LandingAI, a pioneer in agentic vision technologies, announced the major upgrades to Agentic Document Extraction (ADE). Unlike traditional optical character recognition (OCR), ADE sees a PDF or other document visually, and uses an iterative workflow to accurately extract a document’s text, diagrams, charts, form fields, and so on to produce an LLM-ready output. ADE utilizes layout-aware parsing, visual grounding, and no-template setup, allowing for quick deployment and dependable outcomes without the need for fine-tuning or model training. A leading healthcare platform provider, Eolas Medical, is processing over 100,000 clinical guidelines in the form of PDFs and complex documents with ADE, streamlining the creation of structured summaries with the view to supporting over 1.2million queries per month from healthcare professionals on their platform. Their QA chatbot, powered by ADE, provides answers with direct references to the original documents, improving information traceability and reliability. In financial services, ADE is being used to automate document onboarding for use cases like Know Your Customer (KYC), mortgage and loan processing, and client due diligence. Visual grounding enables full auditability by linking extracted data directly to its source location in the document.
Snyk launches real-time governance and adaptive policy enforcement, crucial for managing evolving risks in AI-driven software development
Cybersecurity company Snyk launched the Snyk AI Trust Platform, an AI-native agentic platform designed to empower organizations to accelerate AI-driven innovation, mitigate business risk and secure agentic and generative AI. The platform introduces several innovations, including Snyk Assist, an AI-powered chat interface offering contextual guidance, next-step recommendations and security intelligence. Another feature called Snyk Agent further extends these capabilities by automating fixes and security actions throughout the development lifecycle, leveraging its testing engines. Other parts of the offering include Snyk Guard, which provides real-time governance and adaptive policy enforcement, crucial for managing evolving AI risks. Complementing these capabilities is the Snyk AI Readiness Framework, which helps organizations assess and mature their secure AI development strategies over time. Also launching from Snyk are two new platform-supporting curated AI Trust environments. Snyk Labs is an innovation hub for researching, experimenting with and incubating the future of AI security, while Snyk Studio allows technology partners to collaborate with Snyk experts to build secure AI-native applications for mutual customers. With Snyk Studio, developers and technology providers can collaborate with its security experts to embed critical security context and controls into their AI-generated code and AI-powered workflows.
Conduit the cross-border payments platform powered by stablecoins differentiates with direct partnerships with two dozen banks, support for highly inflationary local currencies and by lacking liquidity constraints
Conduit, the cross-border payments platform powered by stablecoins, closed a $36 million Series A funding round. Conduit transaction volumes surged 16x in 2024, surpassing $10 billion in annualized payment volume. It will use new funding to expand its geographic reach and increase the range of fiat and digital currencies supported through its innovative real-time global payment rails. Conduit’s cross-border payment network seamlessly integrates stablecoins, USD and local currencies, providing businesses with a faster, cheaper, and more reliable alternative to the legacy SWIFT system. Conduit transaction volumes surged 16x in 2024, surpassing $10 billion in annualized payment volume. It will use new funding to expand its geographic reach and increase the range of fiat and digital currencies supported through its innovative real-time global payment rails. Clients choose Conduit for:
Speed and Efficiency: Unlike payment platforms that rely on slow and disjointed networks of correspondent banks, Conduit has direct partnerships with two dozen banks across the world, enabling transactions to settle in seconds rather than days.
Broad Geographic Coverage: Conduit natively supports a diverse range of currencies and payment methods, including highly inflationary local currencies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Deep Liquidity: Conduit’s robust network of institutional-grade FX providers ensures large transactions can be processed seamlessly without liquidity constraints.
FICO partners with AWS to accelerate the adoption of AI-driven, automated decision workflows in its platform and simplify procurement for customers through its availability on AWS Marketplace
FICO has signed a new strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring more organizations worldwide the power of AI-driven, automated decision workflows with FICO Platform, which runs on AWS, and FICO will broaden its participation in AWS partner programs to accelerate client adoption of FICO Platform. FICO solutions will also be available through AWS Marketplace Private Offers. The first of these solutions, FICO Decision Modeler, is now available in AWS Marketplace. FICO Decision Modeler is the advanced decision management system that powers greater flexibility, ease of use and decision accuracy, and is at the core of FICO Platform. Many financial institutions are already using FICO Platform on AWS to drive successful business initiatives, such as Westpac NZ, one of New Zealand’s largest retail banks. “With FICO Platform, which supports transformation at scale on AWS, we’ve been able to shift from focusing on individual decisions we make on a customer’s account, to thinking strategically about how we manage customers across all of their accounts and throughout their lifetime with the bank,” said Regan Goble, Risk Analytics senior manager at Westpac NZ. “FICO’s decision management solutions provide customers with powerful tools for making data-driven financial decisions,” said Scott Mullins, managing director, Worldwide Financial Services at AWS. “Making these solutions available in AWS Marketplace simplifies procurement for our customers while providing the security, scalability, and performance benefits of AWS.
