Karen Webster/page/2 news and trends

Why AI Agents Will Live or Die on Permission

October 28, 2026

Related Trends

The Agentic Edge: Who Has It and How to Get It
Artificial Intelligence // October 21, 2026

Remember travel agents? Not the AI kind. The real people kind. For anyone under the age of 30, here’s how it worked. You walked into a little storefront with a poster of a Caribbean island in the window and sat across the desk from someone...

Karen Webster Says the Agentic Enterprise Is Already Here
B2B Payments // October 06, 2026

October. Some readers mark it on the calendar for the return of autumn and chilly temperatures. Others get ready for the full dose of sports that comes with the NFL season and the World Series. Here at PYMNTS, it’s B2B Payments time. This year marks...

As AI Assistants Fight Over Shoppers, Infrastructure Gets Paid Either Way.
Retail // September 30, 2026

In April 1956, a trucking executive named Malcom McLean loaded 58 metal boxes onto a converted tanker in Newark and sent it to Houston. Nobody threw confetti. The longshoremen hated it. But the math was hard to argue with. Loading a ship by hand cost...

Agentic Commerce Needs Its Febreze Moment
Artificial Intelligence // September 23, 2026

In the mid-1990s, Procter & Gamble made a stunning claim. They said they’d invented a miracle in a bottle. A chemist working there found a compound that completely got rid of really bad smells instead of covering them up with a fancy perfume-y spray. Stinky...

Interviews & Exclusives
Apple’s New CEO Has a Hardware Event and an AI Problem

September 08, 2026
John Ternus has been Apple’s CEO for all of eight days, counting weekends, which I’m sure he worked. This coming Wednesday he headlines his first keynote, an event Apple has titled “Surprise and shine.” The press has already told us most of what’s on the slides. I’ll be listening for what isn’t. I’ve spent the […]

Longevity Rewrites the Economics of Inheritance

January 13, 2026
AI-driven longevity is redefining aging, with longer, healthier lives fueling more spending later in life. The result: inheritance happens later and looks very different.

Legacy Business Models Break

January 12, 2026
“Your margin is my opportunity” was Jeff Bezos’s way of describing Amazon’s hunger for bloated profit pools. In 2026, the real question isn’t whether margins get attacked, but who gets...

Online Finally Breaks Brick and Mortar

January 09, 2026
In 2026, online and digitally-influenced retail finally surpasses brick-and-mortar sales in the categories that matter most to modern retail. This moment has been years in the making, obscured less by...

Quick Reads
PYMNTS Launches TechREG™ Platform to Offer Regulatory and Public Policy Intelligence on the Digital Economy

December 06, 2021
When I announced the acquisition of the leading global media and content platform on antitrust and competition policy, Competition Policy International (CPI), six weeks ago, I hinted that it was the first of a series of dedicated efforts to expand our platform and content focus on the issues that would inform the future of the […]

PYMNTS Launches The Connected Economy Platform, CE 100 Tracking Index

June 21, 2021
Two weeks ago, Ferrari named its third CEO in as many years. That wasn’t the big news. This new CEO, Benedetto Vigna, isn’t a car guy but a tech guy,...

Will Facebook Overcome Its Problems In Q3 Results?

October 30, 2018
Investors have their anxious eyes on Facebook this Tuesday (October 30), as the social media operator plans to report third-quarter 2018 results after the market close. The company suffered its...

Passing The Middle-Market Automation Exam

December 16, 2016
Though many financial institutions recognize the opportunity to help middle-market businesses automate their AP payments, they have not been able to fully capitalize on the opportunity. Here the elusive payments...