AI & Finance™ | News for the Week Ending 10/23/26

We love being wrong, because being wrong means we learn something. Also, since we're not really a gambling person, being wrong rarely means we lose something. It's always an opportunity to gain more knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, not to mention humility. 

We know we've said this before, but boy were we wrong about AI in the financial services industry, particularly wealth management. 

Welcome to AI & Finance, where we're revisiting just how dumb we feel today when we think back just three years ago when we thought it would be a long, difficult road to get financial professionals, especially wealth managers, to adopt artificial intelligence, because we keep getting reminders of how terribly off the mark we were back in the days when we were a traditional journalist. 

Now, there's probably a story to be told about why we were guilty of wrongthink about financial artificial intelligence, but we're going to stick with the actual evidence of our inaccuracy for now. Not only is the financial industry embracing AI, it is the leading economic sector when it comes to AI exposure. As it turns out, no industry has more at stake in the artificial intelligence revolution than financial services, according to Boston Consulting Group’s AI Maturity Matrix 2026. Banking, insurance, asset management and other financial activities occupy a particularly exposed position in an economy increasingly shaped by intelligent automation, advanced analytics and generative AI. That distinction carries enormous opportunities for financial institutions, but also substantial risks. The same technologies that promise to improve productivity, reduce operating expenses and transform customer relationships threaten to disrupt established business models, change the economics of financial advice and redefine the skills financial professionals need to remain competitive. 

The financial industry is unusually dependent on information processing, quantitative analysis, document-intensive workflows, decision-making and customer communications. These activities overlap extensively with the capabilities of contemporary AI systems. Banks can use machine learning to assess creditworthiness, identify suspicious transactions and automate customer service. Insurers can apply AI to underwriting, claims administration and fraud detection. Asset managers can incorporate AI into investment research, portfolio construction and risk monitoring, while wealth managers can use generative and agentic systems to support financial planning, client communications and administrative work. 

We also had this week two studies suggesting that consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable turning to artificial intelligence for financial guidance, even when the decisions involve sensitive personal information or substantial financial consequences. Research commissioned by Bill Harris’s Evergreen.ai in the United States and a separate European banking study from EOS Group point toward a potentially consequential change in the relationship between financial institutions, their customers and intelligent technology. Consumers are no longer merely experimenting with AI as an informational resource. Many are incorporating its recommendations into actual financial decisions, sometimes without independent verification. 

The Evergreen.ai Financial Decisions Study, based on 1,981 quality-screened responses from an initial survey of 3,097 American adults, found that nearly half of respondents had consulted AI about their finances during the previous year. More strikingly, approximately 78% of those who sought financial guidance from AI reported acting on its answers. This suggests that consumer adoption has progressed beyond asking chatbots hypothetical questions about budgeting, investing or retirement. AI-generated information is influencing actual financial behavior, raising questions about the accuracy, suitability and accountability of advice produced by systems that may know relatively little about an individual's complete financial circumstances. 

Meanwhile, the EOS Banking AI Barometer found that 46% of surveyed European consumers believed AI had improved communication with their banks, compared with just 11% who believed it had made communication worse. More surprisingly, 29% said they would prefer discussing sensitive financial matters with AI rather than a human representative. Among respondents ages 18 to 34, that proportion increased to 38%. These findings challenge the conventional assumption that customers invariably prefer human interaction when discussing potentially embarrassing, complicated or emotionally charged money matters. 

The EOS research also revealed that 61% of respondents wanted proactive AI warnings when their accounts were at risk of overdrafts, while 54% valued AI as a tool for finding information. Nevertheless, 60% reported missing the human element in AI-mediated communication. These apparently contradictory findings suggest that consumers may welcome automation for specific financial tasks without necessarily wanting to abandon human relationships altogether. 

For banks and wealth managers, the combined findings offer a powerful lesson. Consumers increasingly expect financial intelligence to be available immediately, conveniently and personally. 

Obviously, while some people will find the rapid proliferation of AI across finance a little unnerving, we kind of fell off the creepy October theme this week. Maybe we'll try again next time.

Let’s get to your headlines...

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AICPA 

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC) are rolling out a joint assurance certification that provides the first comprehensive, independent review of business risk related to AI systems and agents.  

Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology for many organizations, but misfires have raised serious concerns about its safety and security in critical business operations. AI agents now hold credentials, call APIs and act inside core systems, so an AI failure is increasingly a security breach. 

The AICPA-AIUC offering is built on standards and frameworks pioneered by the two partners and used by thousands of companies globally. Last year, over 40,000 organizations obtained a SOC 2® attestation or AIUC-1 certification. 

Aprio 

Aprio, the 20th largest business advisory and accounting firm in the U.S. today announced the next phase of a strategic partnership with Intuit, the global financial technology platform that makes TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Intuit Enterprise Suite and Intuit Accountant Suite. The deepening partnership is designed to accelerate innovation across the accounting profession and help shape the future of AI-powered advisory and accounting services for mid-market businesses. 

