Pinterest is introducing new features to let users find ideas that match their personal tastes. The new visual search tools will first be available for women’s fashion content in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., eventually moving to more categories. The new tools let users find what they’re searching for without using words, by breaking down and decoding images so users can quickly search and shop for the details of an outfit they like. “Whether it’s an overall aesthetic, a color palette, a specific fit, or product category, when users view a Pin, we’ll now generate the words they can use to figure out what they like about the image, and then further explore and shop,” the company said. To help users identify and select the objects that they want more easily, the company says it has added a new animated glow. Also new is a “refinement bar” to help users narrow down their search results and find things that match their style. The company said the new search options are powered by visual language models (VLMs), a form of generative artificial intelligence (AI), to offer users a “more expansive visual ‘vocabulary’ to ‘describe’ their style ideas.” “Our visual search technology represents a shift in how users interact with and discover inspiration,” Dana Cho, Pinterest vice president of design, said. “We’re not simply delivering search results — we’re curating a personalized journey of discovery that empowers individuals to find their unique style, and shop it too.”
Lowe’s rolls out AI assistant for 1700 store associates, marks the first time a retailer has successfully implemented this kind of technology at scale
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.
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.
Indiana’s HEA 1125 recognizes that On-Demand Pay is a unique financial product, and mandates appropriate consumer protections
Indiana has passed earned wage access (EWA) legislation into law. “Indiana’s HEA 1125 codifies the industry’s best practices into law, including recognizing that On-Demand Pay is a unique financial product, and mandating appropriate consumer protections,” EWA provider DailyPay said. The company added that Indiana joins other states, including California, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and South Carolina. Indiana’s HEA 1125 codifies the industry’s best practices into law, including recognizing that On-Demand Pay is a unique financial product, and mandating appropriate consumer protections. Indiana now joins multiple states across the country, including California, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and South Carolina, which have also taken affirmative steps to ensure appropriate regulation is in place for the product. “We applaud Indiana legislators for responding to the realities facing working people in the state and ensuring continued access to a crucial financial option with common-sense guardrails that allow consumers and businesses to benefit,” DailyPay Vice President of Public Policy Ryan Naples. The company will make its On-Demand Pay platform available to new and existing clients with operations in Canada, DailyPay said. “Expanding into Canada is a major step in our mission to better serve our multinational clients and partners and to provide On-Demand Pay to everyone, everywhere,” DailyPay Vice President of International Josh Durodola said.
eBay’s new shopping agent will show up wherever a customer is in their buying journey, either by reacting to their request or through predictive messaging inline on the page
eBay is equipping customers with agentic AI capabilities to help personalize and streamline their shopping experience. The new eBay agentic AI shopping assistant delivers real-time, hyper-personalized product picks and expert guidance based on a customer’s shopping preferences as they explore the eBay site. eBay’s new shopping agent will show up wherever a customer is in their buying journey, either by reacting to their request or through predictive messaging inline on the page the user is visiting. eBay is also participating in the research preview of Operator, a new agentic AI solution from OpenAI, developer of the ChatGPT generative AI model. To use Operator, consumers describe the task they would like performed, such as locating a desired product to purchase, and Operator automatically handles the rest. On the shopper side, the retailer offers “Shop the look,” a generative AI tool that provides an immersive carousel of suggested outfits, tailored to customers’ shopping history. eBay has released a “magical” seller listing solution that uses AI to analyze, research and extrapolate details about listings from seller-provided data. The company also offers a selling tool called the “magical bulk listing tool” that leverages generative AI to let sellers upload batches of product images for which eBay will generate draft listings with suggested categories, titles, and item specifics within seconds.
Korl hyper-customize customer messaging by orchestrating an “ensemble of models” across OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic
Startup Korl’s platform works across multiple systems to help create highly customized communications. The multi-agent, multimodal tool uses a mix of models from OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic to source and contextualize data. Korl’s AI agents aggregate information from across different systems — such as engineering documentation from Jira, outlines from Google Docs, designs from Figma, and project data from Salesforce — to build a multi-source view. The platform then automatically generates personalized quarterly business reviews (QBRs), renewal pitches, tailored presentations and other materials for use in important customer milestones. The company’s core differentiator is its ability to deliver “polished, customer-ready materials” such as slides, narratives and emails, “rather than merely analytics or raw insights.” Korl orchestrates an “ensemble of models” across OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic, selecting the best model for the job at the time based on speed, accuracy and cost. The company has implemented “sophisticated fallback mechanisms” to mitigate failures. “Rather than just semantic or field-name matching, our approach evaluates additional factors like data sparsity to score and predict field matches,” said Berit Hoffmann, CEO and co-founder of Korl. To speed the process, Korl combines low-latency, high-throughput models (such as GPT-4o for rapid, context-building responses) with deeper analytical models (Claude 3.7 for more complex, customer-facing communications). “This ensures that we optimize for the best end user experience, making context-driven tradeoffs between immediacy and accuracy,” Hoffmann explained. Early indications suggest Korl can unlock at least a 1-point improvement in net revenue retention (NRR) for mid-market software companies because it uncovers previously unrealized product value and makes it easy to communicate that to customers before they churn or make renewal or expansion decisions. The platform also improves efficiency, reducing deck preparation time for each customer call from “multiple hours to minutes,” according to Hoffman.
