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The Trump administration has proposed a rule to significantly expand drone operations, which could alter America’s shopping habits, boosting retailers like Walmart and Amazon as they expand into delivering consumer packages by autonomous aircraft. The proposal aims to safely integrate drones — technically called unmanned aircraft systems — into the national airspace. Under current rules, operators must seek individual waivers for flights beyond the drone operator’s direct line of visual sight. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Bryan Bedford said comments accompanying the rule announcement that the “Beyond Visual Line of Sight” proposal is “key to realizing drones’ societal and economic benefits.” He cited package delivery first, followed by agriculture, aerial surveying, public safety, recreation and flight testing. An FAA fact sheet said that under the proposal, drone operations would occur at or below 400 feet above ground level, from pre-designated and access-controlled locations. Operators would need FAA approval for the areas where they intend to fly, and proposals for a single operator to fly multiple drones would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

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Gen Digital reported robust first-quarter fiscal 2026 results on August 7, 2025, showcasing strong growth across its cybersecurity and financial wellness segments. The company, which positions itself as a leader in consumer cyber safety and financial wellness solutions, delivered record revenue of $1.257 billion, representing a 30% year-over-year increase. The results demonstrate Gen’s successful integration of MoneyLion into its portfolio, expanding its footprint beyond traditional cybersecurity into comprehensive financial wellness offerings. This strategic expansion comes amid an evolving threat landscape, with the company noting increased sophistication in cyber attacks, including AI-powered ransomware and rising financial scams. Gen Digital reported significant financial growth in Q1 FY26, with non-GAAP earnings per share reaching $0.64, up 20% year-over-year. The company maintained robust operating margins at 51.7%, while bookings increased 32% to $1.202 billion compared to the same period last year. The company’s financial performance was particularly strong, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit EPS growth. This consistent performance reflects Gen’s focused execution and balanced capital allocation strategy. Breaking down the results further, Gen’s Q1 FY26 performance showed strength across multiple financial indicators. Gross profit increased 27% year-over-year to $1.057 billion, though gross margin contracted slightly by 2 percentage points to 84%. Operating income grew 15% to $650 million, while operating expenses increased 51% to $407 million, primarily due to the integration of MoneyLion. Gen’s business is divided into two main segments: Cyber Safety Platform and Trust-Based Solutions. The Cyber Safety Platform, which includes security, cyber safety suites, and privacy business lines, delivered revenue of $869 million, up 11% year-over-year, with an impressive operating margin of 61%. Meanwhile, the Trust-Based Solutions segment, encompassing identity, reputation, and financial wellness offerings, saw revenue surge 110% to $388 million, driven by the MoneyLion acquisition. Gen Digital has positioned itself at the center of consumers’ digital lives, offering a comprehensive suite of services spanning privacy, security, identity, and financial wellness. The company’s strategy revolves around building trust with consumers through integrated solutions that address multiple aspects of digital life. A key strategic focus for Gen has been its expansion into financial wellness through the MoneyLion acquisition. This move has significantly broadened the company’s offerings beyond traditional cybersecurity into a comprehensive financial ecosystem that includes personal financial management, marketplace products, and financial offers. The MoneyLion integration has created what Gen describes as “The Ultimate

Financial Marketplace,” with an ecosystem of over 1,300 partners that drove approximately 90 million customer inquiries in Q1 FY26.

This marketplace represents a significant revenue opportunity through partner channel growth. Gen’s customer base has expanded significantly, with total paid customers reaching 76.2 million in Q1 FY26. This includes 40.6 million direct customers, 27.6 million partner customers (excluding MoneyLion), and 8.2 million MoneyLion customers. The company has maintained strong customer retention at 78%, with direct monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) of $7.25. The company has integrated Norton

