Etsy is doubling down on a hybrid approach to artificial intelligence that keeps humans in the loop and ensures shoppers find what they want. The company is pursuing a strategy it calls “algotorial curation,” which blends recommendations by Etsy’s staff with advanced machine learning algorithms to scale curation across its inventory, Chief Product Officer Nick Daniel said. The process starts with human experts identifying trends and selecting listings that are examples of these trends. “After a collection is identified, our engineers use machine learning to expand it from roughly 50 human-curated listings to about 1,000. Finally, we use LLMs to make sure the full collection is aesthetically cohesive, represents a variety of products and meets our standards for quality.” The company uses Google’s Gemini multimodal model to power these experiences. Despite advances in generative AI, Etsy isn’t looking to eliminate humans from the equation. Instead, the company sees AI as a way to enhance human insight at scale, Daniel said. “Rather than removing human expertise from our merchandising work as AI becomes more powerful, we’re leveraging these tools to amplify the expertise of our team and create a more personalized experience. We’re putting human touch — from our buyers to our teams of employees to our sellers — at the center of shopping on Etsy. Because each item on Etsy is listed individually by a real seller, the data we have isn’t uniform — we’re not like a traditional eCommerce marketplace with a catalog or SKUs. AI can help us bridge this gap. We’re leveraging LLMs to extract key product details, like size and color, from listings, which improves search and helps connect the right items to the right buyers,” Daniel said. This strategy has yielded measurable results, boosting visibility and sales. “We used LLMs to generate alt text for listings that didn’t already have it and saw a nearly 5% increase in SEO visits and a nearly 3% increase in conversions to sales attributed to those visits,” he said.
Franz’s Natural Language Query interface builds agentic AI that can understand user intent, can reason over complex data, and take meaningful action through built-in GraphRAG capabilities
Franz Inc., an early innovator in AI and supplier of Graph Database technology for Neuro-Symbolic AI Solutions, has announced AllegroGraph v8.4, with an Enhanced AI-powered Natural Language Query interface AllegroGraph’s advanced natural language queries drive Agentic AI solutions by enabling more intuitive, human-like interaction between users and intelligent systems—critical for agents that need to reason, plan, and act autonomously. Dr. Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz Inc. “This latest release makes it easier for enterprises to build intelligent agents that can understand user intent, reason over complex data, and take meaningful action—bringing us closer to truly autonomous, explainable AI systems.” AllegroGraph v8.4 has enhanced its Natural Language Query interface to allow users to ask questions in natural language and automatically converts them into SPARQL queries for precise Knowledge Graph interrogation. This AI-powered capability depends on the platform’s vector database which contains query examples that help the system learn and improve over time. With this feature, you have built-in GraphRAG capabilities for your agentic AI applications. In this release, AllegroGraph provides enhanced the collaborative workflow around these Natural Language Query examples with new metadata tracking. Additionally, a new tabular view option has been introduced that provides a more structured presentation of query metadata, making it easier to sort, filter, and compare query examples at a glance. This enhancement streamlines the process of maintaining high-quality training examples that drive improved natural language understanding. Other features include: Bridging Documents and Graphs; Security and Access Control; AI Symbolic Rule Generation; Knowledge Graph-as-a-Service; Enhanced Scalability and Performance; and Advanced Knowledge Graph Visualization.
New survey says 52% of Americans are BNPL for everyday purchases; electronics, furniture and home goods are the most popular items purchased through BNPL with an average minimum price of $250
According to a survey by PartnerCentric.com, 52% of Americans now rely on installment-based payment services to cover everyday purchases, including groceries. The most popular items purchased through BNPL include medium to large products like electronics, furniture and home goods, with an average minimum price of $250. But 31% of consumers also reported using those programs for essentials like groceries, highlighting the financial strain many households are facing. BNPL programs are especially popular among younger Americans, with 59 percent of Gen Z and 58 percent of millennials opting for flexible payment methods. The survey also found that 35 percent of consumers plan to use BNPL more frequently in 2025, a figure that jumps to 65 percent among Gen Z. Popular BNPL providers like Afterpay, Affirm, PayPal Pay in 4 and Klarna have become critical financial tools for many Americans, offering flexible installment plans with no interest, helping consumers manage their rising expenses. These options won’t affect credit scores if payments are made on time. Economic uncertainty appears to be adding to the trend. Fifteen percent of survey participants said they tried BNPL in 2025 due to the increased cost of living.
