October 26, 2025: Major Indices Hit Record Highs Ahead Of Major News Week

Last week, Dow Jones gained 2.2%, S&P 500 was up 1.9%, Nasdaq composite rose 2.3%. Major indices hit record highs after a challenging few weeks. While the US Federal government shut down carries on, next week brings the Federal Open Market Committee meeting with an expectation of rate cuts as well as earnings from several MAG 7 names. Nvidia is discussing guaranteeing portions of OpenAI’s planned data-center loans and expanding chip-leasing arrangements. Anthropic is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar cloud deal with Google and plans to use up to one million TPUs, reinforcing Google’s alternative to Nvidia GPUs and reflecting rapid AI workload growth. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla predicted that 2% to 3% of AI startups will account for 85% to 90% of the valuation of companies by 2035. The US Commerce Depart. denied that it is “currently negotiating equity stakes with quantum computing companies,” according to CNBC, countering an earlier news report. Warner Bros. Discovery is evaluating strategic alternatives. Netflix reported 17% year-over-year revenue growth to US$11.5 billion and guided to similar Q4 growth, but shares fell on an in-line print. Tesla’s profit fell 37% in Q3 despite end of tax credit boosting sales. Super Micro Computer shares fell 6% on Thursday after the company released weak preliminary results. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, an AI-Powered web browser. Amazon reportedly expects to avoid adding hundreds of thousands of workers due to robots. Amazon announced on Wednesday that it’s developing AI-powered smart glasses for its delivery drivers, the company also launched new AI recommendation feature to help shoppers make decisions. In Canada, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez believes the Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) scaleup could hit the public markets “soon.” FINTRAC fined exchange operator Cryptomus (Xeltox Enterprises) ~C$177 million for extensive AML reporting failures. Sophic Client, Cybeats secured a multi-year renewal with Schneider Electric.

Sophic Client Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CYBT-CSE,CYBCF-OTCQB) announces multi-year contract extension with Schneider Electric.

Cybeats announced a multi-year contract extension with Schneider Electric, a global leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation. This renewal covers the licensing of Cybeats’ SBOM Studio and SBOM Consumer solutions, building upon an initial multi-year contract with Schneider Electric that started in November 2022. “The evolving landscape of software supply chain security requires innovative solutions,” said Cassie Crossley, VP of Supply Chain Security at Schneider Electric. “By leveraging Cybeats’ SBOM Studio, we have strengthened our ability to manage software vulnerabilities, enhance compliance, and ensure the operational reliability that our companies and stakeholders depend on.” “This renewal represents more than continued success. It reaffirms the shared vision that drives meaningful progress in our industry. It validates Cybeats’ commitment to innovation, growth, and lasting partnerships built on trust and execution. Our focus remains on listening, evolving, and shaping the future of software supply chain security together with those who share our mission,” said Dmitry Raidman, CTO of Cybeats . “Securing this renewal from our design partner highlights the organic growth potential within our existing customer base. At the same time, with regulatory deadlines fast approaching, we are seeing accelerating demand and a growing pipeline of new opportunities as software supply chain security becomes a top priority for both enterprise and government organizations.” This renewal marks another milestone in the long-standing partnership between Cybeats and one of its major enterprise design partners. It highlights the increasing demand for software supply chain security solutions in the industrial control systems (“ICS”) sector. As part of its Software Bill of Materials (“SBOM”) adoption practices, Schneider Electric conducted an internal case study that found Cybeats helped reduce developer effort in vulnerability tracking by more than 50%, saving hundreds of staff hours and significantly accelerating the identification of vulnerable software components. Watch Schneider Electric’s feature on software supply chain security and SBOM adoption, highlighting their collaboration with Cybeats. https://tinyurl.com/bdzc8mxk

Aidan Gomez says Cohere could IPO “soon” as company holds secondary sale.

Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez believes the Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) scaleup could hit the public markets “soon.” “I think public market investors would be excited to have a pure-play AI investment opportunity, as opposed to investing by proxy through hyperscalers.”Aidan Gomez, Cohere. Gomez made the comment while breaking down his company’s place in the AI market with Bloomberg’s Lynn Doan at the Bloomberg Tech conference in London this week. On stage, Gomez told Doan that he believes his company will become profitable before 2029. “We have a differentiated deployment model, we have very high margins similar to a traditional [software-as-a-service] business, whereas many others in the industry are losing money per customer,” Gomez said. “We feel [we are] in a very good position to build a sustainable, profit-generating business.” Gomez initially told Doan that he didn’t know when his company would hold an initial public offering (IPO), adding, while holding up crossed fingers, that he doesn’t “want to jinx” the potential IPO. “I think [we’ll IPO] soon,” Gomez said, returning to formality. “We’re on a clear path to profitability; I think public market investors would be excited to have a pure-play AI investment opportunity, as opposed to investing by proxy through hyperscalers.” When prodded by Doan, Gomez said he would entertain an offer to list on a UK stock exchange, particularly since the Canadian-born entrepreneur lives in the country, where his mother is from. However, he noted that the “core constraint” is access to capital. “If that [capital] exists, we’ll be rational economic actors and list wherever,” Gomez said. The on-stage conversation also revealed that Cohere has reached US$150 million in annual recurring revenue, up from the US$100 million reported in May. Cohere is on track to bring in US$200 million in revenue this year, a source familiar with the company’s operations previously told BetaKit. https://tinyurl.com/4kf9rppd

Felix Health raises $53 million in growth financing to get more “aggressive” in telehealth.

Felix Health has secured $53 million from the Canadian Business Growth Fund (CBGF) and other existing investors as it looks to balance newfound profitability with the growth of its personalized health options for Canadians. “We saw a big opportunity for us to continue to push our lead in the market.” The growth financing, which is a roughly equal mix of equity and debt, comes off a hot streak for the Toronto-based telehealth platform. It claimed it attained profitability in July while also managing 80 percent year-over-year growth, and bringing in an annual run rate of $150 million. https://tinyurl.com/yu35rtyr

Cybrid closes US$10 million Series A round to bring stablecoins to the business mainstream.

Toronto-based payments startup Cybrid has raised a US$10 million Series A round to bring its stablecoin payment infrastructure to more enterprise clients, including Canada’s financial institutions. Multiple Canadian tech companies are trying to bring a Canadian dollar-backed stablecoin to market. BDC Capital’s Growth Venture Fund led the all-equity, all-primary round, which closed six weeks ago. The all-Canadian investment included Toronto’s Golden Ventures, as well as Montréal’s Luge Capital and Panache Ventures, building on its $3.8 million seed round in 2022. Founded in 2021, Cybrid sells payment infrastructure to allow businesses to integrate and support stablecoin and cross-border transactions. https://tinyurl.com/4x2sud7v

Crypto exchange Cryptomus fined record $177 million by Canada’s financial crime watchdog.

A cryptocurrency exchange has been slapped with a fine of almost $177 million — the largest-ever penalty by Canada’s financial intelligence agency — for infractions including failing to flag more than 1,000 transactions with suspected links to criminal activity. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) announced the penalty for Xeltox Enterprises Ltd. on Wednesday. The B.C.-incorporated business operates as Cryptomus and was previously known as Certa Payments Ltd. The $176,960,190 fine eclipses the previous record — roughly $20 million — for a fine imposed by FINTRAC. That penalty was given to Peken Global Ltd, the operator of another cryptocurrency firm, KuCoin, in September. The agency found 1,068 instances where Cryptomus did not submit reports for July 2024 transactions involving known darknet markets and virtual currency wallets with ties to the criminal activity Paquet described. Darknet markets are online and often anonymous platforms where illegal goods and services are sold. Virtual currencies also mask the identity of their holder, making both them and the darknet markets havens for criminal activity. FINTRAC said Cryptomus didn’t just violate money laundering laws when it failed to flag suspicious transactions, it also committed a violation when it failed to report 7,557 transactions originating from Iran between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2024. The Wednesday fine is the latest reprimand Cryptomus has faced. The B.C. Securities Commission temporarily banned the firm in May from trading securities and other market activities. In 2024-25, FINTRAC issued 23 violation notices to business that didn’t comply. It was the largest number of notices issued in one year in its history and amounted to more than $25 million in penalties. FINTRAC has imposed more than 150 penalties since it received the legislative authority to do so in 2008. https://tinyurl.com/mt9pjpra

Nvidia discusses loan guarantee for OpenAI.

