Lowe’s Companies is introducing Mylow Companion, an AI-enabled employee app developed in partnership with Open AI, developer of the ChatGPT generative AI model. Purpose-built for associate sales floor devices, the app provides access to product details, project advice, and inventory information, and also speeds up the employee onboarding process. According to Lowe’s the launch of MyLow Companion to all associates across its more than 1,700 stores marks the first time a retailer has successfully implemented this kind of technology at scale. Mylow Companion uses generative AI to let associates obtain answers to customer inquiries using natural, conversational prompts, including voice-to-text for faster, hands-free use. Mylow Companion is built on the same platform as Lowe’s recently launched Mylow customer chatbot. Mylow delivers quick, conversational answers directly to customers’ home improvement questions and can provide insights on customer projects during their product discovery, helping ensure they find and purchase the right tools and materials for their projects. Shoppers using Mylow can also refine their local recommendations by providing details like their project budget or ZIP code.
Credit risk transfers comes to complex CRE loans helping banks lower the concentration risk and improve the bank’s CRE ratio, converting a portion of loan portfolio into marketable securities
A financial tool that has made waves in recent years could resurge with a different purpose. As scrutiny of lenders with high concentrations in commercial real estate loans continues, credit risk transfers could offer a way out for the banks. Banks have used the financial instruments for years to free up room on their balance sheets, and the transactions became more popular in the U.S. in 2023, when regulators seemed poised to increase capital requirements. Now, the potential burden of stricter capital rules seems to be in the rearview mirror, but the risks associated with large exposures to commercial real estate loans remain under the regulatory microscope. Credit risk transfers could be a strategy for banks to bring down their concentrations in those assets. Last month, Third Coast Bank in Texas struck a $200 million securitization secured by interests in a portfolio of loans to finance the construction of 11 residential planned communities across Houston, Dallas and Austin. EJF Capital, a global asset management firm, structured the transaction to transfer the risk from the bank’s balance sheet. Bart Caraway, president and CEO of Third Coast, called the $5 billion-asset company’s first securitization “a landmark achievement” in a prepared statement at the time. The transaction should “improve the diversity of the bank’s on-balance sheet loan portfolio.” “By converting a portion of our loan portfolio into marketable securities, we have not only reduced our concentration in commercial real estate, a key focus for regulators and source of potential risk, but also improved our risk-based capital ratios,” Caraway said last month. “The securitization allows us to redeploy capital more effectively into new lending opportunities.” While prior credit risk transfers were focused on solving for a bank’s total amount of capital, the novelty of the Third Coast deal was its goal of reducing the bank’s CRE ratio, said Matthew Bisanz, a bank lawyer at Mayer Brown, which represented EJF in the deal. Before Third Coast’s recent deal, its CRE exposure was around 350% of capital. The transaction brought that ratio down some 10 to 25 basis points, Chief Financial Officer John McWhorter said. Third Coast is also deep in construction and development lending — an area that regulators see as risky if concentrations exceed 100% of total capital. As of the first quarter, the Texas bank’s ratio was 146%. The deal with EJF helped reduce that metric to near 130%, Third Coast’s CFO said. The Texas bank may consider future securitizations, depending on investor demand, McWhorter added. But credit risk transfer deals, especially those focused on bringing down CRE exposures, are far from ubiquitous.
PayPal and Venmo to enable instant in-chat checkout, supporting agentic commerce within Perplexity’s AI answer engine; account linking, tokenized wallet and passkey checkout flows would eliminate the need for passwords
Perplexity has partnered with PayPal to power agentic commerce across its Perplexity Pro platform. Starting this summer in the U.S., consumers can check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo when they ask Perplexity to find products, book travel, or buy tickets. ”This partnership unlocks new possibilities, where conversations now drive commerce,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal. ”We’re making it easy and secure to shop right in the chat when inspiration strikes. It’s a powerful step in making conversational commerce a reality.” The entire process, including payment, shipping, tracking, and invoicing will be handled behind the scenes with PayPal’s account linking, secure tokenized wallet and emerging passkey checkout flows, which could eliminate the need for passwords and streamline the experience to a single user query or click. Key features include: Agentic Commerce: Integration of PayPal’s commerce solutions, enabling users to buy products or services directly in Perplexity’s chat interface. Global Reach: Expanding Perplexity’s commerce tools to PayPal’s 430+ million active accounts across approximately 200 markets. Secure Transactions: Leveraging PayPal’s robust fraud detection and data security protocols.