TensorStax’s data engineering AI agents can design and deploy data pipelines through structured and predictable orchestration using a deterministic control layer that sits between the LLM and the data stack
Startup TensorStax is building AI agents that can perform tasks on behalf of users with minimal intervention to the challenge of data engineering. The startup gets around this by creating a purpose-built abstraction layer to ensure its AI agents can design, build and deploy data pipelines with a high degree of reliability. Its proprietary LLM Compiler acts as a deterministic control layer that sits between the LLM and the data stack to facilitate structured and predictable orchestration across complex data systems. Among other things, it does the job of validating syntax, normalizing tool interfaces and resolving dependencies ahead of time. This helps to boost the success rates of its AI agents from 40% to 50% to as high as 90% in a variety of data engineering tasks, citing internal testing. The result is far fewer broken data pipelines, giving teams the confidence to offload various complicated engineering tasks to AI agents. TensorStax says its AI agents can help to mitigate the operational complexities involved in data engineering, freeing up engineers to focus on more complex and creative tasks, such as modeling business logic, designing scalable architectures and enhancing data quality. By integrating directly within each customer’s existing data stack, TensorStax makes it possible to introduce AI agent data engineers into the mix without disrupting workflows or rebuilding their data infrastructure. These agents are designed to work with dozens of common data engineering tools. The best thing is that TensorStax AI agents respond to simple commands. Constellation Research Inc. analyst Michael Ni said TensorStax appears to be architecturally different to others, with its LLM compiler, its integration with existing tools and its no-customer-data-touch approach.
Survey reveals growing preference for seamless and invisible payments: in-app purchasing ability is most desired for food & beverage; millennials and Gen Zers prefer recurring payments
Among parents with children under 25 living at home, 72% say they would prefer to pay for everything through an app if they could, compared to 53% of consumers overall, according to a new survey from embedded payments infrastructure company NMI. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Gen Z and millennials say they’ll take their business elsewhere if in-app payments aren’t an option. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed want to use in-app payments for food and beverage purchases, like restaurants, coffee shops, bars and delivery services. Retail lands in the number two spot, with 53% of consumers opting for in-app payments in this sector. On average, 37% of consumers are interested in using apps to pay for everyday services like car washes and dry cleaning, and 30% for home services such as landscaping and plumbing. Among parents, the interest in these sectors rises significantly to 49% and 42%, respectively. The subscription model is especially popular among millennials (69%) and Gen Zers (66%), who prefer recurring payments for frequently used goods and services. There is also a rising preference for invisible transactions, as 64% of respondents embrace biometric authentication like Face ID or fingerprints, and 59% say the best transactions are the ones that feel like they never happened. Four-in-10 (43%) baby boomers are uncomfortable using biometric authentication, while 40% embrace it for its speed, security and convenience. In-app payments are set to play an even bigger role in business choice throughout 2025. Nearly six-in-10 (59%) consumers say it’s important that merchants offer app-based payments, and half (50%) would choose a business that does over one that doesn’t. Already, half of respondents use in-app payments weekly or more, and 55% expect to increase their usage this year.
Microsoft Copilot AI for SharePoint can access the contents of encrypted spreadsheet including restricted passwords by circumventing download restrictions and information protection principles
Pen Test Partners, a company that specializes in security consulting, specifically penetration testing took a close look at how Microsoft’s Copilot AI for SharePoint could be exploited. The results were, to say the least, concerning. Not least considering an encrypted spreadsheet that the hackers were, quite rightly, rejected from opening by SharePoint, no matter what method was employed, was broken wide open when they asked the Copilot AI agent to go get it. “The agent then successfully printed the contents,” Jack Barradell-Johns, a red team security consultant with the security company, said, “including the passwords allowing us to access the encrypted spreadsheet.” Barradell-Johns explained that during the engagement, the red teamers encountered a file named passwords.txt, located adjacent to an encrypted spreadsheet containing sensitive information. Naturally, they tried to access the file. Just as naturally, Microsoft SharePoint said nope, no way. “Notably,” Barradell-Johns said, “in this case, all methods of opening the file in the browser had been restricted.” The download restrictions that are part of the restricted view protections were circumvented, and the content of the Copilot chats could be freely copied. “SharePoint information protection principles ensure that content is secured at the storage level through user-specific permissions and that access is audited. This means that if a user does not have permission to access specific content, they will not be able to view it through Copilot or any other agent. Additionally, any access to content through Copilot or an agent is logged and monitored for compliance and security.”