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Stripe is building a high-performance blockchain called “Tempo” to fill a critical gap in its crypto stack, complementing its recent acquisitions of stablecoin startup Bridge and wallet infrastructure provider Privy. Stablecoins promise to make crypto mainstream by delivering faster, cheaper, and more interconnected global payments. However, the same move could undercut what the technology set out to achieve. With the GENIUS Act now law, the next 12-18 months will likely determine the outcome. In the history of technology, the pendulum regularly swings between centralization and decentralization. Once concentration becomes too high, entrepreneurs and developers invent new approaches to reverse it. Bitcoin’s purpose was to break free from centralized intermediaries, and entrepreneurs and developers have applied the same principles to bring decentralization back to other digital platforms. However, progress toward decentralization is mixed, with Bitcoin allowing anyone around the world to be their own bank, while the vast majority of consumers and institutions rely heavily on intermediaries for custody and use. The battle for the future of payments is unfolding now, as legacy infrastructure is siloed and incumbents have tremendous power over what we can access and on what terms. Crypto is a natural, market-driven solution to this, providing neutral and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, as well as truly open and interoperable financial rails via their base layers. However, two core problems have emerged: the first problem is that cryptocurrencies are volatile and therefore expensive for payments and financial contracts. To address this, the market has focused on fiat-backed stablecoins, leading to centralization and distributed governance of a stablecoin network. The second problem crypto has run into is that decentralization is expensive, and most transactions no longer occur on the base layers (L1s) but on a sprawling ecosystem of high-throughput scaling solutions (L2s).

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Citigroup is exploring providing stablecoin custody and other services, a top executive told Reuters, in a further sign sweeping policy changes in Washington are spurring major financial firms to expand into the cryptocurrency business. The U.S. bank is among a handful of traditional institutions, including Fiserv and Bank of America, considering pushing into stablecoins after Congress passed a law paving the way for the crypto tokens to become widely used for payments, settlement, and other services. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to a fiat currency or another asset, commonly the U.S. dollar. That law requires stablecoin issuers to hold safe assets such as U.S. Treasuries or cash to back the digital coins, creating opportunities for traditional custody banks to provide safekeeping and administration of the assets. “Providing custody services for those high-quality assets backing stablecoins is the first option we are looking at,” Biswarup Chatterjee, global head of partnerships and innovation for Citigroup’s services division, said in an interview. Citi’s services business, which includes treasury, cash management, payments, and other services to large companies, remains a core unit for the bank, which has been undergoing a major restructuring. Citi is also exploring custody services for digital assets that back crypto-related investment products. For example, many asset managers have launched ETFs tracking the spot price of bitcoin since the Securities and Exchange Commission authorized such products last year. The largest bitcoin ETF, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, has around $90 billion in market capitalization. “There needs to be custody of the equivalent amount of digital currency to support these ETFs,” Chatterjee said. Citi is also exploring using stablecoins to speed up payments, which in the traditional banking system typically take several days or longer. Currently, Citi offers “tokenized” U.S. dollar payments that use a blockchain network to transfer dollars between accounts in New York, London, and Hong Kong 24 hours a day. It is developing services to allow clients to send stablecoins between accounts or to convert them to dollars to make instant payments, and is talking to clients about the use cases, Chatterjee added. Citi is also exploring using stablecoins to speed up payments, which in the traditional banking system typically take several days or longer. Currently, Citi offers “tokenized” U.S. dollar payments that use a blockchain network to transfer dollars between accounts in New York, London, and Hong Kong 24 hours a day. It is developing services to allow clients to send stablecoins between accounts or to convert them to dollars to make instant payments, and is talking to clients about the use cases, Chatterjee added.

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Across boardrooms, enterprise AI has become the biggest line item in the innovation budget — yet it’s also become the biggest source of anxiety. Andrew Frawley, CEO of Data Axle, believes the major problem begins before even a single line of code is written. “The real issue isn’t the technology itself, but the foundation,” he told me. “Companies are obsessing over models while neglecting or under-nurturing the one thing those models rely on: data.” Fragmented records and siloed systems have become default conditions in most enterprises. AI only exposes those fractures faster and at scale. “Some brands, blinded by AI’s possibilities and potential, rush for immediate deployment while bypassing the crucial, foundational work of establishing a data infrastructure,” he explained. “The most critical steps — which include establishing data ownership, building governance into workflows and enforcing quality standards — often get pushed aside in the interest of speed.” But that, according to Frawley, always results in misfires that damage trust. Udo Foerster, CEO of German consultancy Advan Team, sees similar dysfunction among the businesses he advises. For all the talk of algorithms, it’s the invisible plumbing beneath AI that’s doing the damage. Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, flagged another overlooked bottleneck: The physical limits of AI’s appetite for energy and infrastructure. Frawley says that without clear strategy and clean data, models confidently push the wrong action. “Deploying AI on fragmented or inaccurate data is an act of self-sabotage,” he said. “It will amplify existing flaws, erode the quality of analytics and introduce a false sense of confidence in misinformed decisions. With fragmented or inaccurate data, they amplify errors and bias at speed, autonomously executing actions, pushing a business further in the wrong direction before the problem can be detected.”

