Financial fraud is increasingly a psychological threat, not a technical one. At times of financial stress, banks need to focus more on identifying, supporting and defending vulnerable customers, not just protecting platforms and data. To effectively counter today’s scams, banks need to think beyond detection and toward true prevention. That means equipping fraud and security teams with AI tools that are constantly trained on the latest scam trends and human vulnerabilities, and have the ability not only to detect scams, but also to intervene and prevent them in real-time. New approaches such as AI-powered “scam prevention agents” can be embedded within banking apps to deliver personalized warnings, verify transaction safety, and even simulate real-time conversations that help customers recognize and break free from a scammer’s influence. Same AI agents could also offer post-scam support and remediation for victims, while feeding data from their reports back into the detection and prevention models to protect other customers. Some banks are also experimenting with customer “security scores,” which evaluate risk based on behavioral patterns, transaction histories, and exposure to red-flag scenarios. These scores can trigger proactive communication, before a transaction takes place, offering users context-specific insights or education. Rather than blanket emails about general scam awareness, these systems deliver highly tailored insights and can provide alerts like: “This recipient has been flagged in other scam cases,” or “This transaction appears unusual based on your history.” Institutional alignment is a key part of an organization’s scam prevention strategy. Effective financial institutions are establishing cross-functional “cyber-fraud” fusion teams that bring together fraud prevention, cybersecurity, compliance, and behavioral science. These task forces respond and anticipate scams, building response playbooks and accelerating time-to-intervention. The most effective models also include support from executive leadership, marketing, and customer service, creating a truly enterprise-wide fraud prevention strategy. By integrating advanced analytics, AI-driven risk scoring, and behavioral insights, banking institutions can anticipate and intercept fraudulent schemes before they inflict significant harm. In doing so, they protect not only their bottom line but the essential relationship of trust with their customers.
Walmart’s interactive job simulations tool for veterans gives them the ability to virtually try out their skills in real-life scenarios and simulate the experience of working in a corporate environment
Walmart has unveiled a new skills translator tool specifically designed to let veterans upload their resumes, which are then translated into professional skills that align with its needs, such as logistics planning, GPS routing and inventory control. Walmart is also providing veterans with a new interactive job simulations solution that gives them the ability to virtually try out their skills in real-life scenarios and see what it’s like working in a corporate environment. So far in 2025, Walmart has invested $500,000 in events that mark the 250th anniversary of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. These donations support initiatives like the Revolutionary War Exhibit at the Museum of the Army commemorating the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday in 2025 and the celebration of Declaration of Independence in 2026. Walmart will also join the Navy and Marine Corps to commemorate their 250th birthdays in Philadelphia and in Camden, N.J. in October 2025. In addition, the company is funding a series of veteran-focused projects through the Manufacturing Institute, Hire Heroes USA and the Institute for Veteran and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University. Each organization is working to help veterans get credit for the skills they acquired in the military as they transition to civilian life. Julie Gehrki, senior VP and president, Walmart Foundation said, “By investing in tools for the military community and supporting leading organizations, we’re ensuring veterans have the support and opportunities they need to succeed in their post-military careers.”
Startup New Gen is building AI storefronts using “AI subdomain” to receive AI-driven traffic; it reindexes a brand’s entire product catalog and uses AI models to create dynamic product pages and recommendation
Startup New Generation, or simply New Gen, is building AI storefronts – versions of brands’ websites that dynamically interact with AI chatbots and agents. Its technology helps brands automate product tagging, personalize responses and adapt to real-time market trends. To build the AI storefront, New Gen creates an “AI subdomain” — a dedicated microsite such as “ai.brand.com” designed to receive AI-driven traffic from tools like ChatGPT or website-browsing agents like Operator. Their system reindexes a brand’s entire product catalog, combines structured and unstructured data such as product descriptions and social media posts, and uses AI models to create dynamic product pages and recommendations. This data pipeline is available through an API for other companies to access. For image generation, New Gen uses Gemini 2.5. For prose and copy, the team relies on Anthropic’s Claude 4. For code and front-end generation, OpenAI’s models are preferred. Brands can control the experience through a merchant dashboard, setting preferences for tone of voice, which products to highlight, and seasonal merchandising strategies. Over time, the AI storefronts would integrate with marketplaces such as Shopify or WooCommerce. New Gen has partnered with Visa as part of the payments giant’s Intelligent Commerce initiative to enable AI agents to make purchases on behalf of consumers.
