Author: Art Ryan

Coupa has added four new artificial intelligence agents to its spend management platform. The AI agents are among more than 100 enhancements included in the platform’s latest update, the company said in a Friday (Oct. 3) press release. The new additions include an Analytics Agent that provides richer visualizations and a more interactive way of exploring procurement data; a Bid Evaluation Agent that makes it easier to compare bids and evaluate supplier responses; a Request Creation Agent that turns unstructured attachments on a contract into actionable requisitions; and a Knowledge Agent that accelerates onboarding and complex sourcing events, according to the release.…

Global investment in artificial intelligence (AI) could exceed $2.8 trillion by 2029, according to Citigroup estimates reported by PYMNTS. Most of that money flows through a small group of companies that own the models, the cloud infrastructure, and the data pipelines. That concentration has fueled remarkable progress, but it also raises a question: What if the future of AI were not controlled by a few firms, but spread more widely? That is the idea behind decentralized AI. It is not mainstream yet, more of an experiment, but it is beginning to attract capital and attention. At its core, decentralization means moving…

Dates: October 13–17, 2025Location: Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai, UAE When the world’s most influential technology event returns to Dubai this October, it won’t just be about product launches and futuristic showcases. GITEX GLOBAL 2025 will bring together a world-class lineup of speakers — ministers, CEOs, scientists, and innovators — who are defining the future of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biotech, quantum computing, digital governance, and more. This year’s agenda is packed with insights from over 200 global leaders, offering attendees the rare chance to hear directly from the individuals shaping tomorrow’s digital economy. Key Global Leaders and Policymakers GITEX continues…

Meta is offering companies the chance to use its artificial intelligence (AI) chat tool on their own websites. The Facebook owner on Thursday (Oct. 2) unveiled “Business AI,” an AI assistant designed to help companies offer customers more personalized product recommendations and quicker ways to purchase items through chat conversations. Retailers can employ the tool on Shopify-powered websites and apps such as Instagram and Facebook. “We are going beyond ads and beyond Meta to help businesses drive impact across their customer experiences and customer operations,” Meta’s head of business AI, Clara Shih, told reporters during a press briefing, per CNBC. Shih added that the Business AI digital assistant will be free for…

Germany-based DeepL, which provides an artificial intelligence-powered translation platform, is reportedly considering an initial public offering in the United States. The company has talked with potential advisers and could launch an IPO as soon as next year, seeking a valuation of as much as $5 billion, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Oct. 2), citing unnamed sources. The talks are ongoing and the details could change, according to the report. DeepL did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. The company’s Language AI platform provides translations in both written and spoken formats, is designed with enterprise security in mind, and is used by more than 200,000 businesses,…

Apple is pausing development of its next Vision Pro headset and shifting engineers toward smart glasses, according to Bloomberg. The move reflects the company’s recognition that lightweight eyewear powered by artificial intelligence is emerging as the next competitive arena. Meta’s Ray-Ban Display glasses, introduced this year, have already given consumers a glimpse of what AI wearables can deliver, and Apple is adjusting to keep pace in a market that could one day rival the smartphone. Redirecting the Vision Roadmap Bloomberg reports that Apple has reassigned staff from its planned “N100” Vision Pro successor to work on two glasses projects. One, code-named N50,…

OpenAI has reportedly become the world’s most valuable startup following a share sale. The artificial intelligence (AI) company allowed current and former employees to sell roughly $6.6 billion in shares, the Financial Times (FT) reported Tuesday (Oct. 2), citing a person close to the company. That deal values OpenAI at $500 billion, ahead of SpaceX, which achieved a $400 billion valuation in July. OpenAI had been valued at $300 billion after a $40 billion deal with Japan’s SoftBank in March. Sources told the FT that executives had begun talks with investors about an employee share sale at the much higher valuation a few months later.…

AI agents are fast becoming the new gatekeepers of commerce, shrinking discovery from thousands of listings to a handful of curated options and collapsing checkout into a single click. Google, PayPal and eBay are racing to control that interface, each with a distinct strategy but a common goal: to define how consumers shop in the artificial intelligence (AI) agent era. For merchants, the implications are stark. If they cannot adapt to the way agents filter and transact, they risk vanishing from the shopping journey altogether. The New Shortlist Economy Discovery is no longer about keywords and endless scrolls. In the…

By combining permissioned customer data with artificial intelligence (AI), financial institutions can tailor moments of interaction today and anticipate the needs and products clients will demand tomorrow, in a shift toward “cognitive banking” that builds on trusted relationships. What Cognitive Banking Is Cognitive banking refers to embedding AI-driven inferencing and pattern recognition on top of permissioned data (transactions, financial behaviors, linked accounts) so that banks can shift from reactive servicing to proactive guidance. Rather than waiting for customers to navigate menus or submit queries, cognitive banking systems sense intent, flag opportunities, and offer “next-best actions” — be that a liquidity suggestion, a…

Meta will begin using people’s conversations with its artificial intelligence to create personalized ads and content. The change is set to go into effect Dec. 16, the tech giant announced Wednesday (Oct. 1), with Meta set to begin informing people about the update via notifications and emails next week. “Your interactions with content on Facebook and Instagram have long shaped what appears in your feed,” the company wrote on its blog. “Just like other personalized services, we tailor the ads and content you see based on your activity, ensuring that your experience evolves as your interests change. Many people expect their interactions to make what they see more…