Target is prioritizing offering more options in its checkout experience, on-trend affordable assortments, omnichannel discovery, enhanced supply chain and fulfillment capabilities, expanded Target Circle membership, and strategic partnerships
Target is sharing how customers feel about the lanes, as well as how it is adapting to the ways in which its shoppers currently prefer to engage in the checkout process. Target says the Express Self-Checkout service has created an overall faster checkout experience, with total transaction times improving by nearly 8%. Additionally, the retailer has improved its Net Promoter Score (NPS) for checkout by 5 points. At the same time, Target has opened even more traditional checkout lanes, and recently found that a greater share of guests are choosing to make their purchase through those lanes that are staffed by our team members. Adrienne Costanzo, EVP and chief stores officer said, “By giving them a few options for checking out — on their own, with a team member or even using Drive Up — we’re making their experience fast, easy and on their terms.” Elsewhere in its business, Target shared in March that it is focusing on on-trend affordable assortments, omnichannel discovery, enhanced supply chain and fulfillment capabilities, expanded Target Circle membership, and strategic partnerships. Investments in these areas aim to accelerate Target’s strategy and drive more than $15 billion in sales growth by 2030.
Parloa’s low-code interface gives businesses the ability to create AI agents equipped with prebuilt or custom skills for tasks such as routing, authentication and handling frequently asked questions
Agentic artificial intelligence for customer experience startup Parloa GmbH announced that it has raised $120 million in new funding on a $1 billion valuation to accelerate its expansion across North America and Europe, enhance its Agent Management Platform and hire international talent. Parloa offers the AI Agent Management Platform, a platform that allows enterprises to design, deploy and manage AI-powered customer service agents across various communication channels, including voice, chat and messaging. The platform works via a low-code interface that gives businesses the ability to create AI agents equipped with prebuilt or custom skills for tasks such as routing, authentication and handling frequently asked questions. The agents are flexible by design and can be tailored to specific business needs, including integration with existing systems such as Salesforce Inc., ServiceNow Inc. and Zendesk Inc. for real-time access to relevant data. To complement its core offering, Parloa provides tools, such as large-scale testing and behavior evaluation, to fine-tune responses before deployment. Once live, a customer analytics dashboard delivers the ability to monitor key performance metrics for the continuous improvement of customer interactions. Parloa’s platform also assists human agents with features like real-time translation and suggested responses. The augmentation enhances agent productivity and ensures consistent customer service quality across different languages and regions.
The Hispanic Organization of Mortgage Experts (HOME) announced the launch of La Reina, the first-ever shoe created for women in mortgage
The Hispanic Organization of Mortgage Experts (HOME) announced the launch of La Reina, the first-ever shoe created for women in mortgage. La Reina, which is Spanish for “the Queen,” was designed in partnership with AliveShoes and manufactured in Le Marche, Italy. Nicole Yelland, HOME’s chief communications and strategy officer, told that the shoe pays homage to women in the mortgage industry who often have to resort to heels at business events. Each pair of shoes features a metallic gold sole to honor Hispanic and Latino culture. Besides the sole, the shoe is black and “high-end leather intended to go well with a suit,” Yelland said. “The other part of wanting to have a shoe that honors Hispanic and Latino culture is just to help people see it right. But people can’t know what they don’t see.” “Inspired by global voices like Bad Bunny, who use their platforms to push culture forward, we are shining a light on these powerful forces and giving them the recognition they deserve,” he added. “Launching during Mother’s Day week, La Reina will continue celebrating them throughout the year.”
US Treasury report on stablecoins mulls upside of offering interest – based on estimates that stablecoins will grow to $2 trillion by 2028
The US Treasury’s Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) explored the impact of stablecoins on the demand for short term Treasuries. One topic was mentioned repeatedly – the potential for stablecoins to offer interest. The last iteration of the Senate’s stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act, introduced a clause that banned the payment of stablecoin interest before receiving a positive vote by the Senate Banking Committee. The TBAC report used a figure from Standard Chartered research that estimates that stablecoins will grow to $2 trillion by 2028 assuming stablecoins don’t pay interest. As an aside, Citi also recently published forecasts. The mid April capitalization of stablecoins was $234 billion, which accounts for approximately $120 billion investment in short-dated Treasuries. Combining that with Standard Chartered’s figure, the report estimates that stablecoin investment in Treasuries will expand to $1 trillion by 2028. If stablecoins were to offer interest, the figure could be quite a bit higher, although no forecast was provided. That would account for a significant slice of the short term Treasury Bill market, which currently has a $6.4 trillion issuance. A key reason why most global stablecoin regulation has not supported the payment of interest is because there is a concern that bank deposits might shift to stablecoins, potentially affecting the economy with less credit available from banks, or credit might become more expensive. The TBAC report states that transactional demand deposits at banks that total $6.6 trillion are most “at risk” from stablecoins. Apart from delving into the potential for stablecoins to offer interest, two other issues were floated – the potential to allow stablecoin issuers access to the Federal Reserve and / or deposit insurance. This would help reduce the impact of de-peg events.