Aprio and Intuit will work together to develop AI-powered solutions designed to help identify tax planning opportunities, benchmark business performance, improve financial visibility, and support more informed decision-making across industries including construction, dental, wealth management and tax. Aprio's subject matter specialists will work alongside Intuit's product, engineering, and AI teams to turn real-world client needs into industry-specific capabilities that deliver greater visibility into business performance and enable more opportunities for advisors to focus on strategic guidance. 

The partnership supports both organizations' commitment to innovation and the responsible application of artificial intelligence. By combining advanced technologies with deep advisory capabilities, Aprio and Intuit aim to help accelerate the evolution of accounting and advisory services and create new value across the business lifecycle. The collaboration builds on the strategic partnership announced in October 2025, when Aprio became Intuit's first advisory and accounting firm partner focused on accelerating mid-market business growth with client implementations of Intuit Enterprise Suite, Intuit's AI-native ERP for modern finance teams. This next phase expands the relationship beyond technology implementation to include AI innovation, industry-focused solutions, and new ways to help clients grow. 

Benzinga 

Benzinga, a leading provider of real-time financial news, market data, and financial APIs, today announced an expanded relationship with WNSTN, an AI personalization and engagement platform built for financial institutions. The two companies will go to market together with a combined solution for brokerages, with WNSTN providing the AI intelligence layer and Benzinga providing the real-time and historical data that grounds it. 

The expansion builds on a year of collaboration inside Benzinga's products. Since launching across Benzinga Pro in 2025, Benzinga AI, powered by WNSTN, has delivered natural language chat, news summarization, and market analysis to Benzinga's base of active traders and financial professionals. The product has generated strong user adoption, including 25x increase in engagement, giving both companies the confidence to take the technology beyond Benzinga and make it available to a broader set of financial platforms. 

For brokerages, the offering is designed to shorten the distance between wanting AI in the client experience and being able to defend it internally. WNSTN supplies multiple touchpoints that sit on top of data, including a conversational layer, portfolio-aware personalization, always-on market monitoring, actionable investing ideas, tailored summaries and a compliance agent trained on global regulatory frameworks including FINRA, SEC, CySEC, and MiFID II, with every output routed through that layer before it reaches an end user. Benzinga supplies the underlying market intelligence, including real-time equities news, analyst ratings, earnings and corporate events, SEC filings, and Why Is It Moving explanations of price action, alongside historical archives for retrieval and context. 

BILL 

BILL (NYSE: BILL), the intelligent finance platform trusted by nearly 500,000 businesses to manage, move, and maximize their money, today announced new agentic capabilities designed to give finance teams greater control and confidence in how AI works for them. The features help protect against payment errors; empower finance teams to control where AI works for them; answer questions in natural language chat, accelerate onboarding; and organize inbound documents. 

While 86% of small and medium-sized business (SMB) leaders report using AI tools in their financial operations, only 19% trust AI “completely” — with data quality and data security cited as key reasons to keep humans in the loop. In a recent BILL survey of U.S. accounting firms, nearly 90% described themselves as ambitious when it comes to AI, yet only around half trust AI data accuracy “somewhat.” BILL is addressing the confidence gap by giving finance teams powerful new levels of control, security, and intelligence in their AI financial operations. 

In FY2026, BILL flagged ~$1.5 billion in payments made by customers that were the result of simple mistakes or unusual payments – for example, a vendor sends an invoice for the wrong amount. Simple mistakes like this cost finance teams time to fix. With the new risk intelligence capability, BILL’s AI checks invoices before the payment gets scheduled. By automatically flagging invoices that deviate from a vendor's established billing history during the approval stage, finance teams can correct any mistakes faster and keep money moving. 

Capitalize 

Capitalize, the industry’s leading infrastructure for retirement account transfers, today announced Liza™ AI, an enterprise AI solution built specifically for 401(k) rollovers and other transfers. Liza can work directly with customers and participants, as well as behind the scenes with operations teams - helping financial institutions complete more rollovers, faster and with fewer errors. 

Liza builds on Capitalize's established infrastructure to bring an intelligence layer to every stage of the retirement transfer process. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, Liza is powered by Capitalize's Rollover Intelligence Engine - a proprietary foundation informed by millions of customer interactions and billions of dollars in rollover volume. That data advantage means Liza understands not just what customers are asking, but how to move transfers forward regardless of the situation. 

Liza is built with layered safeguards designed for financial institutions. Responses are grounded in Capitalize's retirement transfer knowledge base, with data protection, output validation, and authorization controls governing the information and actions available to Liza. Liza's automation is paired with rigorous QA capabilities - including human review, output validation, ongoing monitoring, and audit trails - so institutions can move faster without sacrificing accuracy or control. 

Choreo 

Choreo, LLC ("Choreo" or "the firm") announced today that Gabriel Rodriguez has been named Chief Technology Officer. He will report to Chief Executive Officer Jason Van de Loo, join the firm's executive leadership team and be based in the Charlotte, North Carolina office. 

Rodriguez will build the technology foundation for Choreo's next phase of growth, creating a connected platform that helps advisor teams deliver coordinated tax and wealth advice consistently as the firm scales. He will leverage AI to expand advisor capacity and will strengthen the planning, reporting and client engagement tools advisors use every day, supported by training that helps teams adopt them. 