Presearch’s tech enables highly targeted yet privacy-focused search advertising experience with dashboards displaying only relevant and campaign-specific performance metrics including impressions, clicks, and CTRs
Presearch, the ethical, non-profiling meta-search engine that prioritizes user privacy and does not track users or sell data to advertisers, today announced the launch of its Presearch Advertiser Dashboard, a new way for advertisers to acquire metrics and insights for user search behavior through Presearch Takeover Advertising (PTA) without compromising that user’s privacy. Through the Presearch Advertiser Dashboard, advertisers can gain secure individualized dashboards tailored specifically to their PTA campaigns, displaying only relevant metrics to streamline management and oversight, with staked keyword analytics also coming soon. In addition, advertisers can gain deep insights into campaign performance with detailed PTA campaign-specific metrics, including impressions, clicks, and CTRs, across individual PTAs or aggregated across all campaigns. The Presearch Advertiser Dashboard can also easily export detailed reports, empowering deeper analysis and strategic decision-making. As part of its reporting, the Presearch Advertiser Dashboard also has advanced capabilities that allow advertisers to effortlessly isolate and analyze PTA data by dates, durations, Share of Voice (SOV), PTA Mode (standard or NSFW advertising), user type (registered or non-registered), placement (homepage or search results), device (desktop or mobile) and geography. Presearch.com offers a privacy-focused search experience that delivers search results better to those of prominent search engines.
Cantor Fitzgerald’s risk management expertise and experience in managing Treasury collateral for stablecoin issuer Tether lends credibility to its newly launched bitcoin lending business
Investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has successfully executed its first Bitcoin financing transactions, marking a significant entry by a traditional finance institution into the crypto lending market. The company announced that its Bitcoin Financing Business is now fully operational, with an initial capacity of $2 billion that is expected to expand over time. The launch represents one of the few major traditional finance institutions to enter the crypto lending space directly. Cantor partnered with digital asset custodians Anchorage Digital and Copper.co to safeguard client assets, addressing security concerns that have plagued the sector. Maple Finance, an on-chain asset manager, was among the inaugural borrowers under the program. The crypto lending sector has experienced significant turbulence, with numerous high-profile failures casting doubt on the industry’s stability. However, Cantor’s entry differs from previous crypto lending ventures in several key ways. Unlike the failed firms which were all startups, Cantor Fitzgerald is far more established in terms of managing risk and is one of just 25 primary dealers in the US Treasury markets. The firm’s experience managing Treasury collateral for stablecoin issuer Tether, its largest crypto client, provides additional institutional credibility to its Bitcoin financing operations.
Instacart introduces alcohol-focused Fizz App to tap Gen Z market- lets multiple users contribute to a single order, pay for their own purchases and have them delivered together for a flat fee of $5
Instacart is reportedly rolling out an app targeting Gen Z consumers, centered around group orders of drinks and party snacks. This app, Fizz, lets multiple users contribute to a single order, pay for their own purchases and have them delivered together for a flat fee of $5. Fizz will be complementary to Instacart, with younger users employing the app and then turning to Instacart as their “lives evolve.” The push follows Instacart’s recent move to reduce the minimum spend to $10 from $35 for paid subscribers to receive free delivery, a decision that increased engagement. Instacart began work on the app at the beginning of the year, Daniel Danker, Instacart’s chief product officer said. Merchants offering the drinks and snacks on Fizz are grocery and liquor stores with existing relationships with Instacart. Danker said Fizz will bring more retailers to Instacart.
Walgreens micro-fulfillment centers that use prescription fulfilemt robots generated approximately $500 million in savings by cutting excess inventory and boosting efficiency
Walgreens is expanding the number of its retail stores served by its micro-fulfillment centers as it works to turn itself around and prepares to go private. Those centers use robots to fill thousands of prescriptions for patients who take medications to manage or treat diabetes, high blood pressure or other conditions. Relying on those centers frees up time for pharmacy staff, reducing their routine tasks, eliminating inventory waste and allowing them to interact directly with patients and perform more clinical services such as vaccinations and testing. The centers offer Walgreens a competitive edge, as independent pharmacies and some rivals don’t provide centralized support for their stores. Walgreens aims to free up time for pharmacy staff, reducing their routine tasks and eliminating inventory waste. Walgreens hopes to have its 11 micro-fulfillment centers serve more than 5,000 stores by the end of the year, up from 4,800 in February and 4,300 in October 2023. As of February, the centers handled 40% of the prescription volume on average at supported pharmacies, according to Walgreens. That translates to around 16 million prescriptions filled each month across the different sites. To date, micro-fulfillment centers have generated approximately $500 million in savings by cutting excess inventory and boosting efficiency, said Kayla Heffington, Walgreens’ pharmacy operating model vice president. Heffington added that stores using the facilities are administering 40% more vaccines than those that aren’t.