Nvidia is discussing guaranteeing some of the loans that OpenAI is planning to take out in order to build its own data centers, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Such a move would involve risks for Nvidia, as the chip giant could face hefty debt obligations if OpenAI fails to repay the loans, according to the Journal. The loan guarantee discussion is part of Nvidia’s broader data center partnership with OpenAI, in which OpenAI will lease Nvidia’s chips rather than buying them. The chip leasing partnership shows how Nvidia is seeking new ways to do business with key AI developers that, unlike deep-pocketed cloud providers, would struggle to finance chip purchases on their own. Last month, the two companies announced that Nvidia will provide up to US$100 billion in funding to help OpenAI build its own data centers, starting with a US$10 billion cash infusion next year. OpenAI has also explored ways to reduce its dependence on Nvidia. In June, OpenAI had started renting Google’s AI chips to power ChatGPT and other products. After that article came out, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, asking if it was true, and expressed his willingness to get their partnership discussions back on track, according to the Journal. https://tinyurl.com/3dph9tyas

Japan’s Sakana AI in talks to raise capital at US$2.5 billion valuation.

Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based developer of artificial intelligence, is in talks with U.S. and Japanese investors to raise US$100 million at a valuation of US$2.5 billion, up 66% from a financing a year ago. The startup, founded in 2023 by former Google researchers, plans to use the new capital to expand its workforce for engineering as well as sales and distribution. The fundraising talks come months after CEO David Ha said that the company would operate profitably within a year. This year Sakana has announced deals to develop AI for some of Japan’s largest financial institutions. Sakana’s investors include many of Japan’s biggest corporations, as well as U.S. venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital. Nvidia is also an existing investor. https://tinyurl.com/yab9r5n3

Anthropic and Google in talks to strike multi-billion dollar cloud deal.

Anthropic is in talks with Google to access additional computing power in a deal in the high tens of billions of dollars, according to a person with knowledge of its plans. Talks are still early, and deal terms could change. Google is an existing cloud provider for Anthropic, which recently completed a US$13 billion fundraise at a US$170 billion valuation and is on track to hit US$7 billion in annualized revenue this month. Google also has previously invested in the company. Bloomberg earlier reported on the Anthropic-Google cloud deal. Meanwhile, rival OpenAI has also struck deals to increase its computing capacity, including an agreement to pay Oracle for computing capacity worth US$300 billion over five years starting in 2027. The ChatGPT maker over the summer projected spending over US$450 billion on computing power through 2030. https://tinyurl.com/n4ze7xrn

Khosla says robotics valuations are “getting bonkers”.

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla predicted that 2% to 3% of AI startups will account for 85% to 90% of the valuation of companies by 2035. In an interview on The Information’s TITV, Khosla also said that venture capital firms which don’t have early access to those companies but buy in later at higher prices will suffer lower returns. Khosla’s firm, Khosla Ventures, was an early investor in OpenAI, among other companies. Khosla’s comments follow an opinion article he wrote for The Information last month where he urged investors to be selective in buying into AI firms. On Wednesday on TITV, he said that some valuations in robotics were “getting bonkers,” adding that “95% of those startups will lose money.” Khosla also played down concerns about the circular financing deals that have become more common in AI, as companies like Nvidia invest money in companies buying its chips. He pointed out that financing companies is common in other industries, noting that GM finances purchases of its cars. The issue to watch for is “taking on what part of the risk,” which is a detail hidden in contracts that aren’t publicly available. That is the “key question before one can opine.” https://tinyurl.com/53djf6au

Commerce Dept. denies talks for Quantum investments.

The U.S. Commerce Depart. denied that it is “currently negotiating equity stakes with quantum computing companies,” according to CNBC, countering a news report earlier in the day that sent shares of several stocks soaring. Earlier Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the department is considering equity investments worth at least US$10 million in several quantum computing companies. IonQ, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Quantum Computing and startup Atom Computing are discussing the arrangement, according to the report. Share prices of each of the public companies rose at least 7% during the day. There is precedent for the Trump administration to make investments in U.S. companies it considers strategic assets. In August, the U.S. government agreed to buy 9.9% of Intel for US$8.9 billion. In July, the government said it would invest US$400 million in MP Materials, which operates a rare earth mine. On Wednesday, Google published new research on quantum computing, showing that the frontier technology can be used to understand the structures of molecules such as proteins or materials such as phone batteries. https://tinyurl.com/tuhx6jc2

Prediction market Kalshi fields investor offers at more than US$10 billion valuation.