Donor-advised funds (DAFs) could emerge as popular form of giving among the ultrawealthy amid proposed tax hikes on private foundations coupled with added benefits of convenience and lower cost
A provision in Trump’s tax bill could make donor-advised funds an even more popular form of giving. Donor-advised funds, or DAFs, are accounts where donors can contribute funds, immediately get a tax deduction, and “advise” on where to donate — and they are becoming increasingly popular. As Daniel Heist, a professor at Brigham Young University and a lead researcher on the 2025 National Survey of DAF Donors, put it, “they’re growing like crazy.” Donors can contribute non-cash assets, like appreciated securities or crypto, to DAFs, and the funds grow over time. Technically, donors don’t control the funds in their DAF, but practically speaking, they can direct the money to any accredited charity. “As long as you’re following the rules of the DAF provider, you should always have those recommendations honored,” Mitch Stein, the head of strategy at Chariot, a technology company focused on DAFs, said. Private foundations have to distribute at least 5% of their assets annually for charitable purposes, but DAFs don’t have payout requirements. Donors also don’t report their gifts to individual organizations on their taxes, and instead report that they gave to the DAF.
Shopify imagines an interface “where you can quickly shift between talking, typing, clicking, and even drawing to instruct software, like moving around a whiteboard in a dynamic conversation”
Shopify’s new chief design officer Carl Rivera believes that, in the very near future, the e-commerce platform’s user experience is going to feel like sci-fi and designers are at the center of it. His new position directly responds to industry skepticism about design’s relevance in an AI-driven landscape. “Imagine an interface where you can quickly shift between talking, typing, clicking, and even drawing to instruct software, like moving around a whiteboard in a dynamic conversation,” Carl Rivera says. An experience in which users are not presented with a barrage of nested menus, but with a blank canvas that invites creativity aided by an artificial intelligence that knows everything there is to know about online and brick-and-mortar retail and marketing. A fluid interface that adapts and anticipates your needs, automating tasks and recommending actions like the most brilliant partner you could dream of.
Pegasystems Agentic Process Fabric leverages Pega’s existing Process Fabric architecture to coordinate tasks across applications while ensuring agents operate in line with business goals
Workflow automation firm Pegasystems will announce what it calls a major extension of its artificial intelligence automation capabilities. The announcements center on Pega Agentic Process Fabric, a new orchestration service designed to unify AI agents across an enterprise. The Pega Blueprint workflow design platform is also getting improved integration with legacy information. Agentic Process Fabric connects AI agents with existing business systems, data and workflows. The system leverages Pega’s existing Process Fabric architecture to coordinate tasks across applications while ensuring agents operate in line with business goals and compliance standards. “Agentic Process Fabric… allows enterprises to build a registry of all of their workflows, existing systems, existing applications, all of their AI agents — both Pega’s and non-Pega’s — and stitch everything together into a unified agentic experience,” said Matt Healy, senior director of product strategy and marketing at Pegasystems. Pega’s design separates AI usage into two distinct phases: design-time and runtime. The design stage uses AI reasoning to create new workflows, while semantic AI handles execution. Pega said the combination is intended to reduce the risk of erratic agent behavior. The platform enables users to interact with agents via chat interfaces, email, voice assistants and other channels. The system dynamically selects and engages the most appropriate agents and workflows for each task based on available data and user input. It also supports on-the-fly workflow generation through Blueprint design agents. New features in the Pega Blueprint platform are aimed at streamlining the inclusion of legacy content in re-architected workflows.
AI coding tools enabling SMBs to ship product code from ‘Day One’ with a lean team of just two senior developers, matching or exceeding the productivity of larger developer groups
Smaller teams equipped with AI tools can now match or exceed the productivity of larger developer groups. AI assistants reduce the need for outsourcing, lower development costs and help maintain in-house ownership of code. But it’s important for SMBs to understand the limits of today’s AI coding assistants or risk wasting their AI investment. That’s the experience of Mike Stone, co-founder of customer web and mobile development firm The Gnar Company, whose clients include the state of Massachusetts, Grubhub and AARP. With AI coding tools, Stone said the playbook has changed to this: Hire two exceptional senior developers; Equip them with AI tools; Watch them outperform entire teams; Ship product code from ‘Day One.’ Particularly salient is the latest trend called “vibe coding,” which is a new, more intuitive way for people to write computer code using natural language — like how one would talk to a friend. Instead of writing complex code in a particular syntax, users just need to describe what they want the software program to do, and an AI model helps turn that into working code. This speeds up the creative process and lets users focus more on ideas and less on technical details. Santiago Nestares, co-founder of DualEntry, told that his company was able to build an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like NetSuite despite being told that they would need at least $100 million, which was out of reach. The company used ChatGPT daily to pressure-test its system designs, validate architectural decisions and explore edge (or one-off) cases. It used Cursor to write and refactor code with LLMs embedded into its development workflow. It also used AI to help run automated code reviews and maintain quality without adding management layers or quality assurance processes. “With a team of just 11 people and nine months of focused work, we’ve built a fully capable ERP that has feature parity with NetSuite,” Nestares said. “AI made that possible. If we had to hire for all the knowledge we now get from AI, we’d need a team two to three times the size,” Nestares added. “AI is the great equalizer.”