Twilio’s new ConversationRelay, allows developers to build voice agents using their choice of LLMs; plans to make RCS messaging and WhatsApp Business Calling generally available
Communication tool provider Twilio announced updates including a next-generation customer engagement platform built for an artificial intelligence and data-driven future, along with a new strategic partnership with Microsoft Corp. to advance conversational AI. Leading the list of announcements was a next-generation platform designed to unify communications, data and AI into a single, flexible infrastructure for customer engagement. The platform integrates omnichannel communication tools, including voice, SMS, email, video and over-the top, with contextual data from Twilio’s Segment Customer Data Platform and a growing portfolio of native AI capabilities. The enhancements unveiled by Twilio span three core areas — conversational AI, compliance and personalization. The updates are designed to help businesses deliver more intelligent, compliant and tailored customer engagement at scale. ConversationRelay, a tool that allows developers to build voice agents using their choice of large language models. The service includes features such as real-time streaming, advanced speech recognition, interruption handling and human-like voice rendering. Conversational Intelligence is now generally available for voice and entered private beta for messaging, allowing companies to turn conversations into structured insights. Twilio introduced a new Compliance Toolkit, now in public beta, to help businesses manage requirements such as the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act more easily. The company also announced plans to make RCS messaging and WhatsApp Business Calling generally available later this year. For personalization and insights, Twilio updated its Segment Customer Data Platform with a redesigned Journeys architecture that now supports event-triggered workflows and richer contextual payloads. The improvements are complemented with new integrations for SMS and SendGrid, as well as new partnerships with Amplitude Inc. and Attribution App. Twilio is also expanding data residency options in the EU for email and SMS, further strengthening its global compliance capabilities. Along with product updates, Twilio announced a new strategic partnership with Microsoft to jointly develop and deploy conversational AI experiences at scale. Under the partnership, Twilio will integrate its engagement platform with Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry to power AI-driven communications, including multi-channel AI agents, advanced contact center assistants via Twilio Agent Copilot and multi-modal customer interaction tools.
Chipotle’s new gamified promotion offers extra points and exclusive badges for completing up to four milestones; dashboard tracks Chipotle Rewards members’ performance against other users in their state based on transactions per month
Chipotle Mexican Grill will run a three-month program to give away more than $1 million in free burritos to its U.S. loyalty members. From June 1 to Aug. 31, 2025, Chipotle is offering a gamified promotion for members of its Chipotle Rewards loyalty program. Called “Summer of Extras,” it will let loyalty members earn extra points and exclusive badges for completing up to four milestones per month. Participating loyalty members will also be able to gain sweepstakes entries for a chance to receive free burritos for a year and a limited-edition stainless steel gift card. At the end of the summer, there will be one sweepstakes winner per state in the 48 states in which Chipotle operates, plus Washington D.C., for a total of 49 winners. Once Chipotle Rewards members opt into the “Summer of Extras” program in their account, they will unlock the seven-visit streak challenge described above. Milestones will reset at the beginning of each month, providing opportunities to earn extra benefits, extra points and extra free Chipotle. Participants are limited to two qualifying entrée purchases per day during Summer of Extras. Chipotle is further gamifying “Summer of Extras” with a dashboard that tracks Chipotle Rewards members’ performance against other users in their state based on transactions. Each week from June 1 through August 31, Chipotle Rewards members who have opted into the “Summer of Extras” program can enter the weekly drawings by making any in-restaurant or digital Chipotle entrée purchase or by submitting an online entry, during the applicable entry period for the weekly drawings.
Donatos Pizza to open first fully autonomous restaurant in airport that will operate 24/7 and leverage robotics and data science tech to streamline the customer experience from placing orders to receiving their pizza
Donatos Pizza and its sister company, smart kitchen technology developer Agape Automation, are partnering with robotic food tech provider Appetronix to open the pizza chain’s first robot-operated restaurant in its headquarters city. The new fully automated Donatos Pizza restaurant will debut before security in front of Concourse B at the John Glenn Columbus International Airport in June 2025 and will be operated by franchisee HMS Host. The autonomous restaurant will operate 24/7, leveraging robotics and data science technologies to streamline the customer experience from placing orders to receiving their pizza while they watch it being freshly prepared in real time. The new automated restaurant is part of a larger four-point strategy Donatos Pizza launched in March 2025, which includes innovating for the future, staying relevant, driving sustainable growth and leading with vision. Other high-tech efforts Donatos is undertaking include implementing a new voice AI-based ordering system from Revmo AI that will automate its phone orders. Rollout to all 174 Donatos restaurants across multiple states is expected to be completed by May 2025. The company anticipates that Revmo’s AI-based voice ordering technology will enhance the customer experience and increase order conversions, ultimately driving revenue across its locations nationwide. According to Donatos, this technology has the potential to transform food service in airports, hospitals, college campuses, industrial environments, and other location where a traditional kitchen may not be feasible.