News

Artificial Intelligence
Nearly 4 in 10 CFOs See Gen AI Paying Off Within Two Years
August 14, 2026

CFOs have stopped treating generative artificial intelligence returns as one date circled on the calendar. By December, 39.1% expected very positive returns within one to two years, even as 26.1% expected the payoff to take six years or longer. Get the Full Story Complete the...

Acquiring
Citi Plans to Acquire Kard to Deliver More Personalized Rewards
August 13, 2026

Citi’s U.S. Consumer Cards business plans to expand its customer engagement and commerce media capabilities by acquiring Kard Financial, a commerce media and rewards platform for banks and FinTechs, Citi said in a Thursday (Aug. 13) press release. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock...

Artificial Intelligence
AI Just Got Its First 24/7 TV Channel
August 13, 2026

Fairground AI Creator TV is a channel that runs entirely artificial intelligence (AI)-generated video 24 hours a day, seven days a week, interrupted only by AI-generated commercials. That makes it the first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel built exclusively from AI content, Fairground Entertainment...

Investments
Databricks Raises $5 Billion to Expand Enterprise AI Agent Platform
August 13, 2026

Data and artificial intelligence (AI) company Databricks raised $5 billion in a strategic funding round at a $190 billion valuation, the firm said in a Thursday (Aug. 13) press release. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS...

Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar Built an AI-Native Department. Mid-Market CFOs Can Start Smaller.
August 13, 2026

Most mid-market CFOs are not going to build OpenAI’s finance stack. They do not have the same engineering resources, access to frontier models or appetite for rebuilding finance workflows from first principles. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy...

Artificial Intelligence
Microsoft Unifies Consumer and Enterprise Copilot in Push for Single Platform
August 13, 2026

Microsoft has begun combining its consumer and enterprise Copilot apps into a single product, starting a gradual transition that will culminate in a super app the company has been building to compete more directly with ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Get the Full Story Complete the...

Retail
Amazon Wants Alexa to Look Inside the Fridge and Fill the Cart
August 13, 2026

Amazon’s latest Alexa demonstration looked almost trivial: photograph a refrigerator, ask what groceries are missing, and let artificial intelligence assemble the shopping list. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no...

Retail
AI Just Made Retail’s Long Tail Pay Off
August 13, 2026

For two decades, retail discovery has rewarded whatever already sold. A product with more buyers gets more visibility, more visibility brings more buyers, and the cycle repeats. Popular items get more popular while everything else stays buried. Get the Full Story Complete the form to...

Artificial Intelligence
DeepSeek Introduces Peak-Hour Pricing That Quadruples Current Levels
August 13, 2026

DeepSeek is adding peak-hour pricing for its flagship V4 models that will quadruple the current levels, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Aug. 13). Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required. yesSubscribe to our...