Intuit’s agentic AI can get customers paid 45% faster, an average of five days sooner through automated transaction matching and invoice review enabling it to offer personalized experiences in real-time
Intuit has been working on a generative AI revolution for over a decade, culminating in the creation of Intuit’s GenOS, launched in June 2023. GenOS powers all of Intuit’s generative AI and agentic experiences, abstracting away the complexity of various underlying systems to allow for large-scale deployment of AI agents. The system now powers production-ready AI agents, including accounts receivable and accounts payable agents designed to automate cash flow management tasks. As chief AI and data officer Ashok Srivastava, Intuit’s agentic system can get customers paid 45% faster, an average of five days sooner, thanks to automated transaction matching and invoice review. This tangible outcome matters more than the underlying model count, as it allows Intuit to personalize AI experiences in real-time, delivering cash flow forecasts, intelligent recommendations, and context-aware automation tailored to the customer’s immediate needs. Intuit’s commitment to open source is another pillar of its strategy, with projects like Admiral, NumaProj, and Agroproj contributing to the broader community and leveraging the best available technologies. Intuit has received the End User Award from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation twice, and its platform powers a suite of widely-used products including QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma. Srivastava believes that AI agents can help small businesses and consumers do better, as many US firms are under pressure from economic changes and face reduced access to capital. He also remains optimistic about the use of AI in the field of art, seeing it as just another medium, not a replacement
Ad-enabled BNPL Zilch partners Visa to launch its first physical payments card to capture latent opportunity in transaction volume by irregular usage of mobile wallets by ~80% UK adults
BNPL firm Zilch is launching a physical card as part of a partnership with Visa. The card will work across Visa’s global network that reaches over 150 million merchant locations in 200+ countries and territories. Customers will have the ability to shop anywhere in the world that Visa is accepted, online or offline with the same flexible repayment options. Available to existing customers from September, Zilch hopes the card will see the 50% of active customers who currently only use it for online shopping make the offline leap. Philip Belamant, CEO, Zilch, says: “By partnering with Visa – a global leader in payments – we’ve plugged our AI-driven engine into a network that touches over 150 million merchants worldwide. This move will allow us to fully deploy our ad-enabled payments technology across both digital and physical retail, bringing measurable savings to consumers and margin efficiencies to merchants.”
Robinhood’s acquisition of Bitstamp crypto exchange to enable it to expand exposure in global crypto market to over 5,000 institutional clients
Robinhood Markets, Inc. has formally concluded its acquisition of Bitstamp, one of the world’s oldest and most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges, in a $200M deal. The transaction, which was unveiled in June 2024, was finalized on May 2, 2025, and was 100% cash-financed. This purchase will be a major move in Robinhood’s ambition to expand its exposure in the worldwide crypto market. Bitstamp has a history of catering to institutional clients. It now serves over 5,000 institutional clients and some 50,000 retail customers. And it gets a lot of trading from its institutional base, a category Robinhood didn’t have until now. Through its acquisition of Bitstamp, Robinhood will soon have access to a reliable platform with more than a decade of experience, significant liquidity, and a proven security and compliance track record. Robinhood Crypto general manager Johann Kerbrat said the acquisition would enable the company to scale faster and expand its crypto offerings to more people in the US and globally. Robinhood is not ruling out additional crypto acquisitions if they can help accelerate the company’s growth, adding that any opportunity to advance by 18 months or two years would be considered. The purchase also includes over 50 operational licenses and licenses-to-be in Europe, the UK, Asia, and the US, enabling Robinhood to do business in many new markets legally.