EBay unveiled more seller tools and an open banking-powered financing solution for sellers. The new tools for U.S. sellers include an artificial intelligence assistant for messaging that uses information in the seller’s listing description and order details to draft suggested replies to buyers’ questions about items or shipping, and an Inventory Mapping API that uses AI to generate optimized title and descriptions for the seller’s items. Other new tools include an Offers in Messaging feature that lets buyers and sellers negotiate offers within the messaging thread; a “Your cost” field in the listing flow that helps sellers price their inventory; additional item not received (INR) protections; and automated feedback that ensure positive feedback for sellers who use a tracked service, deliver on time and have no issues. “Every day, we’re focused on accelerating innovation, using AI to make selling smarter, faster and more efficient, while keeping our community’s voice at the center of all that we do,” eBay said. EBay’s integration of open banking into its Seller Capital program will make it easier for sellers to access working capital. When a seller chooses to share real-time cash flow, account balances from outside eBay and other financial data, eBay’s Seller Capital lending partners will gain a more comprehensive view of the seller’s business and make more informed lending decisions.
Retail media networks’ tech stack secrecy hinders growth and trust, while transparent leaders like Home Depot leverage openness to attract and retain brand partners
Retailers are treating their tech partnerships like state secrets—even after contracts are signed and decisions are final. This opacity creates unnecessary friction that limits growth these retailers seek in the rapidly expanding retail media market. The vendors don’t know what problems to solve when retailers keep their challenges private. A basic disconnect explains this secrecy. Retailers view technology as a means to facilitate sales of physical products, focusing primarily on how technology enables product sales rather than directly generating revenue. This perspective leads to what Jordan Witmer, Managing Director at Nectar First, sees as a major problem. “When we’re staring down the barrel of 250 retail media networks, there’s probably only five or six backend technologies powering them,” he notes. His team has learned to identify which technology a retailer uses through careful questioning and reporting patterns, making the secrecy ultimately futile. Home Depot takes a different approach. Melanie Babcock, VP of Orange Apron Media, has been refreshingly transparent about their technology decisions and partnerships. Babcock has been refreshingly open about the company’s technology partnerships. “I’m going to put it in the top five things that we did for our retail media network,” Babcock says of their technology retooling, explaining how it allows them to build on a strong foundation while maintaining control of their roadmap. Retailers clinging to tech stack secrecy are missing the point. The most sophisticated media buyers have already learned to identify underlying technologies through reporting patterns and targeting capabilities. Meanwhile, retailers who embrace transparency—like Home Depot—are positioning themselves as trusted partners rather than black boxes. Here’s what matters: In an ecosystem where brands have choices and technology directly impacts performance, transparency isn’t just good practice—it’s a competitive necessity. Retailers who continue playing hide-and-seek with their tech stacks risk losing advertiser interest, as advertisers take their budgets to partners willing to have honest conversations about how their platforms actually work.
Zendesk’s AI agents for email can automate over 50% of email interactions instantly with responses that reflect a brand’s tone and style
Zendesk is enhancing its Resolution Platform, an AI-first solution that integrates automation, intelligence, and human context to resolve issues faster. The company is introducing new capabilities, including AI Agents for Email, no-code automation, tailored quality controls, AI-powered Generative Search, and proactive real-time monitoring. These enhancements drive faster resolutions, scalable operations, and high-quality experiences, transforming how businesses engage with and support customers. Zendesk’s focus is on building AI-powered solutions that are simple, easy-to-use, and scalable, ensuring businesses can enhance their customer and employee experience without complexity or compromise. The company’s latest innovations in AI, analytics, and workforce management are aimed at making interactions smarter, more relevant, and reflective of India’s market dynamism. AI and Automation Breakthroughs. Intelligent, autonomous tools streamline customer and employee support and deliver tailored responses for better outcomes: Agentic AI³: Zendesk’s agentic architecture enables AI Agents to reason, adapt, and resolve issues end-to-end without manual setup or fixed flows. AI Agents for Email: Automate over 50% of email interactions instantly with responses that reflect a brand’s tone and style. Instructions for AI Agents: Set custom guidelines to keep AI responses accurate, on-brand, and compliant. Multiple Content Sources for GenAI: AI agents access external knowledge like web crawlers to answer across channels. Use Case Suggestions: AI suggests topics to improve automated resolutions with AI agents. Generative Search: Deliver instant AI-powered answers in the Help Centre, powered by generative AI. Agent Instructions in Copilot: Real-time, step-by-step guidance for agents to resolve complex tasks faster without breaking workflow. Auto Assist Enhancements in Copilot: Suggests accurate responses based on solved tickets.
