Author: Art Ryan

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…

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday (Sept. 29) signed the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, making the state the first in the U.S. to require developers of advanced artificial intelligence systems to disclose how they manage catastrophic risks. The measure, Senate Bill 53, establishes penalties for violations, mandates reporting of safety incidents and builds new infrastructure to expand access to AI resources, placing the state ahead in setting rules for frontier AI, per a news release. The law targets companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue that build “frontier” AI models. Developers must publish frameworks for managing catastrophic risks such…

AI-related infrastructure spending by Big Tech is expected to surpass $2.8 trillion through 2029. That’s according to a report Tuesday (Sept. 30) by Reuters, citing projections from Citigroup, which had earlier forecast that spending figure to come to $2.3 trillion. The bank pointed to early investments by hyperscalers and rising demand for enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) use. Citi expects capital expenditures among hyperscalers — or data center operators — to reach $490 billion by the end of next year, up from an earlier estimate of $420 billion. As Reuters noted, hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft have already spent billions to ease…

Squarespace has introduced what it calls an “AI-powered business partner” for entrepreneurs. Squarespace Beacon AI, announced by the website design platform Tuesday (Sept. 30), is part of a group of products, features and updates under the company’s “Refresh 2025” banner. “At Squarespace, we know entrepreneurs are navigating a complex digital landscape and looking for guidance on how to get discovered and grow,” Paul Gubbay, chief product officer at Squarespace, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS. “With Refresh 2025, we are expanding our product suite by combining design expertise with AI-powered tools to make it easier to run a business while…

OpenAI reportedly recorded roughly $4.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2025. That’s a 16% increase over last year, The Information reported late Monday (Sept. 29), citing disclosures from the artificial intelligence (AI) startup to its shareholders. The report notes that OpenAI’s cash burn rate for the half year came to $2.5 billion, chiefly related to research and development expenses, such as the costs tied to building advanced AI models and running ChatGPT. PYMNTS has contacted OpenAI for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. The company spent $6.7 billion on research and development during the period, the report said,…

Bank of America is using AI to help its Global Payments Solutions team serve clients. The new Ask Global Payments Solutions (AskGPS) tool, announced Tuesday (Sept. 30), lets employees pose “simple to complex” client queries and get answers within seconds. The tool was created in-house and trained on more than 3,200 internal documents and presentations, such as product guides, term sheets and FAQs. “AskGPS turns institutional knowledge into real-time intelligence,” Mark Monaco, head of GPS at Bank of America, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS. “It’s more than a search tool—it’s a strategic engine, helping our teams respond faster and deliver the…

OpenAI’s launch of Buy It in ChatGPT marks another touchpoint on the agentic artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap. With Instant Checkout, ChatGPT shifts from being a conversational assistant to becoming a transactional platform that collapses search, discovery and payment into a single flow. At launch, the feature supports Etsy products in the U.S., with Shopify’s more than 1 million merchants next in line. Instead of redirecting shoppers to external sites, ChatGPT now enables them to tap “Buy,” confirm payment and shipping, and complete the purchase inside the chat. The system runs on Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, co-developed with OpenAI and open-sourced from day one. It signals a transformational shift in the future of eCommerce. This…

PayOS and Mastercard announced Monday (Sept. 29) that they have completed the first live agentic payment using a Mastercard Agentic Token, a milestone that shifts agentic commerce from theory to practice and shows how AI agents could begin to transform the way payments are authorized, secured and scaled. Building the Trust Layer for Agentic Payments The demonstration was powered by Mastercard Agent Pay, a framework built on the same network tokenization infrastructure that underpins mobile contactless payments, card-on-file storage, and Mastercard Payment Passkeys. By extending those rails, the system enables AI agents to initiate payments while still enforcing user consent, authentication and…