From Netscape to Chrome, browsers are digital windows to the world. But that era is potentially poised to quickly circle the drain as AI comes to control a greater share of the flow of information. ChatGPT.com is now the fifth-most visited website in the world, with Google.com on top, followed by YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The news that Perplexity is developing its own web browser, Comet, that is expected to include agentic AI capabilities and the ability to automate certain tasks, is already showing that how users find things, how they buy things and even how they know things, could increasingly be up for grabs. Instead of opening a browser window and typing a URL, users may soon speak or text a request into an agent that goes out, searches the internet and delivers what they need. No tabs, no clicking and no endless scrolling. That, at least, is the envisioned future. The whole concept of a web browser may be absorbed into an ecosystem of intelligent, personalized, persistent AI agents. The advent of the agentic AI web experience could mark a transformative period in how users access and interact with information online. At the heart of the potential evolution are large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. These systems are increasingly capable of understanding context, maintaining memory and executing multi-step tasks. But true agency requires more than linguistic prowess. Integration is key. APIs now serve as conduits through which AI agents interact with apps, services and devices. If AI agents are making purchasing decisions, traditional advertising strategies could falter. SEO, influencer marketing and even visual design may lose relevance if AI agents bypass websites in favor of direct API transactions. Brands will need to pivot, optimizing not for human attention but for AI interoperability. The AI browser wars have begun, and the outcome will shape the future of the digital landscape.
Arteria AI’s end-to-end digital documentation workflow auto-logs each change and decision to the deal and memorializes it in a detailed audit trail
Arteria AI has partnered with TruStage Compliance Solutions, a provider of financial transaction technology and expertise, to launch Deal Flow, a content modification and deal management integration that is purpose-built to support community banks and credit unions. Clients can now gain access to Arteria’s proven, end-to-end digital documentation workflow for commercial lending. Deal Flow is accessed through existing dynamic documentation workflows and streamlines the modification and redlining of commercial loan documentation. Each change and decision to the deal is automatically logged and memorialized in a detailed audit trail for complete assurance on compliance and procedural consistency. Notably, TruStage’s compliance warranty is preserved for all unmodified parts of the document. The result is that negotiated transaction documentation moves into the digital sphere – communication is centralized on a digital platform, the right workflow steps are automated, and rich reporting insights become available to further streamline the deal process. Arteria removes the need for legacy manual processes by streamlining the documentation lifecycle, speeding up decision-making for all stakeholders through a highly-intuitive interface.
Airbnb’s new feature lets travelers to book and add services across 10 categories like getting a massage or chef-prepared meal and experiences in 19 categories such as cultural tours and art workshops
As part of a broader app update, Airbnb introduced a new feature that allows travelers to book services and experiences, like getting a massage, haircut, or chef-prepared meal, or taking part in some activity. These new offerings can be added to your stay, but they can also be booked independently, Airbnb says. The move is meant to capitalize on the traffic Airbnb’s site already receives. Initially, Airbnb will allow users to book services across 10 categories and services will be offered in 100 cities worldwide across eight countries. While users can take advantage of services where they’re staying, they will typically have to travel to a venue for the experiences. Initially, experiences will include cultural and museum tours; outdoor, watersport, and wildlife experiences; food tours and cooking classes; art workshops and shopping experiences; and workout, wellness, and beauty experiences. The company is launching experiences in 19 categories across 1,000 cities in the world. Airbnb is also launching exclusive experiences on its platform called Airbnb Originals, which involve celebrity partnerships. Judson Coplan, VP of Product Marketing at Airbnb believes that Airbnb Experiences may inspire people to travel and take a trip they might not have thought about. Plus, he thinks the new offerings can lead to people discovering new things to do in their own town. Airbnb will take a 15% cut from services and a 20% cut from experiences. However, users will just see one price when searching for or booking either category. The company says hosts in these categories will go through verification and quality checks that include their experience, online presence, education, and required licenses. In turn, Airbnb hopes this could lead people to want to travel more and use its platform to do so.
Moderne and Diffblue partner to support app modernization by combining automated and deterministic code refactoring across entire codebases, autonomous agentic AI testing to catch potential bugs before they happen
Automated code refactoring company Moderne and AI-powered unit test writing agent developer Diffblue announced a partnership to deliver an integrated solution for enterprise application modernization. By joining forces, the two companies aim to help large organizations will be able to upgrade and modernize applications based on extremely large codebases with greater speed with less worry. The collaboration combines Moderne’s code transformation capabilities with Diffblue’s autonomous agentic AI testing capabilities to catch potential bugs before they happen. Moderne is built on the OpenRewrite open-source project, which provides automated, safe and scalable transformation across entire codebases. It’s deterministic, which means that it’s predictable for any task, including cloud migration, framework upgrades, security fixes and language updates. That’s important because the larger the codebase, the greater the chance that any update could introduce an issue — updating from an older version of Java, for example, version 8 to a more modern version such as 17. Through the integration, Diffblue’s testing capabilities will be built directly into Moderne’s OpenRewrite recipes so they can run at large scale during application transformation. They will also be activated within Moderne’s multi-repository AI agent, Moddy, to provide test coverage for mass-scale changes.
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.