Walker Sands’s AI Domain Impact Index offers insight into how earned media influences GenAI search results by assigning a 0–100 score to any web domain based organic search, inclusion, on-page, real-time retrieval, and citation appearance in the Generative AI Era
Walker Sands has launched the AI Domain Impact Index to help B2B organizations maximize PR effectiveness in today’s GenAI-powered buyer journeys. The Index enables smarter earned media efforts to drive brand discoverability in GenAI-powered buyer journeys. As Google’s search dominance declines and GenAI platforms drive more traffic, the channels for reaching B2B audiences are shifting rapidly. Strategic media placements play a critical role in shaping brand visibility and trust in AI-assisted buyer journeys. The AI Domain Impact Index offers insight into how earned media influences GenAI search results and how brands appear in AI-driven decision-making workflows. The Index assigns a 0–100 score to any web domain based on five weighted criteria: organic search, inclusion, on-page, real-time retrieval, and citation appearance. The scores within the Impact Index evolve over time, as GenAI models continually adjust how they prioritize sources and media publications to optimize for Long-Long Media Moments (LLMs). The results are encouraging: 51% of placements were categorized as high impact, meaning they are highly likely to influence GenAI search responses; 44% were moderately impactful, and only 4% fell into the low-impact tier.
Kontext’s platform creates contextually relevant advertisements dynamically using LLMs tailored to individual user sessions within AI chatbots by analyzing user queries and conversation context and serves them as branded links beneath chatbot responses
Kontext, a startup that develops artificial intelligence-powered advertising infrastructure for generative AI applications, has raised $10 million in seed funding to expand its contextual advertising platform. The company specializes in creating advertisements dynamically using large language models tailored to individual user sessions within AI chatbots and conversational interfaces. Kontext processes tens of millions of daily ad impressions and serves major consumer brands including Amazon, Uber, and Canva. The platform operates by analyzing user queries and conversation context through the same large language models powering the host application. This analysis enables the system to generate contextually relevant advertising content that appears as branded links beneath chatbot responses. Current publisher partners include DeepAI, Media Search, Pixel Chat, and Spicy Chat. The company reports average revenue per user improvements from $0.24 to $0.40 among GenAI applications implementing its advertising layer, representing a 66% increase through ad-supported monetization. Kontext faces competition from startups and established advertising technology companies, with smaller companies with limited funding and traction. Large technology companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TheTradeDesk represent potential competitors, though Kontext argues these companies lack real-time ad product capabilities for third-party advertisements. The company’s team consists entirely of individuals who previously co-founded startups, with technical expertise spans artificial intelligence research, infrastructure development, and advertising technology. The company projects significant market expansion as AI-powered consumer applications achieve mainstream adoption, with major platforms including ChatGPT, Character.ai, and Perplexity representing opportunities for advertising infrastructure similar to previous platform transitions.
Zodia Custody will integrate post-trade infrastructure provider Membrane Labs ’s loan management infrastructure to underpin collateral management for digital assets
Digital assets platform Zodia Custody will integrate post-trade infrastructure provider Membrane Labs ’s loan management infrastructure to underpin and automate key aspects of its collateral management workflows. Membrane’s loan management infrastructure supports the full lifecycle of institutional lending transactions – from origination to repayment – while enabling real-time risk visibility, reconciliation, and counterparty coordination. By adopting Membrane’s infrastructure, Zodia Custody enhances its ability to offer clients an integrated, enterprise-grade financing solution across digital assets. This collaboration brings together two institutional pillars: Zodia’s trusted custody framework and Membrane’s specialized loan lifecycle infrastructure. The result is purpose-built infrastructure that simplifies complexity and strengthens operational readiness for institutions engaged in digital asset financing. “Institutional finance is built on robust, reliable infrastructure,” said Steven Taylor, Head of Collateral Solutions & Strategic Product Development at Zodia Custody. “The partnership with Membrane gives our clients the confidence and efficiency they expect, combining secure custody with sophisticated collateral management automation.”
BlueSnap delivers a unified B2B portal for BigCommerce—streamlining AR automation, ERP payments integration, and branded buyer experience with real-time, bi-directional financial data sync.
