Author: Art Ryan

OpenAI would like to build an artificial intelligence (AI) factory to make 1 gigawatt of compute per week of new capacity, CEO Sam Altman said in a Wednesday (Oct. 29) post on X. The company would like to do so “at a greatly reduced cost relative to today” Altman said. Currently, OpenAI has committed to about 30 gigawatts of compute with a total cost of ownership of about $1.4 trillion, Altman said. “We are comfortable with this given what we see on the horizon for model capability growth and revenue growth,” Altman said in the post. Altman posted this a day after OpenAI announced that it had completed its restructuring that transformed its for-profit arm…

Agentic commerce, stablecoins and steady consumer spending were among the highlights of Mastercard’s third-quarter earnings report on Thursday (Oct. 30). CEO Michael Miebach said on the call that “we continue to see healthy consumer and business spending in the quarter with the macroeconomic environment still generally supportive. Inflation levels have remained fairly steady and labor markets remain well balanced.” He said the consumer payments “secular opportunity is tremendous” with $11 trillion and 1.5 trillion transactions still happening in cash and checks across the world. The rental market represents a particular opportunity, he told analysts, as most payments are done through ACH and checks,…

Global commerce platform WEX has found that artificial intelligence has accelerated its product innovation by 20%. WEX CEO Melissa Smith said Thursday (Oct. 30) that those gains have been enabled by the company’s use of AI in customer discovery, prototyping, coding, quality assurance, infrastructure management and security. Speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Smith said that WEX is “leveraging AI to reimagine how we operate and serve our customers.” WEX also uses AI and the company’s proprietary data to make “faster, smarter decisions” in fraud prevention, credit management, claims processing and customer support, Smith said. “In our benefit segment, AI has reduced claims…

OpenAI is reportedly planning what could be one of the largest-ever initial public offerings (IPOs). That’s according to a report late Tuesday (Oct. 29) by Reuters, citing three sources who say the public listing could value OpenAI at up to $1 trillion. The artificial intelligence (AI) startup is considering filing with regulators as soon as the second half of next year, sources told Reuters, and has — in preliminary talks — looked at raising at least $60 billion, but likely more. Sources added that OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is targeting a 2027 listing, though some advisers predict…

Meta told investors on Wednesday (Oct. 29) to brace for a step-up in infrastructure spending next year as it races to build what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “personal superintelligence.” CFO Susan Lee said the company now expects capital-expenditure dollar growth to be “notably larger in 2026 than 2025,” and total expenses to grow at a “significantly faster” rate next year. The biggest driver of those expenses will be compute — both company‑owned data centers and third‑party cloud — followed by compensation for artificial intelligence (AI) talent. Lee’s written outlook in the earnings release echoed her message to analysts during the company’s Q3 earnings call, noting expanding compute needs and “further upward pressure”…

If there were any questions about what drove Google parent Alphabet towards its first ever quarter of notching more than $100 billion in sales, they were quickly laid to rest on Wednesday night (Oct. 29th). “We are firmly in the generative AI era,” CEO Sundar Pichai said on the conference call with analysts when the company posted third-quarter numbers after the bell. Double digit growth across several business lines, from search to ads to content, had the common underpinning of artificial intelligence (AI). Alphabet’s third-quarter results underscored how its AI strategy is driving both growth and scale across its business. Google Cloud, which includes the…

Microsoft is no longer just a software company or even a cloud company. It’s now an AI infrastructure provider shaping how work, creativity and productivity will function in the next decade. For proof, look no further than the tech giant’s successfully restructured relationship with OpenAI, one that on Tuesday (Oct. 28) gave Microsoft a 27% stake and pushed its valuation north of $4 trillion. On Wednesday (Oct. 29), Microsoft reported for its first quarter 2026 earnings nearly $78 billion in quarterly revenue, fueled by 40% cloud growth and an expanding AI moat built atop a foundation of trust and technical scale. The company also…

B2B commerce infrastructure platform Balance has a new tool for customers’ artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The Balance Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, now in beta, lets the AI communicate with Balance’s payments, credit, and receivables APIs, the company said in a Wednesday (Oct. 29) news release. By connecting Balance to large language models through MCP, merchants can tap into and act on real-time buyer intelligence leaving their preferred AI chat interface, the release added. “Agentic B2B commerce brings intelligence and autonomy to transactions between businesses,” said Bar Geron, Balance co-founder and CEO. “As B2B eCommerce continues expanding, incorporating the latest developments in AI is crucial to…

Etsy is continuing its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) as it names new leadership. The online marketplace released earnings Wednesday (Oct. 29) showing gross merchandise sales of $2.72 billion, down 6.5% year over year. The number of buyers and sellers on the platform dipped as well, at a respective 86.6 million (down 5%) and 5.5 million (down nearly 11%) year over year. Etsy announced its earnings in tandem with a leadership change: Josh Silverman, the company’s chief executive, is stepping down after eight years. He will become Etsy’s executive chairman at the end of the year. Taking his place will be Kruti Patel Goyal, Etsy’s president…

AI systems only perform as well as the information they are given. When inputs are scattered, incomplete or outdated, even advanced models can produce inconsistent or irrelevant results. Context engineering addresses that gap by structuring how information is organized, prioritized and refreshed so that models can interpret complex, interconnected data in real time. Prompt engineering used to be a hot topic in AI. Developers believed that better wording could unlock better answers, flooding forums with prompt tricks and tips. It worked for simple tasks, but not for complex workflows. For example, a customer service chatbot must pull from multiple data…

