Talkdesk upended the customer experience (CX) market with the launch of Customer Experience Automation (CXA)—a new software category and platform purpose-built to automate the full complexity of modern customer journeys. The Talkdesk CXA platform introduces a new operating system for customer experience—built on multi-agent AI orchestration and fueled by the Talkdesk Data Cloud, which unifies structured and unstructured data across every customer interaction, channel, and system of record. By turning transcripts, call recordings, messages, and case notes (combined with customer data points from multiple CRMs and specialized systems) into actionable knowledge, the Data Cloud gives AI agents the context they need to solve real business problems intelligently, autonomously, and at scale. Talkdesk CXA deploys a network of specialized AI agents—each with a clear role, shared context, and the ability to collaborate in real time. This makes it possible to automate complex, cross-functional processes that span the front and back offices with precision, speed, and adaptability. Talkdesk CXA is also built for speed. With preconfigured use cases, low- and no-code tooling, and both industry-specialized and general-purpose AI agents, organizations can go live fast and start seeing value quickly. A unique differentiator of the platform is the AI Gateway that enables Talkdesk CXA to sit on top of any third-party contact center, whether on-premises or cloud-based. This allows businesses to seamlessly integrate Talkdesk AI-driven solutions.
Luxury resale model melds Rebag’s inspection and verification process with Amazon’s shopping experience and fast shippinge
Rebag is offering a curated assortment of nearly 30,000 pre-owned luxury items, including designer handbags, jewelry and watches, in collaboration with the Luxury Stores at Amazon online store. The collection will include brands such as Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Cartier, offered with Amazon’s shopping experience and fast shipping and Rebag’s inspection and verification process. Charles Gorra, CEO & founder of Rebag. “This collaboration enables us to connect with a broader audience and meet the growing demand for sustainable luxury fashion in a way that’s convenient and trustworthy.” Rebag has been launching a variety of new partnerships in the past year, including a collection available on Walmart Marketplace and an initiative that made a curated selection of more than 2,500 designer handbags, watches and jewelry available on Bloomingdales.com. In addition, more than 500 items will be featured in five select Bloomingdale’s stores. Rebag has also entered a partnership with online resale platform ThredUp that allows customers to sell items via ThredUp for Rebag shopping credit and also enables ThredUp customers to shop select Rebag inventory directly on the ThredUp site.
Greenlight’s survey data reveals family financial wellness as a growth opportunity for FIs with 70% reporting financial anxiety weekly and financial literacy ranking #1 as the hardest life skill to teach their children
Greenlight released new survey data revealing a significant opportunity for financial institutions to drive long-term growth and loyalty by prioritizing family financial wellness. In partnership with Researchscape, Greenlight surveyed parents and financial institutions to uncover the financial stress families currently face and how credit unions and banks can provide a meaningful solution. The data confirms what many families are feeling: Money is the #1 stressor for working parents, with 70% reporting financial anxiety weekly, and financial literacy ranking #1 as the hardest life skill to teach their children. 96% parents believe it’s essential for banks to offer financial literacy tools for themselves and their children, with parents saying these tools would help reduce stress (79%) and save time (83%). This gap presents a significant opportunity, as financial institutions increasingly view family financial literacy as a strategic priority: 88% report rising demand; 71% say it’s key to achieving business goals; 70% have received customer inquiries about family financial literacy tools. At the same time, institutions are recognizing the need to meet a growing demographic of financially empowered customers, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, where they are: online. Survey findings from financial institutions show: 69% favor interactive tools; 67% prefer mobile apps for delivering financial education; 61% report success engaging younger generations through digital initiatives.