Rodriguez brings over 20 years of industry experience. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President of Technology at LPL Financial, responsible for ClientWorks, the firm's advisor workstation. Before that, he spent six years at Vanguard leading technology architecture and engineering for its U.S. intermediary business. Earlier, he led investment research systems at Wellington Management and developed investment systems at Bain Capital. 

Credit Sesame 

Credit Sesame, a pioneer in AI-powered credit intelligence and embedded finance, today announced Sesa, a new platform of specialized AI agents that enables enterprises to deliver intelligent, personalized credit experiences through a single line of code following account configuration. 

Sesa is designed to serve as the credit intelligence layer for enterprise platforms and large language models, connecting conversational AI with the specialized data, decisioning, product infrastructure and compliance capabilities required to help consumers understand, improve and act on their credit. 

Instead of building and maintaining a complex credit ecosystem, enterprises can use Sesa to embed Credit Sesame's established credit intelligence infrastructure directly into their existing websites, applications and AI experiences. Companies can deploy individual Sesa agents based on their business priorities or activate Sesa One, the coordinating agent that brings the full suite together as a unified consumer experience. 

DeepVest 

DeepVest, the agentic front office for financial advisors, today announced the launch of PlanLab, its financial planning capability that brings the near-entirety of a household’s financial picture into one unified view. The interactive plan spans 11 planning domains and maps 53 connections between them.  

With PlanLab, advisors can visualize how various parts of a client’s financial life connect across retirement, taxes, investments, estate planning, insurance, risk, goals, behavioral factors, household details and business ownership. Rather than managing these areas across various spreadsheets and disconnected tools, advisors can now use PlanLab to see how a decision in one area may impact the rest of a client’s financial plan. 

With the launch of PlanLab, DeepVest has expanded its unified, agentic workspace into financial planning, building on its existing capabilities across proposal generation, market data, portfolio analysis and continuous monitoring. PlanLab is built on DeepVest’s hallucination-free platform, which combines AI-driven workflows with deterministic calculations to deliver accurate, transparent and auditable results. Information and decisions from elsewhere in DeepVest can flow into the financial plan, while PlanLab maintains a record of decisions and re-evaluates the plan as new client information becomes available. Firms can also use PlanLab alongside an existing financial planning system by importing a plan as a starting point, without having to replace their current setup. 

eMoney Advisor 

eMoney Advisor ("eMoney"), a leading provider of technology solutions and services that help people talk about money, today presented its product roadmap and vision to more than 1,400 financial professionals during the 2026 eMoney Summit, taking place virtually through Oct. 21. 

eMoney CEO Susan McKenna delivered opening remarks on how eMoney is powering what's possible for advisors, clients and the future of financial planning, highlighting the business momentum and product adoption. In the past year, more than 6,000 new users and 500,000 households were added to the eMoney platform. 

Recognizing that planning insights deliver the greatest value when embedded in advisor workflows, eMoney continues to drive innovation through new technologies that extend planning intelligence beyond the financial plan itself. Highlights planned for 2027 include:  

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Framework: A new framework designed to make eMoney's planning intelligence securely available in the systems, workflows and AI-powered experiences firms already use. Developer Site MCP: New tools and resources that help firms and technology partners build integrations and AI-powered workflows more efficiently. eMoney MCP: A secure framework that enables approved systems and agents to access eMoney planning capabilities while maintaining governance, auditability and control. 

Evervault 

Evervault today announced the launch of Browser Tokens at Money20/20, giving developers building agentic commerce products a secure way for AI agents and browser automations to make purchases, log in to accounts and complete sensitive online workflows without exposing payment cards, passwords or personal data to the agent or browser provider. 

AI agents increasingly need to act on users’ behalf across merchant websites. However, completing transactions often requires access to regulated or sensitive information. Passing raw card details or credentials through an AI model, automation framework or hosted browser can create significant security risks for developers building agentic workflows, and expands the systems subject to Payment Card Industry data security requirements, among other frameworks. 

Network-led agentic payment initiatives like Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay offer another route to AI commerce, but availability depends on card network, issuer, geography and merchant support. Browser Tokens provide a network-agnostic compatibility layer for today’s web, working across existing payment cards and account-access flows without requiring merchants to adopt a new checkout experience. 

EY 

The EY organization today announces an alliance between INSTANDA, one of the leading AI-augmented no-code insurance platforms, and Ernst & Young LLP (EY UK) to help insurers execute transformation at scale, unlock the full potential of AI and support their people to provide greater value across the business. 

The EY-INSTANDA Alliance combines EY UK's insurance consulting, implementation and transformation capabilities with INSTANDA's intelligent product design, policy lifestyle management, open API integration and highly configurable platform. 

Together, the organizations help insurers reduce architectural complexity, modernize core operations and create the foundations required for long-term agility and sustained technology adoption. 

FinTurk 

FinTurk, an AI-native CRM built specifically for financial advisors, today announced the introduction of FinBox, a new AI-powered email management tool designed to streamline client communications and daily workflows for registered investment advisors (RIAs). Alongside the rollout of FinBox, FinTurk is introducing unlimited artificial intelligence (AI) usage for advisors on its Max plan, replacing the existing monthly AI credit to help firms take full advantage of the platform's automation capabilities without worrying about usage costs. 