Prediction market Kalshi is receiving funding offers from venture capital investors that would value the startup at more than US$10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter — interest that comes just weeks after Kalshi announced a US$300 million funding round at a US$5 billion valuation. Investors have been eager to back the fast-growing startup, and have discussed funding the company at valuations ranging from US$10 billion to US$12 billion or higher, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. https://tinyurl.com/ydubda36

Warner Bros. Discovery to evaluate Strategic Options.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors said it had begun a “review of strategic alternatives” as a result of “unsolicited interest the company has received from multiple parties for both the entire company and Warner Bros.” The announcement comes a few weeks after news reports said David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had approached WBD about a possible acquisition. Paramount is acting before WBD completes a split of the company in two, separating its film studio and streaming operations from its lucrative but slowly declining TV channel business. The board’s announcement reveals that WBD has also had approaches for just the film studio. CNBC reported that Netflix and Comcast were among the companies showing interest. The board said it would consider a “broad range of strategic options,” including a separation of the two sides under which Warner Bros. could be acquired while the Discovery businesses could be spun off to shareholders. https://tinyurl.com/mvch8pzb

Netflix posts 17% revenue growth, in line with projections.

Netflix reported 17% higher revenue of US$11.5 billion, right in line with its projection issued in mid-July, while operating income rose 28% to US$3.2 billion. The company’s shares fell 6% in after-hours trading, perhaps because of investor disappointment that Netflix didn’t exceed its projection. The video streaming giant projected a similar rate of growth for the fourth quarter, citing increase in membership, higher pricing and growing ad revenue. In its shareholder letter, Netflix said it was “on track to more than double our ads revenue in 2025,” off a relatively small base. The company this year has cut back on its disclosure, making it difficult to assess how much of its growth is coming from new subscribers and how much from pricing or advertising. Netflix reported that half of its revenue came from the U.S. and Canada, growing at the same rate as the overall company. The only region to lag the overall growth rate was Latin America, where revenue grew just 10%. https://tinyurl.com/muftn69j

Tesla profit fell 37% in third quarter despite end of tax credit boosting sales.

Tesla’s net income fell 37% year-over-year to US$1.4 billion in the third quarter, the company said Wednesday, attributing the decline to factors including tariffs and increased research and development spending. Meanwhile, revenue grew 12% year-over-year to US$28.1 billion due in part to a surge in vehicle sales as buyers rushed to snap up cars before the US$7,500 U.S. tax credit for electric vehicles expired at the end of September. Its automotive revenues grew 6%, while higher growth in Tesla’s battery business and services also boosted revenue, the company said. CEO Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is a major Tesla battery customer. Tesla shares were down 2% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Tesla also gave an update on its Optimus robot, which is falling behind on ambitious production goals set by Musk. Tesla had publicly set a goal of building 5,000 robots this year but abandoned plans to do so after encountering technical problems, The Information has reported. In a shareholder presentation on Wednesday, Tesla said “first generation production lines for Optimus are being installed in anticipation of volume production,” but did not say when volume production would begin. Tesla’s Cybercab, Tesla Semi and Megapack 3 battery will begin volume production in 2026, Tesla said. https://tinyurl.com/59wdp8cc

Super Micro shares fall 6% on weak preliminary results.

Super Micro Computer shares fell 6% on Thursday after the company released weak preliminary results for its fiscal first quarter of 2026. The server maker said it expects to report US$5 billion in revenue for the quarter, down from the $6 billion to US$7 billion guidance that the company had previously issued. Super Micro said “design win upgrades” pushed some expected first-quarter revenue to the second quarter. “We see customer demand accelerating, and we are gaining AI share, reiterating revenue of at least US$33B for FY 2026 with the expectation of delivering more.” Super Micro CEO Charles Liang said in a statement. Super Micro said it has had “recent design wins” of more than US$12 billion, and that delivery has been requested during its fiscal second quarter. The company will provide further updates on its expected second-quarter deliveries and revenues during its earnings call on Nov. 4, when it will officially report its first-quarter results. https://tinyurl.com/5n8nwhja

Meta cuts about 600 from AI organization.

Meta Platforms is cutting about 600 employees from its artificial intelligence organization, Meta Superintelligence Labs, a spokesperson said. The layoffs come after the unit, which had about 3,400 employees as of this summer, restructured itself in August. The cuts will affect the organization’s teams for product and applied research and infrastructure, as well as its Fundamental AI Research lab. They will not impact the organization’s new AI lab, TBD Lab. “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, wrote in an internal post reviewed by The Information. Meta has told employees in the organization that it is encouraging those affected by the cuts to apply for other jobs within the company and is expecting most will find another role internally. Axios first reported on the cuts. https://tinyurl.com/56cyvbaf

Google’s Quantum Computer makes a big technical leap.