Ripple-acquisition crypto prime broker Hidden Road’s new service to allow U.S.-based institutional clients to trade cash-settled OTC swaps across a wide range of prominent digital assets
Crypto prime broker Hidden Road launched a new digital asset swaps prime brokerage offering specifically for the U.S. market. The new service allows U.S.-based institutional clients to trade cash-settled over-the-counter (OTC) swaps across a wide range of prominent digital assets. These transactions will be handled through Hidden Road Partners CIV UK Ltd, the firm’s FCA-regulated entity. In addition to execution, the brokerage will provide cross-margining and financing services, expanding the trading and capital efficiency options available to institutional players. Michael Higgins, Hidden Road’s International CEO and Global Head of Corporate Development, pointed to a persistent gap in the U.S. digital asset market. Hidden Road’s move comes as institutional demand for complex crypto instruments continues to rise. The firm’s entry into the U.S. swaps space signals a broader industry trend toward maturing infrastructure and more sophisticated financial products in crypto markets. Michael Higgins, International CEO and Global Head of Corporate Development for Hidden Road said, “With the launch of our swap prime brokerage capabilities for the United States market, we can provide clients with access to an expanded range of products and solutions. By partnering with Ripple,” he added, “we can immediately solve the supply and demand issue for Hidden Road’s existing clients, expand our capacity to service our pipeline, and continue to scale.”
Bluevine enables small business owners to create professional invoices and secure payment links that can be sent by email, text, custom links, or social media for free while getting paid directly into their Bluevine accounts
Bluevine has launched Invoicing and Payment Links to allow Bluevine customers to create and share professional invoices and payment links within minutes. Small businesses can now get paid faster and accept multiple payment methods while getting paid directly into their Bluevine accounts. The launch brings a new level of sophistication and ease to businesses that have traditionally been underserved by other banking and payment platforms. Bluevine’s Invoicing and Payments Links make it easy for small business owners to create professional invoices and secure payment links that can be sent by email, text, custom links, or social media for free, with owners only having to pay processing fees. Via Stripe, Bluevine customers can get paid via credit card, debit card, digital wallets, or ACH direct debit payments. Stripe’s trusted payment processing infrastructure brings enterprise-grade speed, reliability, and security to invoicing in Bluevine’s all-in-one platform. These features will add more value for Bluevine’s diverse base of business customers including accounting and consulting firms, contractors and tradespeople, medical practices, and many more. The tools are designed to eliminate the friction of chasing payments and juggling multiple platforms. Key features of Bluevine Invoicing and Payment Links include: Free professional invoicing, Easy, secure payment links, More ways to get paid.
Partnering with PSPs can help FIs meet ISO 20022 compliance deadline through access to structured cross-border payment data with end-to-end visibility into both sides of the transaction while saving on the cost of transformation
As timelines tighten and global systems align, financial institutions must act to ensure they’re not left behind. To ensure compliance with SWIFT’s November 2025 migration deadline for international payments, organizations must either fully transform their operations on their own or partner with a trusted provider like Convera. Institutions that choose not to partner with a commercial payments provider like Convera face a steep path to compliance. Upgrading legacy payment systems to handle ISO 20022 messaging requires overhauling infrastructure to process structured data and retraining teams to manage new data formats and workflows. It also requires ongoing compliance monitoring across multiple jurisdictions. Without expert support, ISO 20022 compliance can drain internal resources, delay operations, and expose the financial institution to compliance risks. SWIFT reports that ISO 20022 adoption enables up to 84% of exception messages to be handled automatically, significantly cutting down on the time and effort required for manual investigations. In addition, enhanced data quality supports more effective sanctions screening and streamlines software deployment, ultimately reinforcing compliance and fraud prevention strategies for financial institutions. Joe Higginson, Director of Regional Sales, Financial Institutions, Convera said, “Convera helps financial institutions future-proof their payment systems without bearing the full cost of transformation on their own. Our structured cross-border payment data offers financial institutions end-to-end visibility into global payments on both sides of the transaction. Convera offers a critical competitive advantage that unlocks greater automation, yields better customer experiences and strengthens the regulatory standing of financial institutions.”
Spotify to begin recommending podcasts on its Home page and provide a Following feed for staying up-to-date with the latest episodes of user’s favorite shows
Spotify announced a handful of new features designed to give podcasts a more prominent position in its app as it battles with Apple and YouTube to become users’ preferred podcast streaming destination. The company will begin recommending podcasts on its Home page and provide a Following feed for staying up-to-date with the latest episodes of your favorite shows. Soon, Spotify will also roll out new tools for podcast creators to recommend content and better engage with their fans in comments. Spotify has also invested in video podcasts, allowing all creators to upload video and incentivizing them with payments for successful shows through its Partner Program. Early feedback suggests it’s led to more users engaging with podcasts, saving, and liking shows. In addition, Spotify is introducing a Following feed that will serve as a dedicated spot where you can see all the latest episodes released by the podcasts you follow, instead of having to search across the app. Podcast creators will soon gain access to a new feature that lets them point to other content they mention in their podcast episode that can also be found on Spotify. In a smaller tweak, creators who participate in the comments of their podcast pages on the app will be able to use emoji reactions to respond to fans. The company notes that creators are still able to control when comments appear or opt out of showing them on their shows or episode pages via their Spotify for Creators account.