FinBox brings advisors' Microsoft 365 or Gmail inboxes directly into FinTurk, allowing them to read, search, organize and respond to emails within the same workspace where they manage clients, tasks and portfolios. By automatically connecting email conversations to the appropriate client records, FinBox eliminates the need to switch between disconnected systems and gives advisors a more complete view of each client relationship. 

Built on FinTurk's native AI platform, FinBox also automates several time-consuming email management tasks. The tool can draft personalized responses using client account information, identify important messages and suggest CRM updates or follow-up tasks based on incoming communications. Advisors can also create inbox rules using plain-language instructions to automatically organize and flag messages as they arrive. With built-in safeguards and advisor oversight, all AI-generated responses and suggested actions remain subject to review and approval before execution. 

FinTurk 

FinTurk, an AI-native CRM built specifically for financial advisors, today announced a new partnership with Fiduciary Check, an advisor network supporting financial professionals with resources and solutions to help them grow and operate their practices. Through the partnership, Fiduciary Check members will receive preferred access to FinTurk at discounts of up to 44%, with Fiduciary Check subsidizing the cost of the platform as part of its membership offering. 

The partnership gives Fiduciary Check members access to FinTurk’s CRM and automation capabilities at a reduced cost, bringing client relationships, workflows, meeting preparation, task management, portfolio management and automation together in one platform. Rather than requiring advisors to piece together separate technologies, FinTurk is designed around the day-to-day operations of an advisory firm, with native artificial intelligence (AI) embedded throughout the CRM. 

FinTurk’s native AI assistant, Finn, works within the CRM to help advisors understand their book of business, prepare for client meetings and manage day-to-day work, while keeping the advisor in control of every action. The platform also supports customizable client and household management, workflow and task automation, portfolio and cash management, along with email and calendar integrations. 

Focus Financial Partners 

Focus Financial Partners (“Focus”) and Nevis today announced a strategic partnership under which Nevis will serve as the enterprise AI platform for Focus Partners Wealth and Focus’ other business units, helping reduce administrative burdens, expand advisor capacity and enhance the experience for clients and advisors. The deployment will support Focus’ team members, reinforcing its commitment to pairing cutting-edge technology with highly personalized advice. 

This announcement follows Focus' multi-year transformation. While continuing to invest heavily in its brand, infrastructure and operating model, the company is now deploying AI at scale as part of its growth strategy, making this significant investment in Nevis’ wealth management technology. 

Focus enters this partnership as a leader in the wealth management, asset management, and business management industries, with more than $500 billion in collective client assets, more than 300 completed M&A transactions, and more than 6,300 team members. That scale gives Focus a distinct opportunity to shape how artificial intelligence is applied across wealth management, combining enterprise-level resources with the personalized guidance clients expect from their advisors. Nevis has established itself as the AI platform of choice for enterprise RIAs, growing the assets under management on its platform from $50 billion to $700 billion this year — establishing itself as the fastest-growing platform in its category. The company is backed by $40 million from Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ, and Ribbit Capital, and its customer base includes some of the largest and fastest-growing wealth management firms in the country, among them IEQ Capital, United Capital, and AlTi Global. 

FusionIQ 

Enterra Solutions, LLC and FusionIQ, Inc. today announced a ten-year agreement under which Enterra Solutions’ Autonomous Decision Science Platform will power FusionIQ’s wealth management platform, giving FusionIQ’s bank, credit union, RIA and broker-dealer clients AI tools whose decisions can be explained, audited and documented for regulators. The long-term commitment comes as FusionIQ scales from approximately 400,000 accounts today towards 1.2 million accounts and $240 billion in assets under administration by the end of 2027. 

The agreement is among the most significant AI platform commitments yet announced in wealth management, and it addresses the hardest constraint facing regulated financial institutions today: they cannot deploy AI they cannot explain. 

Enterra is a foundational AI company with a deep lineage in AI and applied mathematics, working with some of the world’s largest enterprises. Enterra built the Autonomous Decision Science (“ADS”) Platform – a glass-box enterprise decision intelligence system. The critical decisions it produces can be decoded, audited, and explained to operators, compliance officers, and regulators. For a platform distributing wealth management technology to banks, credit unions, registered investment advisers, and broker-dealers, that transparency is not a feature – it is a necessary precondition for deploying AI. 

Genpact 

Genpact (NYSE: G), the Agentic Operations company, today announced the general availability of the Genpact Accounts Receivable (AR) Suite for industrial clients in manufacturing and mining. The proprietary agentic AI solution is designed to help automate and coordinate collections, dispute resolution, and cash application across the invoice-to-cash (I2C) process. The suite helps finance teams reduce manual work, prioritize collections activity, resolve disputes faster, and apply customer payments with minimal intervention. 

Built on decades of running finance operations for global enterprises, the Genpact AR Suite combines deep I2C process intelligence with agentic AI-assisted capabilities designed to help identify customer payment behavior and patterns, prioritize disputes, and resolve cases with human oversight. 

