to accelerate collaboration in energy and artificial intelligence. Under the agreement, the UAE and the US will work together on increasing advanced industrial capabilities and adopting smart manufacturing technologies. It covers the use of AI in robotics and automation, alongside efforts to promote sharing of knowledge and capacity building. The agreement was signed in the presence of the UAE President by Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, managing director and group chief executive of Adnoc, and executive chairman of XRG,…

In the midst of an unprecedented AI buildout, Meta is spending more than most. The company is building two massive data centers, and reporting indicates there will be as much as $600 billion in spending on U.S. infrastructure over the next three years. Those figures might not raise eyebrows in Silicon Valley, but they’re starting to make Wall Street nervous. The issue came to a head this week as Meta reported quarterly earnings, which showed the company’s operating expenses jumping $7 billion year-over-year and nearly $20 billion in capital expense. It was the result of intense spending on AI talent and infrastructure, which…

Google says it has removed Gemma from its AI Studio after a U.S. senator accused the AI model of fabricating accusations of sexual misconduct against her. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Senator Marsha Blackburn — a Republican from Tennessee — said that when Gemma was asked, “Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?” it responded by falsely claiming that during a 1987 state senate campaign, a state trooper alleged that Blackburn “pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts.” “None of this is true, not even the campaign year which was actually…

TranscendAP said Thursday (Oct. 30) that it secured venture funding to accelerate the growth of its artificial intelligence-driven accounts payable automation software. The firm’s funding round was led by Rittenhouse Ventures and Tech Council Ventures, the company said in a press release. It did not disclose the amount of funding. Its platform helps enterprise AP teams reduce manual processing, improve visibility and lower invoice processing costs by delivering intelligent data capture, workflow automation and exception handling capabilities, according to the release. The platform was launched in 2018 and is now used by enterprise organizations in a range of sectors, including healthcare, higher education and manufacturing,…

Agentic AI is reshaping how patents are searched, written and understood, marking what IPWatchdog calls a “new paradigm” for innovation. The emerging technology is moving patent work from single-query search toward multi-step, goal-driven investigation, raising new questions about how invention is defined and who deserves credit. The latest example is Perplexity Patents, a platform that uses autonomous research agents to conduct patent searches and interpret results. The company said the tool allows users to ask natural-language questions such as “What are the latest patents in AI-powered healthcare?” and returns not just documents but summaries, citations and follow-up queries. By linking terms like “activity…

As tech companies tout their plans for massive new data centers, consumers are increasingly worried the AI-driven gold rush will ultimately drive up the price they pay for electricity, according to a new survey. The report, commissioned by solar installer Sunrun, found that 80% of consumers are worried about the impact of data centers on their utility bills. Consumers’ concerns aren’t unfounded. Electricity demand in the United States held steady for over a decade, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Over the last five years, commercial users including data centers and industrial users began drinking more deeply from the grid, with…

Adam, one of the most viral startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch, has raised a $4.1 million seed round to power its next steps, TechCrunch learned exclusively. After generating over 10 million social media impressions with the launch of its text-to-3D model app, the AI startup had its pick of investors. “We were getting term sheets over email without any meetings,” said CEO Zach Dive (on the right in the picture above). Adam quickly went with TQ Ventures as its lead investor because they agreed on the future of computer-aided design (CAD). Just as importantly, they also agreed on Adam’s roadmap…

Walmart has launched several new artificial intelligence (AI) tools designed to help customers with their holiday shopping. The tools are now available on the retailer’s app and website, according to a Friday (Oct. 31) press release. The Walmart app now includes an In-Store Savings feature that displays all the items that are on sale at a specified location; an enhanced search feature for in-store use that shows whether an item is in stock and where it is located; and a feature that allows users to create a shopping list and then sorts those items by the aisle in which they are located. The retailer’s Gen…

 Visual search-and-discovery platform Pinterest is turning inspiration into action. The company on Thursday (Oct. 30) introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) shopping assistant and upgraded its boards with generative technology that personalizes recommendations and surfaces shoppable products in real time. From Inspiration to Discovery The new Pinterest Assistant uses AI to help users find products and ideas that match their tastes, expanding the platform’s long-standing focus on inspiration into one centered on action. The company said the update is designed to make Pinterest “a more actionable destination,” unifying search, personalization and shopping within a single experience. Complementing the Assistant, Pinterest also announced AI-powered upgrades to its…

Earnings season has illuminated in real time how artificial intelligence (AI) has been making steady inroads into how companies plan, operate and serve customers. The opportunity remains vast, but as PYMNTS Intelligence research has discovered, firms across industries are learning that the power of AI depends on how well they align it with measurable business outcomes. The greenfield opportunity is immense, yet strategies diverge depending on whether firms sell goods, provide services or power the technology behind both. The next phase, agentic AI, moves beyond analysis to autonomous execution, but much depends on the relationships struck with outside vendors. Different…

While Adobe’s annual conference held this week focused on retaining the business of marketers, filmmakers and content creators, it reportedly also sought to reassure investors. The company has been adding artificial intelligence (AI) to its software for creative professionals, but it is being challenged by other companies that are offering new AI tools, Bloomberg reported Friday (Oct. 31). Facing competitors like Google’s Veo, OpenAI’s Sora, and Canva, Adobe’s stock has dropped by about a quarter this year, according to the report. This drop occurred even as Adobe’s AI features in products like Photoshop have been used tens of billions of times, per the report. The report said that while some…