Billie is the first B2B pay later solution to become generally available on Stripe- provides real-time approval of buyers at checkout while providing default and fraud risk protection to merchants
Billie, the new standard for B2B payments and a leading provider of payment solutions for business customers, is expanding its availability on Stripe. After launching just last summer, Billie is now the first B2B Pay Later provider to reach general availability status on Stripe’s financial infrastructure. With this, any online shop or marketplace in more than ten countries can now offer Billie to their business customers easily. With Billie, business customers can make purchases and defer a payment for up to 30 days. At the same time, merchants receive payment upfront, making Billie’s payment method a beneficial tool for cash flow management of both merchants and business buyers. Billie makes this possible with real-time approval of buyers at checkout while providing default and fraud risk protection for merchants. Through partnering with Billie, Stripe expands its own offering and enables merchants to offer more payment options and flexibility to business buyers while reducing their credit risk and the administrative burden of collection and dunning processes to zero. Next to Pay Later, Billie is offering additional payment solutions and features including Installments, Trade Accounts, Consolidated Statements, and Recurring Payments. Billie’s solution is seamlessly integrated with Stripe’s platform, making the activation process a matter of minutes and requiring any merchant just to follow a few steps.
Internet Roadtrip allows a thousand users to simultaneously simulate a virtual road trip using Google Street View by voting on what direction for the “car” to drive, to honk the horn or change the radio station
Internet Roadtrip is an MMORTG (massive multiplayer online road trip game). Neal Agarwal, the game’s creator, calls it a “road-trip simulator.” Every 10 seconds, viewers vote on what direction for the “car” to drive on Google Street View — or, you can vote to honk the horn or change the radio station. The direction with the most votes gets clicked, and the car continues on its scenic path to … wherever the chat decides to go. Internet Roadtrip is reminiscent of Twitch Plays Pokémon, an iconic stream from over 10 years ago in which viewers voted on what button to press as part of a collective Pokémon Red game. But Internet Roadtrip is far less chaotic — both because only a thousand or so people are playing at a time, and because we have better organizational tools than we did in the Twitch Plays Pokémon era . Progress on the virtual roadtrip is slow. The car moves at a pace slower than walking. Discord moderators have had to temper newcomers’ expectations, explaining that it’s pointless to suggest driving to Las Vegas from Maine, since it would likely take almost 10 months of real-world time to get there. The same goes for Alaska, but it’s not just a matter of time that’s the issue. “Google Street View works by taking multiple pictures and putting them together. In some areas of the roads leading to Alaska, there are gaps in pictures available and so we would get stuck there, were we to go to these roads,” the Discord FAQ reads. “All potential roads to Alaska have these gaps. We checked.”
Apple is now requiring developers to list their app’s accessibility features; new accessibility features include live captions, personal voice replication, improved reading tools, braille reader improvements, and “nutrition labels”
Apple has announced new accessibility features for iOS, focusing on people with vision or hearing impairments. The company downplays the notion that the price of Apple hardware means accessibility comes at a cost, stating that it is built into its operating system for free. The new features include live captions, personal voice replication, improved reading tools, braille reader improvements, and “nutrition labels” in the app store. Developers will be required to list the accessibility features their app has, such as voiceover, voice control, or large text. Apple’s senior director of global accessibility policy and initiatives, Sarah Herrlinger, said that the nutrition labels would encourage developers to enable more accessibility options in the future. The company also improved its magnifier app, allowing users to zoom in on screens or whiteboards in lectures to read presentations. New braille features include note-taking with a braille screen input or a compatible braille device, and allow for calculation using Nemeth braille. The new personal voice feature can recreate a user’s voice using just 10 phrases, and the voice replication will be password-coded and remain on the device unless backed up to iCloud.
First Internet Bank offers “high-fidelity ACH” wherein the bank sends out test messages with each large payments file to ensure when those transactions are being received by the Federal Reserve
Standard ACH payments can still take up to four days. First Internet Bank is stepping up to fill that breach with its “high-fidelity ACH” system, wherein the bank sends out test messages with each large payments file (like a “canary in a coal mine”) to ensure when those transactions are being received by the Federal Reserve. In turn, this gives business customers a bird’s-eye view to track those transactions via an application dashboard. Hence, the bank’s business customers, such as Check and Ramp — which are piloting the service — can see exactly when payments clear, and reliably guarantee that their end customers (payroll recipients) are getting their money on time. First Internet Bank has been working with Increase for more than two years in developing and rolling out an ACH system that helps business customers continue to reliably deliver their own payments on-time while offering a clear view of how the payments are progressing on an Increase-developed application and when they hit at the receiving depository financial institution, or RDFI. There have been “a series of improvements,” according to Lorch, as the bank and the Bend, a fintech startup have refined their approach and the technology. For his part, CEO and founder of First Internet Bank’s technology partner Increase, Darragh Buckley, sees his company’s facilitation of ACH payments as more of a means of building improvement on the existing system, rather than trying to rip out the entire network and try to start anew. “No one really wants excitement in their payroll,” said Buckley, who previously was employee No. 1 at digital payments giant Stripe. “We want it all to progress boringly [so that] the payroll client knows they have done their job [and] can sleep better at night.”