Frontier, supported by Stripe, Google, and Meta, has partnered with startup Arbor Energy to remove 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide by the end of the decade. This agreement provides Arbor with $41 million to construct its first commercial-scale power plant in southern Louisiana, which will run on waste biomass to produce electricity for a data center while also sequestering CO2 for underground storage. The facility aims to generate 5 to 10 megawatts of electricity. Arbor has developed a unique gasifier, as off-the-shelf options were inadequate. This gasifier uses supercritical CO2 from the plant itself to process biomass, producing syngas, which is then burned to generate electricity. Most of the produced CO2 will be sent to a pipeline for permanent storage, with some redirected back to the gasifier. Arbor co-founder and CEO Brad Hartwig has previously, aptly described the power plant as a “vegetarian rocket engine.” The entire system captures 99% of the CO2 released by the combustion, far higher than competing methods. And because it’s burning biomass, the process removes carbon from the atmosphere. Frontier estimates there is between 1 to 5 gigatons of waste biomass available every year. Even if only 1 gigaton meets those standards, there’s still a lot of potential for BiCRS and its close cousin, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to make a significant dent in future energy needs. For Frontier, Arbor will only burn biomass, ensuring the power plant will remove carbon as required by the deal.
MindBridge’s integration of its AI-powered financial decision intelligence with Snowflake to enable finance teams leverage secure data pipelines for automated analysis and real-time risk insights within their existing workflows
MindBridge, the leader in AI-powered financial decision intelligence, announced its integration with Snowflake, enabling finance teams to seamlessly analyze financial data for continuous, AI-powered analysis. With this new integration, organizations can securely connect MindBridge to their data without complicated processes or manual work. By leveraging secure data pipelines within the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, organizations can easily and securely use MindBridge for automated analysis, without adding complexity or risk. Risk scores and insights from MindBridge can also be leveraged in existing workflows, shortening the time to identify and act on findings and minimizing additional training or complex implementations. Every time data is updated, MindBridge automatically runs its analysis, so finance teams always have a consistent, up-to-date view of their financial risk. Key Benefits of the Integration: Simple, scalable integration – MindBridge connects directly to the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, leveraging secure data pipelines to automate analysis within existing governance frameworks. Real-time financial risk insights; Enterprise-grade security and control; Frictionless insights delivery – With automated data delivery and analysis execution, business users can access the latest results in the MindBridge UI or within their existing workflow systems, providing more flexibility to surface insights where and when they’re needed most — without disrupting established processes; Integrated risk intelligence – Risk scores and analysis results are retrieved via API back into the Snowflake platform, enabling continuous risk monitoring, deeper investigations, and integrated reporting alongside other business KPIs.
CapStorm’s AI solution enables business users to ask complex data questions in plain English and receive real-time dashboards, instantly, across Salesforce, ERPs, CRMs, and data warehouses without writing a single line of code
Secure Salesforce data management solutions provider CapStorm has launched CapStorm:AI, an AI-powered solution that lets users “talk to their data” using plain English. Designed for organizations seeking secure, self-hosted insights across their Salesforce and SQL environments, CapStorm:AI enables business users to ask complex data questions and receive real-time dashboards, instantly, and without writing a single line of code. CapStorm:AI brings together CapStorm’s proven near real-time Salesforce data replication with a powerful AI engine that understands how businesses’ data connects. It works with leading SQL databases like SQL Server and PostgreSQL, as well as cloud data warehouses like Snowflake and Amazon Redshift, giving users instant insights across systems, no technical expertise required. Best of all, it keeps everything inside their own environment, so data stays secure and fully under the user’s control. CapStorm:AI is designed with security and compliance in mind, making it ideal for regulated industries and enterprises that demand full control of their data. CapStorm:AI gives users a faster, easier way to get answers: Natural Language Dashboards: Ask a business question in plain English and receive a real-time dashboard, instantly. Instant Access Across Systems: Understand how data connects across Salesforce, ERPs, CRMs, and data warehouses, without needing custom joins or pipelines. Near Real-Time Insights: Built on CapStorm’s trusted replication technology, ensuring your answers are always up to date. Flexible Deployment Options: CapStorm:AI can be deployed using an organization’s own on-prem database for full control, or hosted in a secure AWS environment managed by CapStorm.