The accounts receivable (AR) launch expands Genpact's agentic finance solution portfolio, which includes accounts payable (AP) and record-to-report (R2R). Together, these proprietary solutions are designed to help CFOs modernize core finance operations, improve visibility and control, and optimize working capital outcomes, turning manual, siloed tasks into unified agentic operations. Genpact plans to extend its capabilities across the broader order-to-cash lifecycle. This reflects Genpact's Agentic Operations strategy, where AI agents help execute work at scale while human experts oversee exceptions and business decisions. 

The Huntington Bank 

The Huntington National Bank ("Huntington") today announced The 1866 Studio, a new AI-powered operating system built with Gemini platform, Google Cloud's AI platform. Named for the year Huntington was founded, The 1866 Studio honors the bank's legacy of empowering businesses by bringing together business guidance, financial intelligence, digital tools and human expertise into a single, connected experience for aspiring and existing small business owners. 

The 1866 Studio is designed to simplify the complex and time-consuming demands of starting and running a business. The operating system will provide agentic AI workflows across the financial, operational and management needs of business owners that streamline complex work and help them move from information to intelligence to action. By retaining relevant business context across tasks, The 1866 Studio enables business owners to orchestrate decisions across disparate tools while maintaining control as their needs evolve. 

The 1866 Studio will leverage Huntington's extensive small business and financial expertise and an AI-powered experience built using Google Cloud's comprehensive platform to build, scale, govern and optimize agents. Combined with Google's multimodal Gemini models, Gemini platform is enabling Huntington to offer business owners an intelligent, connected operating system that helps them navigate decisions with greater confidence and efficiency. 

Hyland 

The insurance industry is at a tipping point as customer expectations are rising, regulatory requirements are ongoing, and AI is reshaping the competitive landscape. Yet property and casualty (P&C) insurers are still trapped in inefficiency as claims adjusters are left searching across disconnected systems for documents, underwriters are wasting time on manual processes instead of writing business, and billing teams are managing collections without centralized visibility. These fragmented, siloed operations cost time, money, and ultimately customer experience. 

This is why Hyland today announced Hyland for Guidewire, a set of ready-to-deploy cloud integrations validated by Guidewire and available on Guidewire Marketplace. These solutions connect the Hyland Content Innovation Cloud™ with Guidewire core insurance applications (Guidewire ClaimCenter, PolicyCenter, and BillingCenter) giving P&C insurers the unified content foundation they need to operate faster, smarter and at scale. 

Hyland for Guidewire is a set of pre-built, validated integrations that reduces the time, cost, and complexity of custom development. Using Hyland Content Federation Service, the integration connects OnBase on-premises customers to the Content Innovation Cloud and Guidewire applications, with no content migration required. This gives adjusters, underwriters, and billing teams immediate access to the documents and data they need without leaving the Guidewire interface. 

JIFFYAI 

JIFFYAI, a provider of Engagement AI solutions for wealth management, today announced that TCI Wealth Advisors, a 100% employee-owned, independent, fee-only wealth advisory firm, has selected its Unified Onboarding and Advisor Universal Desktop solutions. The solutions will help TCI create a more streamlined onboarding experience and give their advisors a more connected view of each client relationship. 

For TCI, the solutions will support two important parts of the client experience. Unified Onboarding brings data, documents, workflows, compliance and integrations into a streamlined digital process. Advisor Universal Desktop gives advisors a consolidated view of accounts, households, client information and financial goals while enabling them to complete servicing and planning activities from start to finish. Pre-integrated with leading custodians, CRMs and processing systems, the solutions are designed to reduce operational friction so advisors can devote more time and attention to clients. 

The partnership reflects JIFFYAI’s broader Engagement AI vision: Unify Data. Uplift Experiences. Unlock Capacity. The Engagement AI suite of solutions connects client data and onboarding and servicing workflows, so advisors can move more efficiently from client interaction and insight to action and task completion. 

Jump 

Jump, the leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for advisors and financial services professionals, today announced its integration with FMG Suite (“FMG”), the leading marketing and growth platform for financial advisors, insurance professionals and enterprises. Built through FMG Connect, the workflow surfaces relevant, compliance-approved FMG content based on client conversations for advisors to review and use in post-meeting follow-up. 

For example, if a client raises questions about retirement income during a meeting, Jump could surface an FMG educational resource on that topic for the advisor to review and consider including in a post-meeting follow-up. The advisor decides whether the material fits the client’s needs and whether to send it, retaining control over the communication. 

The milestone builds on FMG’s recent introduction of FMG Connect, the integration and orchestration layer that allows external advisor tools to connect with FMG. Jump was one of seven early-access partners developing integrations. The new workflow advances that work into a concrete meeting-to-marketing experience. 

Kapital 

Kapital, a global AI-powered financial institution and one of the largest B2B financial institutions in Latin America, today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Woz, a Y Combinator-backed AI startup building advanced coding agents for complex business use cases, in a $30 million cash-and-stock transaction. 

As part of the acquisition, Woz co-founders CEO Ben Collins and CTO Brad Eckert will join Kapital as Head of AI and Chief Technology Officer, respectively. Woz's full team of AI developers will also join Kapital, and the company plans to continue growing the San Francisco-based team over the next year. 