Artificial intelligence’s credibility in enterprise now hinges on whether it can perform real professional work at the standard of a trained expert. That is the bar chief financial officers are setting as they weigh productivity, cost savings and return on investment. Finance chiefs are under pressure to scrutinize every AI dollar, demanding proof that projects move beyond experiments and into measurable economic value. A benchmark called GDPval introduced by OpenAI offers a concrete step in that direction by showing where AI is shifting from experimental to economically valuable. GDPval is the first large-scale attempt to measure whether frontier AI models can perform professional-grade tasks. It evaluates…

Dates: October 13–17, 2025Location: Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai, UAE When it comes to global technology showcases, GITEX Global is in a league of its own. Returning to the Dubai World Trade Centre from October 13 to 17, 2025, the event is set to once again bring together the brightest minds, industry leaders, investors, and innovators from across the globe. In just two weeks, GITEX GLOBAL 2025 will unite 200,000 tech executives from more than 180 countries, transforming Dubai into the meeting ground where AI ambitions translate into business value and cross-sector growth for 6,500+ exhibiting companies. From breakthrough AI…

A new Microsoft 365 subscription tier for individuals brings together Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) and productivity tools. The Microsoft 365 Premium tier combines everything that is included in the Microsoft 365 Family and Copilot Pro subscriptions, together with the highest usage limits offered by the company, for $19.99 per month, according to a Wednesday (Oct. 1) blog post. The offerings include the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook desktop apps with Copilot built in; access to the reasoning agents Researcher and Analyst; and the highest usage limits for select features like 4o image generation, the post said. In addition, Microsoft will no longer sell Copilot Pro and recommends that subscribers to that service switch to Microsoft 365 Premium, per the…

Stripe has launched new tools that enable businesses to issue their own stablecoins, prepare for agentic commerce and better monetize their artificial intelligence products. These were among more than 40 product updates the company announced at its Stripe Tour New York product showcase, according to a Tuesday (Sept. 30) press release. Stripe’s new Open Issuance product enables businesses to use just a few lines of code to launch and manage their own stablecoins, according to the release. For neobanks and firms for which money movement is core to their business, launching their own stablecoins enables them to reap benefits like the yield on stablecoin dollar deposits, eliminate burn…

AI’s future may not belong solely to the giant models that grab headlines with trillion-parameter counts. Nvidia’s latest research makes the case that small language models (SLMs) could prove more practical and more profitable in the enterprise. The argument is straightforward: SLMs are powerful enough for many real-world tasks, cost less to run and can be deployed at scale without the same infrastructure burden as large language models (LLMs). The research offers both a technical framework and a business case. Its central claim is that in systems where AI agents string together multiple steps to complete complex assignments, the bulk of the…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is supposed to make business smarter, faster and more efficient. But in 2025, it is just as often making things up. Hallucinations, the confident invention of facts, figures and sources, have become a headline risk. A federal judge in Wyoming threatened to sanction lawyers who submitted AI-generated briefs laced with fictitious cases, while Butler Snow, a major firm, admitted in May that its attorneys relied on hallucinated citations. What might look like quirky tech failures in consumer chat apps quickly turns into reputational and regulatory landmines when applied to banking, payments or compliance. A Business Problem, Not a Bug The industry once dismissed hallucinations…

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon in 1969, their giant leap for mankind was also a giant mass of dependencies navigated over eight long years. Saturn V had to work flawlessly. Navigation systems had to process more than they ever did, and more than some thought they could handle. Tracking stations had to stay in perfect sync. Astronauts had to rehearse every possible failure scenario. Washington had to keep writing more and more checks to meet President Kennedy’s promise of putting a man on the moon. Break one link in that chain at any moment, and…

Enterprise spending on GenAI is slowing as finance leaders recalibrate their priorities in a shifting macroeconomic environment. Just 26.7% of CFOs expect to raise GenAI budgets in the next 12 months, according to a recent PYMNTS Intelligence survey (from the chart below) of 60 enterprises. That compares with 53.3% a year ago, a steep decline that highlights a pivot from experimental adoption to more disciplined deployment, even as interest rates begin to ease and capital markets loosen. ROI as the New Investment Gatekeeper The survey data show ROI is now the primary filter for future spending. Among companies reporting very…

The holiday season may drive record revenues, but it also brings with it a surge in fraud attempts. With scams, cyberattacks and chargebacks spiking during peak shopping, merchants face an increasingly complex balancing act: protecting profits and customers without slowing down sales. And this year, as criminals weaponize artificial intelligence to wage fraud on an unprecedented scale, new defenses are urgently required. Rising Fraud Risks in the Fourth Quarter According to this month’s Payments Optimization Tracker Series, a joint efforts from PYMNTS Intelligence and Worldpay, holiday sales open the door to significantly elevated levels of fraud. Scams, cyberattacks and chargebacks spike during the…

Amazon unveiled the next generation of several of its devices Tuesday (Sept. 30), including Echo, Fire TV and Ring, that incorporate the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Alexa+. The four new Echo devices are purpose-built for Alexa+, the company said in a Tuesday press release. They come with early access to the AI assistant so that buyers can start using it right away. The devices include custom-designed silicon chips with a new AI Accelerator, according to the release. The Echo Dot Max uses the AZ3 chip, which enables better conversation detection, while the Echo Studio, Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 include the AZ3 Pro, which adds support for language models and vision transformers. Amazon’s new Fire TV lineup uses Alexa+ to enable smart discovery that helps users find content they will…