Meta is pouring billions into its biggest artificial intelligence (AI) bet yet. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts in the company’s Q3 earnings call that he is “very focused on establishing Meta as the leading frontier AI lab” and on “building personal superintelligence for everyone.” It’s a moonshot goal backed by massive spending but without a clear plan for returns. CFO Susan Li said Meta expects capital expenditures to be “notably larger in 2026 than in 2025,” with total expenses rising at a “significantly faster rate.” The main costs are data centers, cloud contracts and AI talent. “We expect further upward pressure on…

In the accelerating race to embed artificial intelligence (AI) across enterprise workflows, most organizations face what seems like an impossible paradox: innovate fast enough to stay competitive, yet cautiously enough to avoid regulatory, ethical and security landmines. At Billtrust, Chief Information and Security Officer (CISO) Ankur Ahuja believes that paradox may be somewhat of an illusion. “AI doesn’t get a special treatment,” Ahuja said. “It’s the same strong audited controls that protect all our financial data.” “If you follow strong data security policy, it automatically replicates to strong AI security policy,” Ahuja added, noting that Billtrust has built a foundation where AI adoption feels…

Amazon’s latest results, announced Thursday (Oct. 30th) after the bell, gave investors and analysts a snapshot of how AI is powering and fine-tuning everything from eCommerce to enterprise customers operations. And the company is making headway in its grocery efforts as well, management said during the Thursday evening conference call. Consolidated revenues were up 12% to $180.2 billion. AI was the star of the show, as demonstrated by AWS’ double digit growth rate that outpaced that of the overall company. During his remarks on the conference call with analysts, CEO Andy Jassy said that “AWS is growing at a pace that we haven’t…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly become the backbone of B2B payments, but it’s part of a larger set of tools needed to build the “trust infrastructure” for transactions in the age of digital fund flows. As Alex Yen, vice president of product architecture at Persona, told PYMNTS, “Trust infrastructure is about shifting from this concept of a one-time verification … to continuous monitoring, continuous reverification … and maintaining trust over time.” That, he added, requires technology that can adapt as fast as the fraudsters using it. When Fraud Thinks for Itself Fraudsters have learned to leverage generative AI as efficiently as the…

Apple painted a picture of a resilient U.S. consumer heading into the holidays in its Q4 earnings. On Thursday (Oct. 30), the company said iPhone demand drove a record September and guided to what it called its “best quarter ever,” with CFO Kevan Parekh saying Apple expects December‑quarter revenue to grow 10-12% year over year and iPhone to grow double digits. The iPhone itself set a September‑quarter revenue record of $49 billion, up 6%, and Tim Cook said the lineup is “resonating around the world,” adding Apple set “a September quarter record for upgraders” which shows signals of consumers trading up despite macro noise. Artificial Intelligence (AI) took center stage in the…

Legora raised $150 million in a Series C funding round to continue the global expansion of its collaborative artificial intelligence (AI) platform for lawyers. The company’s latest funding round valued it at $1.8 billion, it said in a Thursday (Oct. 30) press release. Legora will use the new capital to establish more global hubs to serve its international client base, according to the release. The company currently has offices in Stockholm, London, New York, Denver and Sydney, as well as a team of 200 legal experts and technologists, the release said. Its AI platform helps lawyers review, research, draft, advise and collaborate,…

A growing body of peer-reviewed and industry research is reframing neurodiversity as a strength in artificial intelligence (AI) development. Far from a social-impact program, autistic participation in data labeling, quality control and debugging is proving to raise the accuracy, reliability and integrity of AI systems. A study by Temple University found that neurodivergent professionals performing image and text annotation produced “diverse annotations that are valuable for employers in digital data annotation work,” enriching training sets and mitigating bias. Researchers observed that autistic annotators approached labeling with consistent logic and less susceptibility to context drift, a key factor when building models that must interpret complex real-world data. A paper in the Journal…

A recent Wharton study shows just how quickly the Gen AI adoption has gone mainstream: 82% of enterprise leaders now use generative AI weekly, and nearly 50% use it daily. The report, “Accountable Acceleration: Gen AI Fast-Tracks Into the Enterprise,” surveyed more than 800 enterprise decision-makers across the U.S. and charts a sharp shift from experimentation to execution. Nearly 75% of respondents say their organizations now track AI’s financial impact through structured ROI frameworks, and three in four already report positive returns on their generative AI investments. 88% expect spending to rise in the next 12 months. But as budgets climb, 43% of…

Business travel and expense management software company Navan raised $923 million upon going public. The company’s shares opened at $22 each Thursday (Oct. 30), below an initial public offering (IPO) of $25, per a Bloomberg News report, which listed Navan’s market value at $5.5 billion. The company’s listing comes amid a government shutdown, which has caused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to furlough workers and put its reviews of listings on hold. The commissioner later said that because regulators were not able to go over registration statements, the SEC would not seek to penalize companies that left out pricing information from prospectuses filed during the shutdown…