BlueSnap announced a groundbreaking integration with Commerce, composable ecommerce platform BigCommerce, to deliver the first B2B payments and AR automation solution purpose-built for BigCommerce B2B Edition. BigCommerce B2B Edition, designed specifically for manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers, now offers enhanced functionality by integrating directly with leading ERP systems – including NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, and QuickBooks – this includes powerful AR automation and bi-directional ERP connectivity through BlueSnap’s integrated platform. This new functionality empowers merchants to streamline operations, improve payment efficiency, and deliver a unified customer experience across ecommerce and financial systems. With this integration, BigCommerce B2B merchants can: Unify Ecommerce & ERP: Sync customer and invoice data in real time between BigCommerce and ERPs like NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Microsoft Dynamics, and QuickBooks—reducing manual work and reconciliation errors. Streamline the Buyer Experience: Let buyers view and pay ecommerce orders and ERP invoices in one branded portal with support for credit cards, payment terms, deposits, and split payments. Automate AR Workflows: Enable autopay, early pay discounts, invoice reminders, and real-time updates to accelerate receivables and improve cash flow. Simplify the Tech Stack: Eliminate third-party middleware, consolidate payment gateways, and reduce tech debt with a fully integrated front-to-back solution. “BlueSnap’s automation solution fills a critical gap in B2B Edition functionality and buyer experience,” said Lance Owide, general manager of B2B at Commerce. “Together, we’re removing inefficiencies, reducing operational costs, and unlocking growth in payment volume potential. BlueSnap is a game-changer for our platform and partners.”
Beauty retailer Hello Sugar scales customer care with PolyAI voice AI, handling all service calls, payments and booking 50% of appointments in under three minutes across 160 U.S. locations.
Hello Sugar, which currently operates more than 160 stores across the U.S. with plans to expand to 500 locations, is rolling out PolyAI voice agents to automate 100% of front-end service calls and help customers with FAQs, hours and locations, creating and rescheduling appointments, and making payments. Before going live with PolyAI, Hello Sugar answered about 20% of the tens of thousands of calls it receives each month, sending the remainder into chat experiences. Partnering with PolyAI enabled the retailer to create a turnkey franchise model, giving franchisees the ability to get up and running with always-on voice AI that answers 100% of calls. Within three weeks, Hello Sugar rolled out PolyAI voice agents to dozens of locations and achieved results including answering 100% of calls in its home state of Arizona; 56% containment, with complex calls transferred to human agents; and 50% of customers booking appointments through PolyAI agents in less than three minutes. Austin Towers, CTO of Hello Sugar said, “Whether they’re calling in, booking through the app, or chatting with a voice agent, it should always feel quick, easy, and personal. We picked PolyAI because its tech actually feels human and aligned with the level of care we aim to give every single customer. It lets us scale without losing what makes Hello Sugar special.”
Orchestra AI’s analytics platform for mid-market businesses detects and categorizes AI agent traffic across major platforms in real-time and measures how AI mentions translate to actual website traffic
Orchestra AI announced the launch of Spyglasses, the first analytics platform designed specifically for mid-market businesses to track and optimize their visibility across AI search platforms. Spyglasses detects and categorizes AI agent traffic across major platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. The platform provides businesses with crucial metrics including AI conversion rates, brand mention frequency across AI responses, and visibility share compared to competitors. Spyglasses utilizes advanced detection algorithms to identify AI agent traffic patterns while providing businesses with actionable insights about their AI search performance. The platform’s analytics dashboard reveals which content AI systems access most frequently, how often brand mentions occur in AI responses, and whether AI-driven awareness translates to website visits and conversions. The platform provides: Real-time AI Agent Detection: Identifies visits from AI systems across all major platforms; AI Conversion Tracking: Measures how AI mentions translate to actual website traffic; Competitive AI Intelligence: Shows how often competitors appear in AI responses; Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Insights: Provides actionable recommendations for improving AI visibility; Multi-platform Integration: Works with WordPress, WebFlow, Shopify, Next.js, Ruby, Python, and more.
Kraft Heinz partners music entertainment company Live Nation to promote its products at music festivals and concerts by integrating them into menu offerings at 80 select venues
Kraft Heinz has entered into a multi-year agreement with music entertainment company Live Nation to bring its products to concertgoers across the country. As part of the deal, the CPG heavyweight will be the Official Condiment and Official Mac & Cheese of 80 select venues in the Live Nation portfolio. Products including Heinz Ketchup, Mustard and Relish, along with Kraft Deluxe Mac & Cheese, will be integrated into menu offerings at the Live Nation venues. The partnership will kick off at the Lollapalooza music festival from July 31 to August 3. “By partnering with Live Nation, we’re able to create unforgettable experiences that bring fans together through food, live music, and entertainment,” said Peter Hall, president of elevation, North America at Kraft Heinz. “As part of our company strategy, we continue to look for ways to engage with consumers anywhere they’re eating outside of the kitchen – including at music festivals, concerts, and more. Our partnership with Live Nation is a great example of this in action, helping us turn up the flavor and highlight our beloved sauce portfolio to music fans nationwide.”