Retail spent two years bolting chatbots onto websites that could field a shopper’s specific questions but never close a sale. Voice agents built on models like OpenAI’s GPT-Realtime are changing that, holding real sales conversations, asking the same probing questions a floor associate would and...
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Screenless devices seem to be the next frontier in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. There have been rumors that OpenAI’s first device might be a screenless speaker, but nothing concrete has come out. Bloomberg reported in July that the device OpenAI is developing with Jony Ive’s...
Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) started out handling simple tasks. For much of its decades-long commercial life, from Siri to Alexa and beyond, consumers used voice AI tools to check an order, reset a password, find a product or ask about the weather. Get the Full...
August 03, 2026
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May 14, 2026
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 on what comes next. The...
February 17, 2026
Voice technology has spent a decade as a high-tech novelty, a hands-free way to set timers or check the weather that consistently hit a ceiling at the point of transaction....
December 17, 2025
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August 06, 2026
Square has launched a new conversational AI restaurant offering in tandem with Google. 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 daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today. By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications […]
July 23, 2026
telli raised $15 million in a seed round to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) agent builder focused on customer-facing AI agents. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock...
July 09, 2026
Voice AI model builder Gradium has announced that an extension of its seed financing brought its funding to $100 million. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this...
May 17, 2026
OpenAI has reportedly purchased Weights.gg, a startup offering artificial intelligence tools to clone people’s voices. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free...