The acquisition further strengthens Kapital's AI-native financial ecosystem, bringing Woz's engineering expertise together with Kapital's proprietary data and technology platform. Under Collins' and Eckert's technical leadership, Kapital will develop a next generation of AI models and products designed specifically for enterprise-grade financial applications, expanding on Kapital's existing AI suite, OctavIA, which powers live scoring systems, underwriting, risk, and customer intelligence. 

Kinective 

Kinective, the company delivering intelligent banking to over 4,300 banks and credit unions, today launched Report Builder Agent, the first of several AI Developer Agents that help financial institutions take action on their data. Available as part of Kinective Data Intelligence, the Report Builder Agent creates dashboards and reports from plain-language prompts, enabling users to easily customize and refine outputs without specialized IT or data analyst intervention. 

The Report Builder Agent operates inside an institution's existing data permissions and role-based access established through Kinective Data Intelligence, which digests data and organizes it into a unified, navigable structure. The AI-powered agent sorts through internal information, creates a preliminary, adjustable version of the requested asset, and provides data references to empower users to verify accuracy. 

Kinective’s Developer Agents are purpose-built for every-day financial institution tasks. Together, they modernize workflows from manual investigation and configuration to faster, more guided work that surfaces account holder insights and recommended actions. In addition to the Report Builder Agent, Kinective Data Intelligence users can gain access to several additional agents. 

Maximum 

Emprise Bank has announced a design partnership with Maximum, an AI-native banking infrastructure company, to transform its core banking system. 

Maximum will deliver the first AI-native operating system purpose-built for traditional banks, providing them with the speed and agility they need to deliver best-in-class customer experiences. This investment will fundamentally alter Emprise’s economics and enable it to scale its customer count by 10 times in the next 24 months while improving efficiency margins. 

Emprise believes adding artificial intelligence to infrastructure built for a different era is not enough. Deloitte’s Center for Financial Services describes the ceiling this can create: the capabilities of new technology may be constrained by the foundation beneath it. Maximum is building AI-native infrastructure for banks, designed from the ground up to replace fragmented legacy technology with a unified system for data, operations, intelligence and the next generation of financial products. 

MDOTM 

MDOTM Ltd., a global provider of AI-driven investment solutions for asset and wealth management companies, today announced an expansion of its New York office to strengthen its U.S. presence and build on its relationships with institutional clients nationwide. 

The expansion follows MDOTM’s recent $27 million growth equity investment led by Expedition Growth Capital and reflects the company’s continued investment in serving asset and wealth management firms. 

MDOTM’s AI investment platform, Sphere, brings together AI-driven investment insights, portfolio construction and rebalancing, and automated reporting. The platform helps investment teams turn market intelligence, investment views and client preferences into scalable investment decisions, personalized portfolios and client-ready communications. 

Options Technology 

Options Technology (Options), the leading managed IT services and technology solutions provider, today announced the deployment of comprehensive market data coverage across all Nasdaq options exchanges, Nasdaq PHLX, Nasdaq Options Market, Nasdaq Texas Options, Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq GEMX, and Nasdaq MRX, providing institutional clients with streamlined access to one of the world's most active options trading ecosystems. 

The expansion enhances connectivity to Nasdaq's options markets, enabling firms to access a broader range of trading opportunities through Options' global platform. Available in both native and normalized formats, the data can be seamlessly integrated into trading, analytics, and risk management workflows while maintaining the speed, performance, and reliability demanded by today's markets. 

The deployment further strengthens AtlasFeed, expanding the breadth of market data available through the platform and supporting Options' broader strategy of delivering comprehensive, integrated market data solutions. 

Pathwork 

Pathwork, the AI platform built for life and annuity insurance distribution, today launched Commissions Engine, an autonomous commissions platform for brokerages. Commissions Engine uses a firm's own policy data and commission agreements to retrieve and process carrier statements, reconcile payments, calculate producer compensation, and surface missing revenue, with the team reviewing exceptions instead of working every transaction. 

The launch extends Pathwork's platform, already used by more than 100 brokerages for underwriting and casework, into one of the most manual and error-prone functions in insurance distribution. Commissions Engine is available now through an early access program. Highland Capital Brokerage and Pickett Group Inc. are among the first brokerages running on the platform. 

Every day, commission teams chase statements across dozens of carrier portals, key line items by hand, maintain spreadsheets and macros, and update producer schedules. Missed and underpaid commissions slip into the backlog. Month-end close drags. And when the person who built the spreadsheet leaves, the knowledge leaves with them. Commissions Engine turns that work into an ongoing, autonomous workflow: statements are processed as they post, every payment is checked against what's owed, and the team reviews a short list of exceptions instead of working every transaction. 

S&P Global 

S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) today announced that Visible Alpha data is now available through the S&P Global AI Data Portal, a solution that enables customers to access verifiable data via MCP-enabled AI applications. The addition brings Visible Alpha's granular view of sell-side consensus into S&P Global's AI data delivery ecosystem, enabling customers to build AI-powered workflows grounded in high-quality, trusted S&P Global data. 