Cisco’s research expects Agentic AI to handle 68% of customer service by 2028 but customers want to retain human interaction when required
Cisco latest global research report highlights the potential of agentic AI to revolutionize the way technology vendors deliver services and support to customers. 88% report they feel confident that the agentic AI-led customer experience provided by technology partners will help their organization achieve its goals. Respondents also predict that 68% of their customer experience interactions with technology partners will be handled using agentic AI within the next three years. And, they expect 56% of interactions to be through agentic AI within the next 12 months, representing a significant increase and heaping pressure onto those vendors who are still only in the early stages of thinking about agentic. The research highlights the urgent need for technology vendors, many of whom are still only exploring the potential for agentic AI deployment within customer experience, to accelerate their strategies. Key Findings: Accelerated demand for customer experience: As levels of IT complexity increase, organizations are leaning on technology vendors more than ever before. 92% of respondents state that the support and services provided by vendors are becoming more critical in the AI era. Use cases across the technology lifecycle: more than 80% of respondents point to potential benefits of agentic AI-led customer experience at every stage of the technology lifecycle, with customer and technical support, technology strategy and planning, and operations viewed as the greatest opportunities. Game-changing benefits: customers expect agentic AI to drive improvements in IT productivity, time savings, and cost savings, as well as opportunities to improve data analytics, troubleshooting, and alignment of technology investment with digital transformation goals. Human connection is irreplaceable: customers want to retain human interaction when engaging with support and services, with 96% stating that human relationships are very important when interacting with B2B technology partners. Robust governance is non-negotiable: 99% of respondents state that it’s important for technology partners to demonstrate robust governance arrangements to deliver ethical use of agentic AI, and 81% feel that vendors need to share their vision for AI-led customer experience to bring customers along on the journey.
Following the removal of some consent orders Wells Fargo is preparing to grow its retail deposits business focused on primary checking account growth
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf expressed confidence that the bank is inching closer to the point it will be freed from the $1.95 trillion asset cap it’s operated under for seven years. There’s been plenty of speculation that 2025 will be the year Wells is freed from the growth restriction. Analyst Ken Usdin noted the bank is “closer and closer to emerging from what’s been a very inward-focused period of time for the company,” as it’s overhauled risk management and internal controls to satisfy its various regulatory orders. Wells is spending about $2 billion annually on its risk and control agenda, and has simplified its business, exiting some areas with lower returns or lackluster growth rates. The bank has also brought in a number of fresh faces – 150 of the bank’s top 220 people are new – establishing the “proper risk mindset” at the company, Scharf said. Lifting the asset cap and the ultimate consent order are two different decision points for the Fed, and Scharf said he couldn’t speak for the central bank’s timing. He noted, though, that most of the work completed for other now-closed consent orders is “foundational” to those that remain. With the removal of that limitation on the horizon, the bank is preparing to pounce on growth in its retail deposits business. Given the fake-accounts scandal, sales practices were “front and center” among the bank’s issues, Scharf said, so the bank had to “literally scale back almost everything that we were doing to drive growth in the retail system, and then rebuild it from the bottom up.” During a multiyear period, the bank “didn’t have branch [profits and losses], we didn’t have sales reporting, we weren’t focused on expanding the product set, improving the digital capabilities, because we were so focused on creating the right infrastructure to satisfy the regulators – appropriately so – so that they and we could be comfortable, when we turn these things back on, that we could grow properly,” he said. The closure of the sales practices consent order “was a hugely important point,” revealing regulators’ comfort level, allowing Wells to re-create an environment where the bank can focus on doing more for customers, he said. Wells is particularly focused on primary checking account growth, Scharf said. To do that, the bank has changed compensation plans and introduced reporting; simplified its product set and segmented it to serve more and less affluent customers; is spending “significantly more” on marketing; and is focused on improving its branch experience while bolstering digital capabilities, he said. Each of the bank’s segments – consumer and small-business banking, consumer lending, wealth management, commercial banking and corporate and investment banking – “should be growing faster than they’re growing today and have higher returns,” Scharf said. When the asset cap is eventually lifted, “there’s no light switch” related to the bank’s growth trajectory, he said. But “it does lift a cloud that exists around Wells,” as the cap has limited the bank, both tangibly and in mindset. The bank has been constrained in its ability to take commercial deposits, for example, and its corporate and investment bank growth has been limited.