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Consumers are growing comfortable with letting artificial intelligence (AI) agents plan their vacations.
And so the world’s biggest hotel companies are working to get consumers to book directly, to help save on commission to online platforms, the Financial Times (FT) reported Saturday (Dec. 27).
The report noted that Marriott, the largest hotel company in the world, said last month...
British bank Lloyds is reportedly ending its small-business-focused invoice financing program.
The factoring program will close by the year’s end, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Dec. 28), citing two sources familiar with the matter.
The report characterizes the move as a blow to Lloyd’s smaller business clients, though one source said the bank’s factoring programs were used...
The last of the holiday glitter is still stuck to your shoes, but the digital economy is already dangling a shinier object: the 2026 FIFA World Cup. As our audience sharpens New Year’s intentions—tighten budgets, simplify stacks, stop paying “fees” that feel like emotional damage—soccer’s biggest spectacle is here to remind us that aspiration is a powerful currency. Especially when it comes with...
Toms Capital Investment Management (TCIM), a U.S. hedge fund known to be an activist investor, reportedly made a “significant” investment in Target.
The size of the hedge fund’s stake in the retailer is not known, the Financial Times reported Friday (Dec. 26), citing unnamed sources.
The move came at a time when Target had 12 consecutive quarters of negative or negligible sales growth...
Travel commerce is shifting from discovery to decision-making as artificial intelligence (AI) agents take control of itineraries and transactions.
This transition is underpinned by a critical pivot in consumer trust. PYMNTS Intelligence data shows that nearly 25% of consumers say they would be comfortable letting an AI agent plan their travel. That matters because travel is a high-...
Dazzle AI, a new startup founded by former Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer, raised $8 million in a seed round.
The company achieved a $35 million post-money valuation in the round, it said in a Tuesday (Dec. 23) press release.
Dazzle AI aims to make artificial intelligence (AI) “more intuitive and genuinely useful” by leveraging Mayer’s experience in user-centered technology and...
JPMorgan Chase reportedly froze accounts used by stablecoin startups BlindPay and Kontigo because they did business in Venezuela and other places subject to sanctions or other restrictions.
Both companies largely focus on Latin America, and they connected to the bank through digital payments firm Checkbook, The Information reported Friday (Dec. 26).
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said...
The story of digital transformation across the Connected Economy is becoming inextricably tied to expectations around uptime.
Whether the system in question is a cloud platform, a payments network or even a blockchain, the five nines, representing 99.999% availability, have become table stakes.
After all, in the early marketing of public blockchains, uptime was treated less as a...
Walmart is reportedly gaining a growing amount of online business in New York City.
The retailer is making these gains even as it has been blocked from building physical stores in the city due to opposition from labor unions and activists, the Financial Times reported Thursday (Dec. 25).
Over the past five years, Walmart’s eCommerce sales have increased in each of the city’s five...
Coupang said that while the perpetrator of a previously announced data leak accessed 33 million accounts, he retained data from only 3,000 accounts, did not transfer the data to others, and later deleted the data when news outlets began reporting the incident.
The company said this in a Thursday (Dec. 25) update in which it shared findings from an ongoing investigation involving...