Author: Art Ryan

A year ago, most chief product officers were still testing Gen AI with cautious curiosity. Today, nearly all say the technology will reshape how they work. But beneath the near-unanimous optimism lies a split that may determine who reaps the rewards: some industries are surging ahead, while others hesitate, and no single AI provider has yet claimed dominance. The latest PYMNTS Intelligence report, From Experiment to Imperative: U.S. Product Leaders Bet on Gen AI, captures this pivot. Based on a June 2025 survey of 60 chief product officers and heads of product at companies with at least $1 billion in revenue,…

Starting Jan. 1, California will require developers of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models to publicly disclose what data they use to train their systems. The measure, Assembly Bill 2013, known as the Generative Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency Act, was signed into law earlier in 2024 and is scheduled to take effect at the start of next year. The law requires developers to publish detailed information on their websites about the datasets that power their models. Disclosures must include the sources of data, whether the datasets are publicly available or proprietary, their size and type, whether copyrighted material or personal data are…

Risk/reputation intelligence platform Signal AI is in expansion mode after raising $165 million. The new funding round, led by tech investor Battery Ventures and announced Wednesday (Sept. 23), will help U.K.-based Signal make acquisitions that help it deepen data collection, sector expertise and artificial intelligence research. In addition, the company aims to accelerate its risk intelligence product development, while expanding its footprint in the U.S. and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Our AI platform started in a garage, and evolved to power the world’s most complex enterprises,” said Signal AI founder and CEO David Benigson. “Partnering with Battery Ventures – a firm with a 40-year track…

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere is now a $7 billion company. The firm announced Wednesday (Sept. 24) that it had achieved that valuation after raising $100 million in new funding. “We will use this funding to further accelerate the development and global adoption of our security-first enterprise AI technology across the public and private sectors,” Cohere said in its announcement. “This comes as we are rapidly scaling our operations across North America, APAC and EMEA to meet the increasing demand for secure and sovereign AI solutions. As organizations prioritize data control and compliance, our solutions are uniquely positioned to address this critical gap in the…

Tipalti has secured $200 million in growth financing from Hercules Capital to continue investing in artificial intelligence, product innovation and global growth of its AI-powered finance automation platform. The company has seen year-over-year growth of 30% in its customer base and 30% in its annualized payment volume, and it recently surpassed $200 million in annually recurring revenue, it said in a Wednesday (Sept. 24) press release. Tipalti CEO and Co-founder Chen Amit said in the release that the growth in ARR reflects “the growing urgency for finance operations efficiency globally.” “Our market opportunity is immense,” Amit said. “As an innovation leader, we are building for long-term…

Are they a breakthrough in wearable tech? Just another pair of smart glasses? Or a product destined to struggle for relevance? Meta’s Ray-Ban Display promises everyday utility with AI integration, but winning over consumers will be the real test. The company recently unveiled its $799 Ray-Ban Display smart glasses at Meta Connect 2025, presenting them as a practical tool for everyday tasks rather than a futuristic headset, as PYMNTS reported. What Meta Is Offering The Ray-Ban Display includes a small display in one lens and a Neural Band wrist controller that converts subtle finger movements into commands. The glasses are designed for quick interactions…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman used his personal blog this week to outline a sweeping vision for artificial intelligence. In a post titled “Abundant Intelligence,” he called for AI to become as universal as electricity and said delivering it at scale will require industrial-level infrastructure backed by massive investment. “Our vision is simple: we want to create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week,” Altman wrote. “The execution of this will be extremely difficult; it will take us years to get to this milestone and it will require innovation at every level of the stack,…

Billing and monetization platform OneBill has introduced a tool designed to stop revenue leakage. RevAssure360, announced Wednesday (Sept. 24), is an artificial intelligence (AI) powered “command center” that can help businesses predict, identify and stop revenue leakage in real time, while also getting insights for sustainable growth. “In today’s fast-paced digital economy, unnoticed errors in billing, invoicing, order fulfillment, and renewals often go undetected, silently eroding profits,” the company said in a news release. “In fact, it has been reported that some businesses are losing between 3% and 8% in total revenue, due to lack of robust internal auditing,” the release added, citing PwC data. The…

Payments and credit card service organizations have always been measured by their ability to reduce friction. Contact center average handle time, dispute resolution speed, and fraud detection accuracy are all metrics that shape strategies and incentives. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) promises a massive improvement across each of these key performance indicators (KPIs). But while speed and efficiency have long dictated the terms of competition in payments, trust and humanity have always sat at its center. “As new technologies emerge, whether it’s ML, AI or gen AI, we’ve always approached them thoughtfully,” Gary Kensey, EVP and Unit CIO…

Is Microsoft’s relationship with its longtime artificial intelligence (AI) partner taking a turn? As CNBC reported Wednesday (Sept. 24), the tech giant has for years served as AI startup OpenAI’s chief cloud partner. Now, however, it has begun using more technology from OpenAI competitor Anthropic. For example, there’s Microsoft’s announcement that it has begun employing an AI model from Anthropic to answer questions in the Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant for commercial customers. The report noted this marks another step toward diversification in Microsoft generative AI efforts, which have largely involved using OpenAI models for AI features in its Windows operating system and Bing search engine. The partnership has seen Microsoft invest upwards…

