Author: Art Ryan

Dynamic pricing is having a dynamic week. On one hand, it has moved further into the mainstream, with FIFA confirming that tickets for the 2026 World Cup will fluctuate with demand. At the same time, California lawmakers killed two bills targeting algorithmic price-setting and narrowed a third to cover only grocery stores. The twin developments capture the policy-market split now shaping how prices are set across travel, events and retail.  The mechanics matter. Traditional dynamic pricing adjusts a uniform price up or down based on supply, timing and availability: airline seats before holidays, rideshare fares after a concert. “Surveillance pricing” goes further, using personal data such…

Sierra, a conversational artificial intelligence startup founded by OpenAI Chair Bret Taylor and former Google executive Clay Bavor, has raised $350 million in new funding for a $10 billion valuation, the founders said Thursday (Sept. 4). The 18-month-old startup offers a platform that enables companies to build and deploy AI-powered chatbots that can answer a variety of questions and even take action for consumers. It’s a step up from the rule-based chatbots of old that are stymied by things like misspellings. For example, a shopper looking to buy flowers at a flower shop engages with an AI chatbot built on Sierra’s Agent…

Enterprises may be cautious about adopting agentic artificial intelligence browsers, due to worries about the technology’s autonomy, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora said Thursday (Sept. 4). Speaking with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Arora said that while consumers might like to have an agentic browser that can perform tasks for them, enterprises will be wary, CNBC reported. “I think unless there are controls built into agentic browsers, which are oriented around credentials and enterprise security, they’re not going to be allowed in enterprises in 24 months,” Arora said, per the report. Arora also said there is a growing risk of credential theft and said Palo Alto Networks’…

For transformation to succeed, it needs to move beyond hype to hard numbers. After all, executives can overestimate short-term gains and underestimate long-term phase-shifts when it comes to digital innovation. But the PYMNTS Intelligence August 2025 CAIO Report, “From Experiment to Imperative: US Product Leaders Bet on Gen AI,” reveals that the adoption curve of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be an exception. In just 18 months, corporate leaders have shifted their expectations from incremental productivity boosts to wholesale operational redesign. The data found a 98% consensus among U.S. product leaders that generative AI will reshape operations in…

Articul8 AI, the leader in domain-specific Generative AI (GenAI) for enterprises and regulated industries, announced today that it achieved the AWS Generative AI Competency. This specialization recognizes Articul8’s expertise as an AWS Partner that helps customers and the AWS Partner Network drive the advancement of services, tools, and infrastructure pivotal for implementing generative AI technologies. Achieving the AWS Generative AI Competency differentiates Articul8 as an AWS Partner that demonstrated an elite level technical proficiency and proven customer success delivering domain specific, cutting-edge generative AI solutions in production. Articul8 possesses proven expertise across the financial services, aerospace, telecommunications, and semiconductor sectors,…

The EU has a chance to shape how the world approaches AI and data governance. AI News spoke with Resham Kotecha, Global Head of Policy at the Open Data Institute (ODI), who said that opportunity lies in proving that protecting people’s rights and supporting innovation can go hand in hand. The ODI’s European Data and AI Policy Manifesto sets out six principles for policymakers, calling for strong governance, inclusive ecosystems, and public participation to guide AI development. Setting standards in AI and data “The EU has a unique opportunity to shape a global benchmark for digital governance that puts people first,” Kotecha…

Medable, developer of a clinical trial platform, has announced the launch of Agent Studio, a new artificial intelligence platform the company says is purpose-built to help life sciences firms use agentic AI. According to Medable, Agent Studio is a “no-code agent-builder that enables clinical teams to quickly custom-configure AI agents.” In addition, Medable announced CRA Agent, which the company describes as an “out-of-the-box agent running on Agent Studio” that is custom-made for clinical trial monitoring. CRA Agent, the first of Medable’s pre-built agents, collects and condenses data across systems, supports human-in-the-loop oversight for crucial areas, and automates regular monitoring and…

A group of Swiss institutions has released a new open AI model, designed to serve as a foundation for future research and applications. Built by EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the model is called Apertus – Latin for “open.” The name reflects its core principle: every part of its design and training process is accessible to the public. Developers and organisations can use Apertus to create chatbots, translation tools, or education-focused applications. It can be downloaded directly from Hugging Face or accessed through Swisscom, a strategic partner of the initiative. Two versions are available – an 8-billion-parameter…

Apple is reportedly developing an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web search tool that could be added to its Siri voice assistant, its Safari web browser and its Spotlight search features on the iPhone. The search tool, dubbed World Knowledge Answers, would look up information from the internet and summarize the results, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and apps from companies like Perplexity AI, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Sept. 3), citing unnamed sources. Apple did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. PYMNTS reported in November 2024 that innovation in search is getting a shot in the arm by AI-powered chat interfaces that are challenging traditional models. While Google has reigned supreme as the global leader in online search, a shifting technology is setting the…

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup You.com has reportedly raised $100 million in new funding. The company’s latest funding round values it at $1.5 billion, and is happening amid its ongoing shift from consumer search to more general AI services, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (Sept. 3). The company was founded in 2020 as an AI-powered search engine by Richard Socher, who had been chief scientist for Salesforce. In the intervening years, the AI search space has heated up, with competition from the likes of Google and Perplexity. According to Bloomberg, You.com last year began a shift toward helping companies adopt AI, a transition that was happening when the…

