IKEA is providing training to call center employees to transform them into interior design advisors. The initiative by the Swedish furniture giant is aimed at expanding its range of home improvement services while delegating routine customer inquiries to an artificial intelligence (AI) bot named Billie,...
French startup Mistral AI has reportedly raised a record $113 million in seed funding. The company, founded by artificial intelligence (AI) vets from Google and Meta, launched just weeks ago, the Financial Times reported Tuesday (June 13). That report notes this was the largest-ever seed...
Merchants and online platforms have a user interface problem. Will Gaybrick, president of Product and Business at Stripe, told Karen Webster that pain points at checkout are hampering online conversions, translating into lost revenues. The customer wants a better experience, while the merchant enabling that...
“We have not launched a new payment rail since RTP, and the Fed hasn’t launched a new payment solution for a handful of decades. So this is a major shift.” Eric Foust, vice president of banking partnerships North America at Trustly, told PYMNTS that once...
Does the hyper rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) signal the end of the world? Or the start of a new era? Jason Verlen, senior vice president, product management, at CCC Intelligent Solutions Inc., a cloud platform for the insurance and automotive industries, tells PYMNTS that, in his view,...
Call it the silent killer — of merchants’ bottom lines. The rise of organized retail theft has spared increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill. And Tuesday (June 13), at a hearing titled “The Rise in Organized Retail Crime and the Threat to Public Safety,” members of...
Goldman Sachs is exploring strategic alternatives for its consumer arm and FinTech unit GreenSky as it scales down its retail ambitions. Among the firms that submitted initial bids for the installment lending platform, which Goldman Sachs acquired for $2.24 billion last March, are Apollo Global,...
Overstock.com has put in a $21.5 million bid for some of Bed Bath & Beyond’s assets, including its intellectual property, business internet, and mobile properties, and all business data, CNBC reported Tuesday (June 13). This comes after the bankrupt retailer sought Chapter 11 protection in...
The banking industry is facing several challenges concerning consumer deposits, according to Jennifer Piepszak, co-CEO of JPMorgan Chase’s consumer and community banking unit. Piepszak has predicted that consumer deposits will be “slightly down from here” due to factors such as the Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening program...