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Vibe coding, which lets anyone build apps without knowing coding, opens the door to a new economy of solo entrepreneurs. When Justin Jin launched Giggles, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered entertainment app, he and his partners leaned on AI to build the product, landing nearly 150,000 people on a waitlist and racking up 150 million impressions in weeks. After debuting on Apple’s App Store recently, the app hit the top 50 at its peak, Jin said. “The real opportunity for the next social network lies in enabling 100% of users to participate fully in content creation,” Jin told. “That’s where AI comes in at Giggles.” Replit CEO Amjad Masad cited the case of a British doctor using vibe coding to build a health-tracking app for 200 pounds ($270) and an Uber driver with trucking experience able to build a logistics app on Replit’s vibe coding platform. “We see entrepreneurs from all walks of life,” Masad said. He noted that the trajectory of new company creation in the U.S. has been declining in past decades, but “with AI, we’re going to see that explode again.” “This is the easiest, most accessible programming language ever because everyone knows it. You don’t even need to be grammatically correct,” Yaakov Sash, founder and CEO of Casso.ai said. “This will make software creation virtually costless and frictionless.” Sash said that if anyone can create software instantly, “then the very process of solving problems, creating businesses, and generating value becomes radically more efficient—forming the basis for a new economy.” Jonathan Garini, CEO and enterprise AI strategist at fifthelement.ai, said “Vibe coding could turn into a “meaningful economy” because it democratizes access, even if it won’t replace the traditional ways of developing software.”

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Lots across the U.S. are using systems that let customers park their cars without swiping a credit card or paying an attendant. AI company Metropolis bought SP+ Parking, one of the biggest parking companies in the world, and added its AI-recognition technology to thousands of parking lots across the United States. The system requires a driver to enter their credit card information the first time they park, using a QR code, and then an AI camera system recognizes their vehicle by its license plate and charges them for the duration of their stay.  Drivers have to provide their credit card information only the first time they use the service. On subsequent parking trips, they just drive into the lot and the system charges them appropriately.  This method of parking will become more ubiquitous as consumers become accustomed to the ease and convenience, said Andrew Radlow, an industry consultant and former executive for the now defunct cashierless payment provider Grabango, who advises companies like Metropolis. “You literally have the ability to just drive in,” Radlow said. “The experience of waiting to get in, or waiting for someone to take your ticket is all obviated by AI.” The payment method is also used at toll booths and now accounts for millions of transactions daily, Radlow said. The AI-assisted parking system is one of the ways the payments industry is embracing embedded methods of payment, according to industry insiders.

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NielsenIQ in collaboration with World Data Lab issued a comprehensive generational spending report focused on Gen X. The report found that despite being smaller in size than Millennials or Gen Z, Gen X would form the world’s second-largest consumer market—second only to the U.S. and roughly twice the size of China’s total spending—in 2025. When buying well-known, large brands, nearly three-quarters (72%) of Gen X respondents say they usually buy “name brands” made by a big national or international manufacturer rather than store-branded private label products. 35% of Gen X respondents allow smart devices to automatically order new products, 39% accept product recommendations from an AI assistant, and 40% leverage AI to automate and speed up daily tasks. 58% of Gen X respondents say they avoid sharing details in virtual interactions because they don’t trust AI data privacy, but more than one-third say they are likely to purchase a product or service they have experienced solely through an augmented or virtual reality platform. Often called “the sandwich generation,” Gen Xers influence purchasing by their parents and their dependent children. Gen X women control 50% of global consumer spend, influencing 70–80% of household purchasing decisions. North America: Gen X is the core spending engine through 2033. In the US, Gen X households spend more per household than Boomers or Millennials in most CPG categories. Wealthier Gen Xers are concentrated in city centers. Western Europe: Gen X dominates in the UK and Germany, with strong spending in Health & Beauty, Frozen Food, and Travel. Asia Pacific: Gen X spending is peaking in China, while Millennials and Gen Z lead in India. Latin America: Brazil will become a Gen X-led economy by 2028, while Mexico is already Millennial- and Gen Z-driven. Key highlights: In the next five years (2025-2030), Gen X is projected to increase spending across three key categories: Food & Non-alcoholic Beverages (+$507 billion); Beauty (+$80B); Beverage Alcohol (+$42B). Gen X is comprised of tech-savvy decision-makers who influence purchases across generations and embrace omnichannel shopping. Gen X behaviors and needs are nuanced, highlighting the need for brands and retailers to examine regional and local data to maximize incrementality from this cohort.