Payment technology provider Worldpay is now supporting OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). As the company noted in a news release Wednesday (Oct. 29), this is an open standard for artificial intelligence (AI) commerce allowing AI agents, people and businesses to work together on purchases. With ACP, the release added, U.S. users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT will be able to shop directly from participating Worldpay merchants using Instant Checkout. “For agentic commerce to truly scale, it must deliver seamless, secure payments that both consumers and merchants can trust,” said Cindy Turner, chief product officer at Worldpay. “Our credential management doesn’t just keep payment data safe – it keeps it up to…

Chipmaker Nvidia is now the world’s first $5 trillion company. The tech giant had been on pace to reach that milestone before the markets opened Wednesday (Oct. 29), with its valuation hitting $5.1 trillion as of mid-morning. Nvidia is already the largest company in the world, passing the $4 trillion mark in July. Two other companies, Microsoft and Apple, have valuations in the $4 trillion range. “A $5 trillion market cap would’ve been unimaginable a few years ago, especially getting here this quickly,” Keith Lerner, chief investment officer and chief market strategist at Truist Advisory Services, told Bloomberg News. “The market is certainly putting a lot…

Booking Holdings is seeing early results from the generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) solutions it offers across its travel and related platforms. The company, which owns the Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak and OpenTable brands, offers several gen AI tools and added more during the third quarter, executives said Tuesday (Oct. 28) during an earnings call. “What are we measuring in terms of impact? Ultimately, faster search, better conversion, lower cancellation rates, and higher customer satisfaction,” Booking Holdings Chief Financial Officer Ewout Steenbergen said during the call. “Very early signals we’re having around it, but overall very encouraged we are with what we are seeing at this moment.” Later during the…

Moves from Adobe, Oracle, OpenAI and Google highlight how enterprise tech is doubling down on artificial intelligence (AI) in workflows, infrastructure expansion, and developer enablement across creative, business and cloud ecosystems. Creative Professionals Get Agentic AI Adobe announced Tuesday (Oct. 28) at its MAX 2025 event that Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere and Illustrator will now include an AI Assistant powered by agentic AI to handle repeatable tasks and surface personalized recommendations. Adobe’s announcement also noted more than 100 new features, including image upscaling, generative editing and batch-image processing via its Firefly suite. The updates are part of what Adobe calls “collaborative intelligence,” where human input and…

Nvidia is investing $1 billion in Nokia through a partnership with the Finnish tech company. The partnership, announced Tuesday (Oct. 28), involves the addition of Nvidia-powered, commercial grade artificial intelligence radio access network (AI-RAN) products into Nokia’s RAN portfolio. This will allow communication service providers to launch AI-native 5G-Advanced and 6G networks on Nvidia platforms, the world’s most valuable company said in a news release, calling the collaboration “the beginning of the AI-native wireless era.” The partnership also addresses the fast-growing AI-RAN market, with the larger RAN market expected to exceed $200 billion by 2030, Nvidia said, citing data from analyst firm Omdia. Together, Nvidia and Nokia are also laying the infrastructure for telecom providers by delivering distributed…

UnitedHealth Group says tech investments are key to its ongoing turnaround strategy. The insurer announced quarterly earnings Tuesday (Oct. 28) showing consolidated revenues of $113.2 billion, a 12% increase year over year. Speaking during an earnings call, the company’s management team noted the different ways UnitedHealth and its various arms were using technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) to boost performance. For example, Tim Noel, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, said that almost 85% of member inquiries are served digitally, with 90% of calls answered within thirty seconds, and 95% of members’ questions resolved in the first interaction. “We’re also aggressively scaling AI and machine learning capabilities to enhance these experiences and optimized core performance,” he said. “While 2025 remains a transition year, the pressure…

OpenAI has completed its restructuring, pushing longtime benefactor Microsoft’s valuation north of $4 trillion. The artificial intelligence (AI) startup announced Tuesday (Oct. 28) that it had transformed its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation. The new arrangement gives Microsoft a 27% stake — worth roughly $135 billion — in that unit. “What began as an investment in a research organization has grown into one of the most successful partnerships in our industry,” OpenAI wrote on its blog. “As we enter the next phase of this partnership, we’ve signed a new definitive agreement that builds on our foundation, strengthens our partnership, and sets the stage…

Vanguard Group has turned artificial intelligence from a pilot program into a profit engine, generating more than $500 million in measurable business value across customer service, analytics and software development, according to MIT Sloan Management Review. The $11 trillion asset manager’s methodical rollout shows how large financial institutions can use AI to boost productivity while maintaining trust, governance and employee engagement. From Call Centers to Investment Analytics As mentioned in MIT Sloan analysis on Monday (Oct. 27), Vanguard’s first wave of AI deployments focused on service and productivity. Its “Crew Assist” tool, powered by Azure OpenAI, helps call-center representatives handle investor inquiries more efficiently,…

Finance platform BILL has launched a suite of AI agents for small businesses. The new offering, announced Tuesday (Oct. 28) includes features that autonomously collect and validate W-9s, reconcile receipts, accelerate user onboarding, and carry out routine tasks for what BILL calls “Fortune 5 Million” companies saddled with manual workflows. “For example, more than 90% of businesses say collecting W-9s is the most painful part of doing taxes, and many spend too much time on expense management,” BILL said in a news release. “These inefficiencies force leaders into trade-offs between running the back office and growing their business. BILL AI agents eliminate these workflows, freeing…

Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered version of Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia, which launched Monday (Oct. 27), is designed to “purge out” what Musk called “the propaganda” on Wikipedia, according to a post on his X social media site. It takes its name from Grok, the AI chatbot behind Musk’s xAI startup. The tech tycoon had previously attacked Wikipedia as “woke” and criticized it for citing media outlets like The New York Times and NPR as sources in many of its articles. Grokipedia had 885,279 AI-written entries as of early Tuesday (Oct. 28) morning, compared to the more than 7 million English language human-created entries on…