Visible Alpha, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, extracts and standardizes data from the full working models of more than 250 contributing sell-side brokers, covering more than 8,000 companies across 170+ industries. Customers can now bring that industry-leading consensus data directly into AI workflows through the S&P Global AI Data Portal's Deterministic Retrieval solution, which provides API-driven access through direct, structured queries where users know the specific data they need. 

This addition builds on the recent launch of Adaptive Retrieval, which will support Visible Alpha data later this year. Alongside Deterministic Retrieval in the S&P Global AI Data Portal, Adaptive Retrieval is designed for more complex, open-ended workflows, enabling AI agents and large language models (LLMs) to retrieve and assemble information across multiple S&P Global datasets using natural language queries. Once available, customers will be able to use Deterministic Retrieval, Adaptive Retrieval, or both depending on their needs. Alongside the recent availability of S&P Global Credit Ratings data, today's Visible Alpha launch expands the breadth of S&P Global intelligence that customers can bring together within their AI workflows. 

SaverLife 

Today, SaverLife announced the launch of a customized version of its award-winning financial wellness app, designed specifically to support skilled trades workers. Funded by The BlackRock Foundation as part of its continued commitment to support America’s workforce development through BlackRock Future Builders™, the SaverLife x BlackRock Future Builders app, including SaverLife‘s Financial Navigator, will provide customized tools to help thousands of apprentices manage their debt, build credit, and grow their savings over time with confidence. Designed to address their unique needs, the app is now available to nearly 75,000 apprentices nationwide through the electrical training ALLIANCE (etA), the national training partnership between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). The etA is responsible for the standardized apprenticeship curriculum, program tools, and resources that support IBEW-NECA training centers nationwide. 

Powered by financial health expertise, behavioral science, real-time data, and AI, SaverLife is designed for working Americans who need trusted, just-in-time financial support. Their free app currently supports 800,000+ Americans across all 50 states, and the majority save more after joining SaverLife. As part of the SaverLife and The BlackRock Foundation partnership, union apprentices in the BlackRock Future Builders programs will be eligible for cash incentives as they progress through the training program and build healthy financial habits. 

The BlackRock Foundation’s commitment builds on BlackRock’s ongoing work to support America’s workforce and reflects its broader mission to help more people invest better to live better. It follows an initial $100 million philanthropic commitment to grow America’s skilled trades workforce, and the launch of the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades: a coalition focused on expanding pathways into critical industries. As the U.S. continues to invest in its infrastructure growth, these careers allow opportunities for more people to work toward their own financial resilience and security. 

Scienaptic AI 

Scienaptic AI, a global leader in AI powered credit decisioning technology, announced today that APG Federal Credit Union (APGFCU) has gone live on its AI platform. This deployment is automating the credit union's lending operations, delivering faster loan decisions, and responsibly expanding fair access to credit for its members. Importantly, all these advancements have been achieved while ensuring fairness, inclusivity, and compliance with regulatory standards, which are integral to the Scienaptic AI platform. 

APGFCU traces its roots to 1938, when a group of local workers came together to address the savings and borrowing needs of military families at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Today, headquartered in Edgewood, Maryland, the growing credit union manages over $2.6 billion in assets and serves more than 190000 members who live, work, worship, volunteer, or attend school in Maryland’s Harford, Cecil, and Baltimore counties, as well as Baltimore City. As a not-for-profit cooperative, it reinvests its earnings into member value through better rates, lower fees, and personalized financial guidance, guided by a mission to deeply enrich its community—both financially and personally. 

ScribeUp 

ScribeUp, the AI-powered embedded recurring bill solution for modern financial institutions, today announced its Series A fundraise of $13 million. The round was led by Curql, with participation from Mucker Capital and Service Ventures. 

Embedded directly within digital banking experiences, ScribeUp combines recurring-payment intelligence with banking context, including balances, cash flow, payment timing and the financial institution’s own products. It enables financial institutions to help consumers take action across billers and their broader banking relationship, going beyond alerting them when a bill is due – whether that means canceling a forgotten subscription, updating a payment form, accessing an advance or refinancing an external loan. Its next-gen agentic technology allows users to take any relevant biller action, on any tracked bill, directly from the end-user’s banking experience. 

ScribeUp works with more than 60 banks, credit unions, fintechs and neobanks and is pre-integrated with major digital banking platforms. Its technology can be deployed through SDK, iframe or API, enabling institutions to add recurring bill capabilities without building the infrastructure themselves. 

SEI 

SEI® (NASDAQ: SEIC) today announced the appointment of Kristie Edling-Day as Chief Information Officer (CIO), reporting to Ryan Hicke, Chief Executive Officer. In this role, Edling-Day will lead the enterprise technology and product strategy and operations, including digital transformation, platform modernization, and cybersecurity governance. The appointment reinforces SEI's commitment to operational excellence and advancing the technology capabilities that will enable the firm's long-term growth ambitions. 