Okoora’s partnership with DashDevs enables embedding real-time exposure monitoring, automated hedging, pay-in/pay-out services, and liquidity routing directly into fintechs’ transactional flows for managing FX risk at scale
Okoora announced a strategic partnership with DashDevs to streamline the delivery of embedded foreign exchange (FX) functionality in digital financial products. The partnership brings together Okoora’s FX360 engine, an AI-powered infrastructure layer for real-time FX risk management, liquidity routing, and cross-border execution with DashDevs’ end-to-end fintech product development expertise. Together, they offer fintechs a faster, smarter path to launching globally scalable products with built-in currency risk protection. This collaboration addresses a growing pain point for fintech startups and financial platforms of how to efficiently manage currency risk and cross-border payments at scale. Most either default to rigid bank rails, attempt costly internal builds, or delay implementation until FX becomes a business problem. DashDevs will integrate Okoora’s FX360 modules directly into the fintech platforms it designs and builds for clients. Using Okoora’s robust APIs, DashDevs’ teams can embed real-time exposure monitoring, automated hedging, pay-in/pay-out services, and liquidity routing directly into transactional flows thereby removing the need for fintechs to build or maintain complex treasury infrastructure in-house. This joint approach eliminates this dilemma by delivering: Real-time FX intelligence natively integrated into core platforms, Automated rate optimization and liquidity routing as a background process, Full compliance and scalability, with no added operational burden
Square ropes in NBA star Jimmy Butler for bringing BIGFACE coffee to San Francisco through an exclusive pop-up at its Corner Store to promote neighborhood locals and small businesses
Square announced that Golden State Warriors star and Square seller Jimmy Butler will bring BIGFACE to San Francisco through an exclusive pop-up at Square’s Corner Store in the Mission District. The two-week pop-up, running from July 10 to 27, marks Butler’s first local business venture since joining the Warriors, connecting his entrepreneurial passion with his new home and community in the Bay Area. With a commitment to excellence and a focus on sustainably sourcing the finest specialty coffees on the planet, BIGFACE coffee not only tastes remarkable, but also supports the people and ecosystems behind each cup. BIGFACE is designing SF-exclusive merch for the pop-up, which pays homage to the location’s legacy as the former home of beloved Lucca Ravioli, and is only available at the Corner Store. Customers paying with a Cash App Card will receive 15% off all purchases at the pop-up. The BIGFACE pop-up follows the Corner Store’s successful June programming that celebrated San Francisco’s small business community through workshops, networking events, and educational sessions. More than 2,000 neighborhood locals and businesses have been served by the Corner Store so far. Following the BIGFACE pop-up, Square will partner with local nonprofit SF New Deal to bring a local business operator into residency at the Corner Store through the remainder of the year, continuing both organizations’ missions to support and showcase small and local businesses. SF New Deal strengthens neighborhoods by making it easier for under-resourced small business owners to succeed.
Bank of America transformed Erica into productivity tool for employees to complete password resets, device activation, health benefits review, locate payroll and tax forms, achieving 50% IT service desk automation
Bank of America transformed its customer chatbot Erica into an employee productivity powerhouse, achieving 50% IT service desk automation by strategically targeting common pain points and building adoption incrementally over five years. And the firm continues to invest in Erica in two critical ways: First, the bank is identifying and integrating technologies that can improve the Erica experience for consumers like Gen AI. Secondly, as the digital assistant evolves, Bank of America is also opening up the Erica tech for internal use cases. Hari Gopalkrishnan, CIO, Head of Consumer, Business Banking and Wealth Management Technology says Erica, has evolved over the years and is ripe for integrating Gen AI to build enhanced capabilities. “As we look at the emergence of Generative AI, we actually see that classification can actually get a lot better. You can actually talk even more naturally in a natural language. So that is just a natural sort of expansion of where we go with Erica. We have about 25 different proof of concepts right now, many of them are actually about to get into production, which use a Large Language Model in some way, to continue to enhance the work that we’ve been doing,” he said. Erica’s success with consumers fueled the firm’s efforts to open up the digital assistant for employees. When it launched in 2020, the virtual assistant allowed employees to complete basic tasks like password resets, and device activation. In 2023, Erica for Employees saw another boost in capability with employees being able to review health benefits, locate payroll and tax forms, through the digital assistant.
Intuit’s custom generative AI operating system abstract away technical complexity, so developers don’t need to reinvent risk safeguards or security layers every time they build an agent
At Intuit, agents aren’t just about answering questions—they’re about executing tasks. In TurboTax, for instance, agents help customers complete their taxes 12% faster, with nearly half finishing in under an hour. These intelligent systems draw data from multiple streams—including real-time and batch data—via Intuit’s internal bus and persistent services. Once processed, the agent analyzes the information to make a decision and take action. These capabilities are made possible by GenOS, Intuit’s custom generative AI operating system. At its heart is GenRuntime, which Srivastava likens to a CPU: it receives the data, reasons over it, and determines an action that’s then executed for the end user. The OS was designed to abstract away technical complexity, so developers don’t need to reinvent risk safeguards or security layers every time they build an agent. Across Intuit’s brands—from TurboTax and QuickBooks to Mailchimp and Credit Karma—GenOS helps create consistent, trusted experiences and ensure robustness, scalability and extensibility across use casesAt Intuit, the creation of GenOS empowers hundreds of developers to build safely and consistently. The platform ensures each team can access shared infrastructure, common safeguards, and model flexibility without duplicating work. For Amex, its enablement layer is designed around a unified control plane, the layer lets teams rapidly develop AI-driven agents while enforcing centralized policies and guardrails. It ensures consistent implementation of risk and governance frameworks while encouraging speed. Developers can deploy experiments quickly, then evaluate and scale based on feedback and performance, all without compromising brand trust.