Payments have never been solely about moving money. Across the context of their utility, payments are fundamentally about trust. Trust that a transaction is legitimate, that a supplier is real, that the identity behind the purchase is authentic. The only problem? Increasingly, that trust is under assault. “As innovation diffuses, the table stakes get higher. And it calls into question how to create a competitive advantage,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster observed while hosting a discussion with Jonathan Beckham, chief product and technology officer at Edenred Pay, for the September 2025 What’s Next in Payments series, “From Trend to Table Stakes: Mapping…

Meta is reportedly investing “tens of millions” in its new super PAC dedicated to combating state-level proposals to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. The American Technology Excellence Project aims to block state-level bills that the company believes are poorly crafted and could hurt the country’s efforts in the AI race with China, Axios reported Tuesday (Sept. 23), citing Meta spokesperson Rachel Holland. There have been 1,100 state-level tech policy proposals introduced this year, according to the report. The super PAC will also support the election of state-level candidates who “embrace AI development, champion the U.S. technology industry, and defend American tech leadership at home and abroad,” Brian…

Android users are now able to edit their photos with AI, Google announced on Tuesday. In Google Photos, users will be able to talk to the AI using natural language to describe how they want to edit their photo via either voice or text, Google says. The feature is designed to make it easier to edit photos without having to understand which editing tools to use or where they can be found in the app. The Gemini-powered feature was initially made available to those with the newly launched Pixel 10 devices in the U.S., introduced in August. To get started, you…

As Google’s project manager for developer tools, Ryan Salva has a front-row seat to the ways AI tools are changing coding. Formerly of Github and Microsoft, he’s now responsible for tools like Gemini CLI and Gemini Code Assist, nudging developers into the new world of agentic programming. His team released new third-party research on Tuesday showing how developers actually use AI tools – and how much progress is left to make. I sat down with Salva to talk about the report and his personal experience with AI coding tools. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Every year, Google does a survey…

For Julien Emery, the problem has always been personal. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Superpanel, a platform that helps law firms seamlessly onboard new clients. He listed emotional encounters with the law: As a Canadian, he found access to legal help hard and expensive; he also recalls his mother in a car accident, and how the legal payout helped keep his family afloat for years. He found the legal intake — the process of a firm evaluating a new client or request — tedious. “For consumers, it’s a maze of forms, phone calls, and dropped leads that cause most people…

Rocket.new, an Indian startup building an AI-powered app development platform, has raised $15 million in a seed round led by Salesforce Ventures to take on viral vibe-coding rivals like Lovable, Cursor, and Bolt by letting users build full, production-ready apps from natural-language prompts rather than just quick prototypes. Accel and Together Fund joined Salesforce Ventures in the all-equity seed round, which comes only three months after Rocket.new launched its platform in beta in June. Since its debut, the startup has crossed 400,000 users — including over 10,000 paid subscribers — in 180 countries and reached $4.5 million in annual recurring…

In its ongoing mission to unleash the world’s digital potential, Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) today shared highlights from its 2025 Industry Analyst Forum, where analysts engaged with the company’s leadership team around the Forum’s theme – The Trusted Network for AI. Key moments spotlighted the company’s comprehensive blueprint for transformation, financial progress, and a preview of new innovations and programs designed to strengthen Lumen’s position as a digital networking services company for the AI era. “Lumen is determined to lead the transformation of our industry to meet the demands of the AI economy,” said Lumen CEO Kate Johnson. “With ubiquitous reach and a digital-first…

Amazon, Google and Microsoft set out their latest moves on artificial intelligence and infrastructure in the past week, underscoring how the industry’s largest firms are positioning themselves for growth under mounting regulatory and policy scrutiny. The announcements from the Big Tech trio come at a time when AI is advancing at a breakneck speed and governments at all levels are scrambling to put regulations in place. Meanwhile, industry lobbyists warn that too much regulation could stifle innovation. From America’s AI Action Plan to the European Union’s AI Act, governments are putting together various levels of oversight. Also in the United States, a proposed bill before Congress would set up an AI sandbox where companies can test new technologies. Amazon: AI and Satellites at…

Payments and credit card service organizations have always been measured by their ability to reduce friction. Contact center average handle time, dispute resolution speed, and fraud detection accuracy are all metrics that shape strategies and incentives. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) promises a massive improvement across each of these key performance indicators (KPIs). But while speed and efficiency have long dictated the terms of competition in payments, trust and humanity have always sat at its center. “As new technologies emerge, whether it’s ML, AI or gen AI, we’ve always approached them thoughtfully,” Gary Kensey, EVP and Unit CIO…

Citigroup has launched an upgraded version of its internal artificial intelligence platform, Citi Stylus Workspaces, which now includes agentic AI capabilities intended to help employees complete complex, multi-step tasks more efficiently, according to a Monday (Sept. 22) news release. The new upgrade allows users to compress what would previously take several manual steps across different tools into a single prompt, per the release. The launch is part of a broader push to boost productivity and manage rising costs. The tools now integrate more deeply with Citi’s internal systems, including its global employee directory, project management platforms, and internal data sources, while…