Michel H. Devoret was one of three physicists who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for a series of experiments they conducted more than four decades ago. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1980s, Dr. Devoret helped show that the strange and powerful properties of quantum mechanics — the physics of the subatomic realm — could also be observed in electrical circuits large enough to be seen with the naked eye. That discovery, which paved the way for cellphones and fiber-optic cables, may have greater implications in the coming years as researchers build quantum computers that could be vastly more powerful than today’s computing systems. That could lead to the discovery of new medicines and vaccines, as well as cracking the encryption techniques that guard the world’s secrets. https://tinyurl.com/2nc6xajd

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Atlas, an AI-Powered web browser.

OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, a web browser that allows users to search the web alongside a companion ChatGPT sidebar, confirming earlier reporting from The Information. The browser heightens OpenAI’s competition with Google, which handles most search questions on the web, including via its AI-powered Chrome browser. Shares of Google-parent Alphabet shares fell 2% after the announcement. People using ChatGPT Atlas can ask ChatGPT to summarize web pages or ask questions directly in a split-screen view, eliminating the need to switch between tabs. Another feature, dubbed “cursor chat,” enables people to edit sentences in line with a click of a button. ChatGPT Atlas can also complete tasks on behalf of users, such as ordering groceries or inputting data into task management software, through a feature known as “Agent Mode.” The browser can offer a personalized experience for users based on the person’s search history and preferences. The browser gives ChatGPT a new way to access the chatbot. Users’ browser data could also help OpenAI improve its AI models and develop new products. Perplexity, which operates an AI-powered search engine, launched its browser Comet AI earlier this summer. ChatGPT Atlas is available for Mac users across the world starting on Tuesday, while agent mode is only available for ChatGPT Plus users. Access for Windows and mobile users is coming soon, according to the company. https://tinyurl.com/mt4uaj2a

Amazon reportedly expects to avoid adding hundreds of thousands of workers due to robots.

Amazon aims to avoid significantly growing its U.S. workforce while doubling the volume of products it sells by 2033, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing internal company documents. Without robotics and automation, the company would expect to need to hire more than 600,000 more people during that period, according to the report. The numbers reported by the Times would continue an existing trend at Amazon, which has continued to grow its e-commerce business without expanding overall headcount. At the end of 2021, Amazon employed 1.61 million people globally, a figure that included both corporate employees and people in its warehouses. That number stood at 1.56 million at the end of 2024, according to securities filings. Over the same period, Amazon’s North America sales climbed to US$388 billion from US$277 billion, a figure that’s made up primarily of e-commerce sales and excludes cloud revenue. An Amazon spokesperson said the numbers in the Times story “appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don’t represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines – now or moving forward.” Amazon has invested heavily in robotics that automate the sorting, packing and movement of packages inside its warehouses. It’s also exploring using humanoid robots for last-mile deliveries. https://tinyurl.com/yeb3su2h

Amazon unveils AI smart glasses for its delivery drivers.

Amazon announced on Wednesday that it’s developing AI-powered smart glasses for its delivery drivers. The idea behind the glasses is to give delivery drivers a hands-free experience that reduces the need to keep looking between their phone, the package they’re delivering, and their surroundings. The e-commerce giant says the glasses will allow delivery drivers to scan packages, follow turn-by-turn walking directions, and capture proof of delivery, all without using their phones. The glasses use AI-powered sensing capabilities and computer vision alongside cameras to create a display that includes things like hazards and delivery tasks. Amazon likely hopes that the new glasses will shave time off of each delivery by providing delivery drivers with detailed directions and information about hazards directly in their line of sight. When a driver parks at a delivery location, Amazon says the glasses automatically activate. The glasses help the driver locate the package inside the vehicle and then navigate to the delivery address. The glasses can provide easy-to-follow directions in places like multi-unit apartment complexes and business locations. The glasses are paired with a controller worn in the delivery vest that contains operational controls, a swappable battery, and a dedicated emergency button. Amazon notes that the glasses also support prescription lenses and transitional lenses that automatically adjust to light. The retailer is currently trialing the glasses with delivery drivers in North America and plans to refine the technology before a wider rollout. https://tinyurl.com/vanau93d

Anthropic says it will use up to 1 million Google TPU chips.