Paragon Bank’s smart savings app connects effortlessly with a customer’s existing current account enabling customers to view their current account balance in the savings app and seamlessly move money between accounts
Paragon Bank has partnered with Moneyhub to launch ‘Spring’, a Paragon savings app designed to help UK consumers maximise their savings. This collaboration leverages Moneyhub’s data and insights platform to provide seamless Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS), enhancing the app’s capabilities and user experience. Spring aims to address the issue of “current account coasting”, where over 29 million UK adults leave their money in low or zero-interest accounts, missing out on billions in potential interest. Spring offers a competitive interest rate of 4.30% AER, significantly higher than typical rates available from Big 6 banks, without the need to switch current account provider. Spring uses Moneyhub’s Open Banking technology, allowing it to connect effortlessly with a customer’s existing current account. This integration enables customers to view their current account balance in the Spring app and seamlessly move money between accounts, providing users with full control over their savings. The app also offers features such as savings pots and unlimited withdrawals, all without hidden fees or restrictions. This partnership has proven to be highly effective, marking the beginning of a journey focused on long-term vision and data utilisation to enhance financial outcomes for Paragon’s customers.
Apple improves app discovery on App Store with new tags that will help surface information that’s often buried in app listings, like the app’s App Store description, category, metadata, or even in its screenshots
Apple is introduceing App Store Tags — labels that highlight specific features and functionalities found in an app. These tags will initially be generated by Apple’s LLMs using various sources, like the app’s metadata. They’ll then be human-reviewed before being applied to apps on the App Store. Apple customers will be able to use these tags when searching for apps on the App Store, where the tags appear alongside the categories on the search page and the apps that appear in the search results. Apple says the new tags will help surface information that’s often buried in app listings, like the app’s App Store description, category, metadata, or even in its screenshots. The tags will help users more easily find the apps that offer the functionality they’re looking for, while also giving developers a better idea about how their apps are being discovered. When App Store users tap on one of the new tags, they’ll be taken to a new page offering a curated collection of all the apps and games that offer similar features or functionality — an extension to the App Store’s existing feature that points users to apps they “might also like,” found at the bottom of individual listings. Developers will also be able to create custom product pages that appear when a user searches for apps using particular keywords.
New macOS 26 Phone app will eventually combine iPhone calls & desktop seamlessly- onboard voicemail function of the iPhone is also accessible from the macOS Phone app
With the introduction of the Phone app on macOS, you can now take and place calls directly from your Mac. The macOS Phone app takes many of the cues from the updated iOS Phone app. The new Unified view is recreated on the bigger screen, with the default appearance being a list of recent calls and favorite callers on the top. These all take advantage of contact photos and posters, if other contacts have employed them. Selecting a recent call will bring up a larger version of the contact poster, along with more information about that person. There’s also an option to Manage Filtering, which on an iPhone would bring up the Settings app with options on how to handle unknown or spam callers. An Edit button lets you change your Favorites list or to select multiple logs in a list for mass deletion. The onboard voicemail function of the iPhone is also accessible from the macOS Phone app. If there is a voicemail recording and transcript available on the connected iPhone, these can be heard and read from the Mac directly. When you place a call by pressing the relevant icon or using the on-screen keypad, or receive a call, a box will appear in the top right corner of your Mac’s display. The buttons on the box offer extra features, including a compact keypad for menu systems. One brings up options for enabling Call Recording, Live Translation, Hold Assist, and Screen Sharing.