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AI and white-collar layoffs have office workers feeling paranoid about job security: the threat of AI taking jobs, stricter return-to-office pushes, and a new hardcore culture that’s eroding work-life balance. There’s also the hollowing out of middle managers, and the Great Flattening has left some with fear that they’ll be next. “Workers are feeling disempowered,” Michele Williams, a professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa, said, adding that this trend reared its head during the 2008 recession and is now back again. It’s what experts call “paranoid attribution,” where employees read negative meaning into regular workplace occurrences. The paranoia may be more psychological than based in reality. Overall, layoffs are still low and concentrated in white-collar sectors, especially at big-name companies that dominate headlines. While hiring has slowed in the last year, the unemployment rate is still relatively low, as well. However, it has gotten much more difficult to get a new white-collar job, and promotions have slowed way down. Attention on layoffs, as Business Insider’s Tim Paradis writes, might bite into productivity amid worker unease. Williams said that workers become less engaged as their energy shifts from actually getting work done toward worrying and becoming hypervigilant. On the other hand, employees might also cling harder to old adages about becoming indispensable at work. This is what some Big Tech companies are hoping for when they place more emphasis on performance reviews in a shift toward a more “hardcore” management style.”But if you push it to the extreme, you’re going to have workers hoarding information and knowledge because then they become indispensable,” she said. “But the sharing of that knowledge is what the organization needs to increase collaboration and innovation.”

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The largest U.S. bank, JPMorganChase, has been in conversations with data aggregators — companies like Plaid that draw customer data from banks and feed it to their fintech clients — to charge them for this data. The bank said the new fees are intended to offset the costs of maintaining a secure system for protecting customer data; it did not say how much it will charge. “We’ve invested significant resources creating a valuable and secure system that protects customer data,” said JPMorgan spokeswoman Emma Eatman. “We’ve had productive conversations and are working with the entire ecosystem to ensure we’re all making the necessary investments in the infrastructure that keeps our customers safe.” The conversations between JPMorgan and the data aggregators have been constructive, according to a person familiar with those discussions. “There is an understanding and agreement that there is value that [the bank has] created through significant investments in building up infrastructure for data sharing,” this person said. “The aggregators have been leveraging that, and they built businesses off of that. The bank should be getting compensated for the value of the significant investment it made.” For data aggregators, “the cost of goods sold has been zero. They charge their customers, the fintechs, and they have not had to pay in any way to actually get any of that data,” the person familiar with the conversations said. The move, which was first reported in Bloomberg, drew an immediate backlash. The Financial Data and Technology Association, a group that represents data aggregators including Plaid, Intuit and Trustly, objected on several grounds. “JPMorganChase is exploiting regulatory uncertainty to levy an arbitrary and punitive tax on competitive offerings,” FDATA said in a statement shared with American Banker. “This is a blatant effort to curtail innovation and undermine a stronger American financial system.” It is assumed that data aggregators will pass bank fees on to fintechs. PayPal’s stock price dropped 2.8% after the news came out, a hit that Yahoo Finance attributed to the data access fees.  “This is huge,” Todd H. Baker, senior fellow at the Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy at Columbia Business and Law Schools, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “By some accounts, 25% of U.S. individuals are customers of JPMorganChase. Many U.S. fintechs require that data for their apps to work. If they have to pay for it, watch out. JPMorgan’s plan to charge fees to aggregators comes after a decade of rancor between banks, fintechs and data aggregators over the sharing of consumers’ bank account data. Banks historically have seen their customer databases as information they need to protect and use to provide their customers with products and services. Fintechs see their own products and services as more innovative and popular than banks’ offerings; many of them depend on bank account data to function properly.  Data aggregators like Plaid originally established themselves as middlemen by getting consumers to provide them with their bank account login data, accessing banks’ online banking sites with the consumers’ credentials and siphoning out that data, then passing it on to fintech clients, without telling the banks what was going on. To banks, these high-volume, automated hits on their core systems looked like denial of service attacks or malware and sometimes overloaded their servers. Over the years, data aggregators established relationships with banks whereby they pulled customer data out of the banks through application programming interfaces; JPMorgan was one of the first banks to come to such agreements.

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