Anthropic on Thursday said it plans to use up to 1 million Google Tensor processing units to power its artificial intelligence, implying the startup would spend tens of billions of dollars renting TPU servers. The announcement is a show of confidence in Google’s chip as an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing unit, which dominates the AI server market. Anthropic didn’t provide more details except to say that next year, the TPUs in its deal with Google will power a gigawatt of data center capacity. Developing a 1 GW data center costs tens of billions of dollars. It isn’t clear whether the TPUs for Anthropic would be run by Google Cloud or at data centers operated by other cloud providers. Recently, Google struck a deal to put a large number of TPUs in a New York data center run by cloud provider Fluidstack, The Information reported, but it wasn’t clear who would use the TPUs. TPUs historically only ran inside Google Cloud providers, and the most advanced version of the chip was restricted to Google’s in-house AI teams. Google offers servers powered by the chip as an alternative to Nvidia’s GPUs, though Google Cloud is also one of the biggest buyers of GPUs, as many cloud customers prefer using those chips. Anthropic says it uses a mix of TPUs, GPUs, and Amazon’s Trainium AI chips. OpenAI at one point was testing TPUs but later said it didn’t have plans to use them at scale. Both Google and Amazon own significant stakes in Anthropic and have invested billions of dollars in the company. Anthropic spends billions of dollars a year renting servers from Google and Amazon’s cloud units. https://tinyurl.com/55frzejv

US mulls curbs on exports to China made with US software.

The Trump administration is considering a plan to curb a dizzying array of software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, to retaliate against Beijing’s latest round of rare earth export restrictions, according to a U.S. official and three people briefed by U.S. authorities. While the plan is not the only one being deliberated, it would make good on President Donald Trump’s threat earlier this month to bar “critical software” exports to China by restricting global shipments of items that contain U.S. software or were produced using U.S. software. On October 10, Trump said in a social media post that he would impose additional tariffs of 100% on China’s U.S.-bound shipments, along with new export controls on “any and all critical software” by November 1 without further details. To be sure, the measure, details of which are being reported for the first time, may not move forward, the sources said. But the fact that such controls are being considered shows the Trump administration is weighing a dramatic escalation of its showdown with China, even as some within the U.S. government favor a gentler approach, according to two of the sources. U.S. stock indexes dipped following the Reuters report, before paring losses. https://tinyurl.com/23jxvyw5

Amazon launches new AI recommendation feature to help shoppers make decisions.

Amazon launched a new artificial intelligence-powered product recommendation feature Thursday, the e-commerce giant’s latest move to incorporate more AI features into both its consumer-facing shopping experience as well as the systems that power its search and recommendation features. The new feature, known as Help Me Decide, will analyze a users’ browsing activity, as well as search and shopping history, to recommend a product. It will appear on product pages if a user has been browsing items but hasn’t made a purchase. Help Me Decide is available in beta to U.S. users. Amazon says that Help Me Decide uses AI models, including one from Amazon’s cloud service Bedrock, to understand what users are searching for and why by looking at their shopping history and preferences. It then matches that information with product details and reviews to make a suggestion. Amazon has been using generative AI to refine and improve its search results more generally, The Information previously reported, and has been working to better understand the intent behind shoppers’ queries rather than just looking for key search terms they’re using. Amazon is also testing new metrics for sellers that better assess the detail and accuracy of product listings to improve them for AI search. https://tinyurl.com/eajz5x7m

Fed explores ‘skinny’ master account as crypto firms seek access.

The Federal Reserve is exploring creating a new type of account that could be used by crypto, fintech and other companies to process payments without using banks. Fed governor Chrisopher Waller, speaking at the Fed’s first-ever Payments Innovation Conference, said he has directed Fed staff to explore the idea of creating a “skinny” master account that would provide basic Fed payment services to eligible firms. Letting fintechs and crypto companies bypass banks for payments would address one of their biggest frustrations with the financial system but would also threaten the role of banks. The new accounts differ significantly from what banks have at the Fed, allowing it to control risks. The new accounts would not pay interest and could have limits on their size. They would not be eligible for emergency lending, which the Fed provides to banks. The accounts will also have no overdraft privileges. “I want to be clear that this is just a prototype idea to provide some clarity on how things could change,” Waller said. Crypto companies, especially stablecoin issuers such as Ripple and Anchorage Digital, have been seeking Fed accounts to hold their reserves and process payments. The idea has been controversial because it could threaten the role of banks. https://tinyurl.com/2nmvp886