Connected Economy

The innovations in technology, connected devices, software, payments and cellular technology make it possible for people and businesses to connect with each other and do business via any device, an in any digital or physical location safely, securely, and in real time. This integration of the digital and physical worlds will transform the economy across the ten pillars that today represent its key cornerstones – pillars that are already experiencing the impact of disruptive innovation as new blended, digital-first experience-driven ecosystems are now taking shape.

Amazon Turns Alexa Into Its Next Storefront

Amazon Turns Alexa Into Its Next Storefront
Amazon Turns Alexa Into Its Next Storefront
May 14, 2026  |  Retail

For years, retail’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions revolved around making search smarter. Now, Amazon and Walmart—two of the world’s biggest retailers—are placing very different bets...

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AI Needs Customers More Than Chips 
AI Needs Customers More Than Chips 
May 14, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

The artificial intelligence (AI) story has been framed as a provider arms race. Nvidia earnings became macroeconomic events, data centers turned into strategic assets, and...

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Consumers Are Learning to Trust AI Through Shopping
Consumers Are Learning to Trust AI Through Shopping
May 14, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

Product link discovery has the highest adoption rate of any personal artificial intelligence (AI) task measured in a new PYMNTS Intelligence study, and it’s the...

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Anthropic Scales Claude AI Across 7 Small Business Apps
Anthropic Scales Claude AI Across 7 Small Business Apps
May 13, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

Anthropic’s Claude for Small Business plugin will bring new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered capabilities to tools commonly used by small businesses, the company and its partners said...

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The AI Coding Boom Is Breaking CFOs’ Enterprise Budgeting Cycles
The AI Coding Boom Is Breaking CFOs’ Enterprise Budgeting Cycles
May 13, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

Enterprise product development runs on assumptions about how long things take, how much they cost and who needs to sign off. The rise of agentic...

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Virgin Voyages Turned 1,500 AI Agents Into a Workforce
Virgin Voyages Turned 1,500 AI Agents Into a Workforce
May 13, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

Virgin Voyages now runs more than 1,500 active artificial intelligence (AI) agents across its shoreside and shipboard operations. The results are showing up in the...

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APIs Are Making Bank Data Harder to Protect
APIs Are Making Bank Data Harder to Protect
May 13, 2026  |  Cybersecurity

In the age of application programming interfaces (APIs) and artificial intelligence (AI), data governance is becoming harder for banks than perimeter defense. After all, the...

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Anthropic Scales Legal AI as Lawyers Become Cowork’s Top Users
Anthropic Scales Legal AI as Lawyers Become Cowork’s Top Users
May 12, 2026  |  Artificial Intelligence

Anthropic has added several new tools to Claude for the legal industry. These include more than 20 Model Context Protocol (MCP) connectors that link Claude to legal industry...

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