Edling-Day will oversee SEI's technology and product organization and will be responsible for advancing the firm's multi-year technology and product roadmap, ensuring investments align with business objectives, client needs, and regulatory expectations. Alongside SEI leadership, she will drive cross-functional collaboration to accelerate innovation, strengthen operational capabilities, and deliver technology solutions that support the firm's strategic priorities. 

Edling-Day brings more than 20 years of technology, product, and strategy leadership experience spanning financial services, wealth management, enterprise transformation, and emerging technologies. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President and CIO for Advisor Technology and Enterprise Production Operations at LPL Financial, where she led technology supporting approximately 32,000 financial advisors and oversaw enterprise production operations, improving reliability and reducing operational risk. She helped define and operationalize the firm's enterprise AI strategy, led its early implementation, and played a key role in shaping enterprise technology strategy and presenting strategic priorities to the board. 

Transmit Security 

Transmit Security, the leader in customer identity and access management, today announced the appointment of Matt Thompson, former Socure President, ID.me co-founder and Army Special Operations Officer, to Chief Executive Officer. Thompson’s appointment marks the beginning of Transmit's next phase of growth, as customer AI assistants transform banking and commerce and create a new demand for Agentic Trust. 

AI agents now handle high-value transactions such as opening accounts, transferring funds and completing purchases, while bypassing traditional controls with valid credentials. Blind to this new class of actor, existing fraud, security and identity defenses leave enterprises unable to see or control a surging share of their own traffic. The recent recipient of the 2026 Morgan Stanley Innovation Award for its work with Morgan Stanley in identity and access management, Transmit Security is now, under Thompson’s leadership, extending its foundation beyond human identity, helping organizations establish trust with both people and their autonomous AI agents. 

Transmit Security’s Agentic Trust addresses a growing pain – AI agents increasingly acting on behalf of humans: opening accounts, initiating transfers, disputing charges and completing purchases, appearing as legitimate users. Security and fraud defenses built to tell humans from bots were never designed for a third kind of actor that is neither. The result is a growing share of traffic that enterprises cannot identify, measure or control: their customers, transacting invisibly. 

Upstart 

MIT Federal Credit Union (MIT FCU), a full-service, Massachusetts-based credit union serving over 35,000 members, today announced the recent expansion of its partnership with Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), the leading artificial intelligence (AI) lending marketplace, into indirect auto lending. 

The expanded relationship builds on MIT FCU's personal lending partnership with Upstart, which began in 2024. Through the expansion, MIT FCU is diversifying its lending strategy and adding a secured product to serve members across more borrowing needs. 

Visa 

Visa (NYSE: V) announced three capabilities across commercial card growth, virtual card security and agentic commerce for commercial payments. The capabilities are designed to help financial institutions, fintechs and businesses automate payment processes while maintaining the trust, visibility and control those transactions require for the future. 

SESA 2.0, the next generation of Supplier Enablement Spend Analytics, uses AI-driven spend analysis and predictive insights to help clients identify high-potential supplier opportunities. The enhanced platform helps organizations prioritize resources, focus enablement efforts and estimate the economic value of their commercial card program. Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions, a new suite of capabilities designed to help issuers and businesses validate suppliers, authenticate virtual-card payment activity and apply controls before a payment is approved. 

A live agentic pilot with BILL and Billtrust enables trusted AI agents to initiate and help complete approved invoice payments through supplier portals, using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol. 

Visa 

Visa (NYSE: V), BILL (NYSE: BILL) and Billtrust today announced they have launched the first live pilot to enable trusted AI agents to initiate and complete approved buyer invoice payments end-to-end through supplier portals. 

Until now, many payment portals relied on human authentication requirements that limited how approved payments could be automated. Together, with leading accounts payable and receivable solutions providers BILL and Billtrust, the Visa Intelligent CommerceTM portfolio helps bridge that gap. Leveraging offerings such as Visa Trusted Agent Protocol, AI agents can now be securely authenticated to credentialed portals. As a result, buyer payments that previously relied on manual entry can be completed by trusted AI agents, while preserving supplier control and oversight. 

The flow begins when the authorized BILL Payment Agent — registered using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory — uses tokenized payment credentials and controls aligned with the buyer’s approved payment instructions to issue payments on behalf of BILL's customers. Supported by capabilities within the Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC) portfolio, this enables BILL to securely automate card payments for supplier invoices. 

William Blair 

William Blair today announced that C.J. Jaskoll has joined the firm as chief technology officer, leading William Blair’s firmwide strategy to leverage artificial intelligence, data analytics, and other advanced capabilities to empower growth, unlock innovation, and elevate the client experience. 

Jaskoll brings more than 25 years of experience in the investment industry and will focus on enabling our business's intellectual capital to deliver creative solutions aligned with the firm’s strategic priorities and outstanding outcomes for our clients. He joins as a member of the firm’s Extended Leadership Group. 

Jaskoll joins William Blair from Russell Investments, where he most recently served as chief technology officer and was a member of the firm’s operating committee. During his tenure, he led a broad technology transformation across the firm’s asset and wealth management businesses. Before Russell Investments, he spent seven years at Neuberger Berman as head of investment, data, and AI technology. Earlier in his career, he spent 13 years at Jennison Associates, ultimately serving as director of front-office technology.