Overhauled Shortcuts app in iOS 26 supports Apple Intelligence models for actions like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more
Apple overhauled the Shortcuts app in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, and there are now Apple Intelligence options that users can take advantage of. The app supports Apple Intelligence models for things like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more. Here’s what Apple offers, along with the descriptions: Morning Summary – Use Model to describe the day ahead of you. Action Items From Meeting Notes – Use Model to grab action items from meeting notes. Summarize PDF – Use Model to summarize the open PDF in Safari. Is Severance Season 3 Out? – Use Model to find out if something has been released. ASCII Art – Use Model to draw you some ASCII art. Document Review – Use Mode to help you compare and contrast documents. Reminders Roulette – Use Model to punt an unimportant reminder to tomorrow. Get Started With Language Models – A tutorial for Use Model with examples. As the last pre-made Shortcut suggests, you can create your own shortcuts that incorporate Apple’s AI model, and Apple’s offerings serve as examples. When you go to create a Shortcut, there’s a new Apple Intelligence section. You can opt to use an on-device model, a cloud model that takes advantage of Private Cloud Compute, or ChatGPT. There are some pre-determined options, so you can do things like open Visual Intelligence or generate an image with Image Playground. There are several Writing Tools features for adjusting the tone of text, proofreading, creating a list from text, summarizing text, or rewriting text. When you tap on Cloud, On-Device Model, or ChatGPT, there’s an open-ended prompt where you can write in what you want to do. You need to work within the confines of the model that Apple provides, pairing it with other functionality in Shortcuts. You can pull in data from the Weather app, your Calendar, and Reminders, then ask the model to prepare a summary, for example. AI models can be incorporated into any Shortcut.
Stripe buys crypto wallet startup Privy building products on crypto rails; using a single API, clients can spin up wallets rather than use external ones
Payments giant Stripe is acquiring crypto wallet infrastructure startup Privy for an undisclosed fee. The deal is part of Stripe’s aggressive push back into crypto following a six year hiatus, building on its recent $1.1 billion takeover of stablecoin platform Bridge. Privy aims to make it easy for developers to build products on crypto rails. Through a single API, clients can spin up wallets rather than use external ones, sign transactions, and integrate any onchain system. The firm now claims to power over 75 million accounts across more than 1000 developer teams, orchestrating billions in transactions. Among its clients are trading platform Hyperliquid and restaurant app Blackbird. Like Bridge, the startup will operate as an independent product under Stripe.
The issuer-acquirer landscape to pivot to a hybrid model where multi-intermediary driven fiat rails to coexist with single-settlement layer of stablecoin payments particularly in cross-border commerce, digital marketplaces and creator economies
Stablecoins are evolving from niche crypto tools into digital payment infrastructure, with major players like Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Visa, Stripe and more exploring their integration to streamline settlement. The traditional issuer-acquirer-merchant landscape is one where every transaction is a dance of communication and trust, usually routed through multiple intermediaries and settlement layers — each adding time, cost and complexity. Stablecoins can promise to rewrite that choreography. In their most immediate and least controversial use case, stablecoins serve as a settlement layer, or a way to move money between parties more quickly and at lower cost than existing bank rails. Stablecoins promise efficiency, speed and reduced costs, particularly in underserved or high-inflation markets, but they raise regulatory and operational concerns, such as the lack of standardized dispute resolution, chargebacks and liability protections. Ultimately, despite the disruptive potential, stablecoins are unlikely to fully displace the issuer-acquirer model anytime soon. More likely is a hybrid future, where stablecoin-based payments coexist alongside fiat rails, particularly in cross-border commerce, digital marketplaces and creator economies.
Bringing stablecoins to Shopify indicates redesigning payment systems to handle complex checkout steps like tax finalization while offering the flexibility of credit cards without the need for new gateways or integrations
Shopify is joining forces with Coinbase and Stripe to bring frictionless, secure stablecoin payments to merchants around the world. Now in early access, merchants can accept USDC from customers globally on the Base network, using their existing payment and order fulfillment flows—no integrations or new gateways required. Customers can pay with USDC on Base from hundreds of supported crypto wallets, on guest checkout and with Shop Pay. Merchants will receive their local currency by default, with no foreign transaction or exchange fees—or they can choose to claim USDC directly into their own wallet. Three key innovations came together to make this possible. Stability without compromise, Fast, borderless transactions, Effortless checkouts. Bringing stablecoins to Shopify means redesigning payment systems to address real-world commerce needs. Merchants need payment systems that can handle complex transactions and checkout steps like tax finalization and inventory reservation. Shopify and Coinbase addressed these challenges with a first-of-its-kind smart contract: Merchants get the familiar “authorize now, capture later” flexibility of credit cards, with the speed and global reach of stablecoins.