Archive360’s cloud-native archiving platform provides governed data for AI and analytics by simplifying the process of connecting to and ingesting data from any enterprise application and offering full access controls
Archive360 has released the first modern archive platform that provides governed data for AI and analytics. The Archive360 Platform enables enterprises and government agencies to unlock the full potential of their archival assets with extensive data governance, security and compliance capabilities, and primed for intelligent insights. The Archive360 Modern Archiving Platform enables organizations to control how AI and analytics consume information from the archive, and to simplify the process of connecting to and ingesting data from any application, so organizations can start realizing value faster. The capability reduces the risk AI can pose to organizations by inadvertently exposing regulated data, company trade secrets, or simply ingesting faulty and irrelevant data. The Archive360 AI & Data Governance Platform is deployed as a cloud-native, class-based architecture. It provides each customer with a dedicated SaaS environment to enable them to completely segregate data and retain administrative access, entitlements, and the ability to integrate into their security protocols. It allows organizations to: Shift from application-centric to data-centric archiving; Protect, classify and retire enterprise data; and AI Activation.
ClearVector’s platform utilizes identity graph technology that maps and monitors the behaviors of all identities (human, machine, third-party and AI) across production environments to enable real-time threat detection and mitigation
Identity-driven detection and response startup ClearVector aims to shift the cybersecurity paradigm from traditional threat detection to identity activity. The company’s platform emphasizes real-time detection and isolation of threats by monitoring identity behaviors across various environments. The platform seeks to address issues with traditional security approaches that fail despite billions invested in security tools each year. ClearVector argues that enterprises continue to be compromised at an alarming rate and are overwhelmed by excessive alerts from siloed security solutions that lack critical context on how the organization operates. Added to the mix are increasing rates of identity-based attacks that traditional defenses struggle to deal with. ClearVector says it shifts the security paradigm from chasing threats to understanding and controlling identity activity across production environments. ClearVector’s platform utilizes identity graph technology that maps and monitors the behaviors of all identities — human, machine, third-party and artificial intelligence — within an organization’s production environment. Using the platform’s real-time threat detection and mitigation system, security teams can instantly investigate and respond to threats using a “Big Red Button” function that stops attacks with a single click. Combined with identity-aware investigations, defenders can act with speed and precision without the need to sift through vast amounts of log data.
Cato Networks automates and optimizes policy management for all SASE policies through targeted recommendations for reducing exposure, tightening access control and improving network performance
Cloud networking company Cato Networks has launched Cato Autonomous Policies, a new AI capability built into the Cato SASE Cloud Platform that automates and optimizes policy management. Cato claims the Autonomous Policies are the world’s first secure access service edge-native policy analysis engine built to optimize and improve all SASE policies — security, access and networking. With the release, enterprises can experience targeted, AI-driven recommendations for eliminating unnecessary security exposure, tightening access control and proactively improving network performance. The policies reduce risk, eliminate manual upkeep and simplify compliance, paving the way for proactive governance and autonomous SASE. The first use case for Cato Autonomous Policies is firewall-as-a-service to tackle firewall rule bloat. Cato argues that over time, organizations accumulate thousands of policies, many outdated, overly permissive or misconfigured, leading to increased risk, decreased efficiency and compliance challenges. Cato Networks’ FWaaS already simplifies access control with a unified policy set that covers users, devices, locations and cloud environments. With the new addition of Cato Autonomous Policies, the service is enhanced through AI-driven automation and optimization. The new capabilities help eliminate policy drift and misconfigurations by providing continuous, AI-powered insights. The insights provided ensure that policies remain accurate and effective across on-premises, hybrid and multicloud deployments, reducing the risk of human error.
Celonis API allows developers to quickly choose and configure the data collected by its engine about a company’s business processes and make it available to AI applications via a simple interface
Celonis introduced a new version of its platform’s Process Intelligence API. The feature makes the data that Celonis collects about a company’s business processes available to artificial intelligence services. Those services, in turn, can use the data for tasks such as finding opportunities to boost efficiency. According to Celonis, the new version of the API includes a relatively simple interface that allows developers to quickly configure what data should be made available to which AI application. In conjunction with the API update, the company detailed that it has integrated a tool called Emporix Orchestration Engine into its platform. The tool was originally developed last year by a German tech firm called Emporix. It uses the data that Celonis collects about its customers’ internal processes to automate repetitive business tasks. Celonis acquired Orchestration Engine from Emporix as part of the product integration initiative. Two other features, Annotation Builder and Process Copilots, were moved into general availability as part of the platform update. Annotation Builder makes unstructured datasets easier to navigate by adding descriptive tags. Process Copilots, in turn, are chatbots that help workers find business information using natural language prompts. That removes the need to manually sift through internal data repositories. Celonis is rolling out the enhancements alongside four so-called Solution Suites. Those are feature bundles geared towards specific use cases that include integrations with external services, prepackaged automation workflows and other components. The Solution Suites are geared toward supply chain, finance, front office and sustainability professionals.
Databricks to integrate Neon’s serverless Postgres architecture to enable developers to deploy AI agents without requiring to scale compute and storage in tandem
Databricks announced its intent to acquire Neon, a leading serverless Postgres company. Databricks plans to continue innovating and investing in Neon’s database and developer experience for existing and new Neon customers and partners. Together, Databricks and Neon will work to remove the traditional limitations of databases that require compute and storage to scale in tandem — an inefficiency that hinders AI workloads. The integration of Neon’s serverless Postgres architecture with the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform will help developers and enterprise teams efficiently build and deploy AI agent systems. This approach not only prevents performance bottlenecks from thousands of concurrent agents but also simplifies infrastructure, reduces costs and accelerates innovation — all with Databricks’ security, governance and scalability at the core. Together, Neon and Databricks will empower organizations to eliminate data silos, simplify architecture and build AI agents that are more responsive, reliable and secure.