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mistral AI is reportedly nearing the close of a funding round in which it would raise €2 billion (about $2.3 billion) and be valued at €12 billion (about $14 billion). This would be Mistral AI’s first fundraise since a June 2024 round in which it was valued at €5.8 billion, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Sept. 3), citing unnamed sources. Mistral AI did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. According to the Bloomberg report, Mistral AI, which is based in France, is developing a chatbot called Le Chat that is tailored to European user as well as other AI services to compete with the dominant ones from the United States and China.…

The Federal Reserve is holding a conference in October focused on payment system improvements. The conference, scheduled for Oct. 21, will explore several aspects of payments innovation, including the intersection of traditional and decentralized finance and the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and payments, the central bank announced Wednesday (Sept. 3). “Innovation has been a constant in payments to meet the changing needs of consumers and businesses,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in a news release, adding that he hopes the conference would include input from companies that want to help shape the future of payments. Other topics to be covered include emerging stablecoin use cases…

The luxury membership platform Vivrelle, which allows customers to rent high-end goods, announced Thursday the launch of an AI personal styling tool called Ella as part of its partnership with fashion retailers Revolve and FWRD. The launch is an example of how the fashion industry is leveraging AI technology to enhance customer experiences and is one of the first partnerships to see three retailers come together to offer a personalized AI experience. Revolve and FWRD let users shop designer clothing, while Revolve also has an option to shop pre-owned. The tool, Ella, provides recommendations to customers across the three retailers on what…

Google’s latest video-generation model, Veo 3, is coming to Google Photos. The new model, available on the mobile app’s Create tab, will allow users in the U.S. to turn their still images into video clips. Google Photos already offers video generation through its recently added “Photo to video” feature, but the company says the addition of Veo 3 enhances that functionality with higher-quality video. The launch also represents how the company is working to bring its latest AI tech to consumers through its products — Google Photos, for instance, had over 1.5 billion monthly active users as of May 2025. Introduced in May at its…

OpenAI says it’s developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees, a service that would put the outfit in close competition with LinkedIn. The product is called the OpenAI Jobs Platform, and the company expects to launch the service by mid-2026, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo announced the new endeavor in a blog post Thursday, saying the company will “use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need and what workers can offer.” Simo said the service would offer a dedicated track for small businesses and local governments to access top…

German software giant SAP announced that it is investing 20 billion euros ($23.3 billion) to expand its “sovereign cloud” services as it bets on Europe’s desire to keep its data within its borders. The new investment underpins an expanded SAP Sovereign Cloud portfolio, which gives European customers access to a full technology stack while keeping sensitive data under local control, compliant with European regulations. The investment spans a decade, according to a Tuesday CNBC report. Unlike global public clouds run by providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, which often distribute data across international data centers, a sovereign cloud is built to keep data and workloads…

Dubai, 2 September 2025 – Egypt is accelerating its leadership in artificial intelligence across the African continent and beyond, backed by a national roadmap for AI-driven transformation. Ranked among the top 10 countries globally in AI and Machine Learning – and the only African nation in that tier, according to the 2024 GBS World Competitiveness Index – Egypt is embedding AI across vital sectors under its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2025–2030). This momentum now converges on a focused global ecosystem platform with the launch of Ai Everything Middle East & Africa, set to take place from 10–12 February 2026 in…

Microsoft has released VibeVoice, a new open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model that lets users create podcasts and other audio — a counter to Google’s popular NotebookLM. But there are notable differences. Microsoft’s text-to-speech model can generate four voices and up to 90 minutes of podcast-quality speech. NotebookLM can do two voices. Additionally, VibeVoice reads and organizes text while NotebookLM ingests documents and turns them into two-person podcasts. Users can also query and get document summaries, according to tech firm Hugging Face. That means VibeVoice doesn’t try to understand the text but rather performs it audibly, ostensibly to replace a recording studio. VibeVoice is the latest offering…

OpenAI plans to acquire Statsig, the experimentation platform that powers A/B testing, feature flagging and real-time decisioning for OpenAI and other companies. Together with the acquisition, Statsig Founder and CEO Vijaye Raji will join OpenAI as chief technology officer of its Applications organization, reporting to Fidji Simo, OpenAI said in a Tuesday (Sept. 2) press release. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, according to the release. The Applications organization is responsible for “how our research reaches and benefits the world,” the release said. Raji will head product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex, according to the release. Bringing Statsig in-house will strengthen OpenAI’s ability to accelerate experimentation and enhance the experiences it delivers, the…

Predoc raised $30 million in seed and Series A funding for its artificial intelligence-powered health information management system, according to a banner on the company’s website. The company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 2) post on LinkedIn that the fundraise “will enable our team to continue to solve the inefficient and painfully manual Health Information Management workflows plaguing clinicians and researchers everywhere.” “Our mission is to connect and organize the nation’s healthcare data,” Predoc said in the post. “With this funding, we will make a material step towards accomplishing that mission, allowing clinicians to focus on their core purpose — to improve human…