Amex developed an “enablement layer” that allows for rapid development of agents without sacrificing oversight, and a modular “brains”—framework in which agents are required to consult with specific “brains” before taking action
As GenAI capabilities accelerate, Amex is reshaping its strategy to focus on how intelligent agents can drive internal workflows and power the next generation of customer experiences. To support fast experimentation, strong security, and policy enforcement, Amex developed an “enablement layer” that allows for rapid development without sacrificing oversight. Within this system is Amex’s concept of modular “brains”—a framework in which agents are required to consult with specific “brains” before taking action. These brains serve as modular governance layers—covering brand values, privacy, security, and legal compliance—that every agent must engage with during decision-making. Each brain represents a domain-specific set of policies, such as brand voice, privacy rules, or legal constraints and functions as a consultable authority. By routing decisions through this system of constraints, agents remain accountable, aligned with enterprise standards and worthy of user trust. Hillary Packer, EVP and CTO at American Express stressed the need to move quickly, but with intent. “Don’t wait for a bake-off,” Packer advised. “It’s better to pick a direction, get something into production, and iterate quickly, rather than delaying for the perfect solution that may be outdated by launch time.”
Banks can compete with Robinhood which has amassed $18 billion in deposits with integrated investing services that allow consumers to invest directly from their checking account and offer bundled financial wellness features like credit score monitoring and subscription management
The deposit displacement numbers are staggering—and deeply concerning for banks and credit unions. According to research from Cornerstone Advisors and Investifi, more than $3 trillion has slipped out of banks’ and credit unions’ coffers and into the hands of fintechs, neobanks, and digital investment platforms over the past few years. This isn’t just a passing trend—it’s a full-scale displacement of deposits that threatens the foundation of community financial institutions. And at the center of this disruption lies an unexpected culprit: consumer investing. At the center of the situation is the changing role of the checking account. At the center of the investing-led deposit displacement is Robinhood who has amassed more than $18 billion in deposits—despite the company’s fines and business model. The deposit displacement crisis isn’t irreversible. Cornerstone estimates that banks and credit unions can realistically reclaim about a third of the nearly $2 trillion in funds lost to fintech investing platforms. The key? Developing integrated investing services that:
- Allow consumers to invest directly from their checking account.
- Offer bundled financial wellness features like credit score monitoring and subscription management.
- Provide seamless, mobile-first investment experiences within existing digital banking platforms.
- Deliver targeted education to demystify investing, especially for young consumers who believe they don’t have enough money to get started.
- In fact, 70% of non-investing Gen Zers and Millennials report having more than $5,000 in savings—plenty to open an investment account. The problem isn’t capability—it’s awareness and access. Community banks and credit unions can’t simply “market harder” or “be cool like Robinhood” to win back lost deposits. They must:
- Reimagine their checking and savings products to integrate investing; Partner with fintechs or investtech providers to embed seamless investment options; Equip consumers with tools and education to overcome investing barriers; Expand digital capabilities to meet the expectations set by neobanks and crypto platforms. The $2 trillion deposit outflow isn’t just a threat—it’s a wake-up call. Banks and credit unions have a limited window to evolve their product offerings, digital experiences, and customer education strategies to stem the tide.
BNY to act as the primary reserve custodian for Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin purpose-built for enterprise utility to support faster and low-cost cross-border payments
Blockchain company Ripple chose BNY for the primary custody of its stablecoin reserves. Via the partnership, BNY will act as the primary reserve custodian for Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, using its “deep technology stack and expertise enabling the digital assets ecosystem. Unlike stablecoins geared primarily toward retail users, RLUSD has been purpose-built for enterprise utility, particularly in improving the speed, cost and efficiency of cross-border payments. In addition, BNY will provide its leading transaction banking services to underpin RLUSD’s operations and deliver integrated solutions. “Ripple USD addresses a critical gap in the market as a stablecoin developed for enterprise-grade financial use cases, designed to meet the rigorous standards of leading financial institutions,” said Jack McDonald, SVP of Stablecoins at Ripple. “BNY brings together demonstrable custody expertise and a strong commitment to financial innovation in this rapidly changing landscape, as well as a forward-thinking approach to digital asset infrastructure, making them the ideal partner for Ripple and RLUSD.”