AI Business & Industry

Today's Stories

1. 1

   BlackRock: stablecoins to power AI agent payments

   BlackRock says stablecoins could power payments for AI agent commerce, according to The Defiant. If stablecoins handle AI agent payments, that points to crypto rails being considered for machine-to-machine transactions, based on BlackRock's view as reported.

   The idea hinges on whether AI agent commerce takes off and whether payment systems adopt stablecoins; the article gives no timeline or figures to track.

2. 2

   BlackRock: AI agents could drive crypto demand

   BlackRock's research paper "The Machine-Native Economy," co-written by digital assets head Robert Mitchnick, argues AI agents need machine-native money and says stablecoins moved over $11 trillion in 2025. If AI agents transact without human sign-up, today's card and bank systems may not fit, so crypto rails could become the payment layer those agents use.

   The paper itself admits AI-agent payments are still limited, and its evidence includes simulations, not real purchases. BlackRock's own iShares Bitcoin Trust held $67 billion on September 25 and is down about a third this year.

3. 3

   ServiceNow at 80.4x earnings screens overvalued

   ServiceNow trades on roughly 80.4x earnings, above the Software industry average near 29.7x and a peer group closer to 26.8x, and the Fair Ratio points lower. The shares screen as overvalued, leaving less room for disappointment if future profitability or security-related spending differs from what the current multiple implies.

   Recent critical vulnerabilities on the ServiceNow AI Platform and new security partnerships mean the valuation hinges on whether sustained investment is needed to support trust and resilience.

4. 4

   Palo Alto Networks launches Cortex XCOR with Martin Mao, claims 75% root-cause accuracy

   Palo Alto Networks launched Cortex XCOR, an AI-native observability platform. Its AI SRE agent autonomously reasons through incidents, recommending actions in under three minutes on average, with a 75% success rate of root cause analysis. The platform automates root-cause analysis that previously required manual work, cutting the time to understand a production incident from roughly 20 minutes to under three minutes on average.

   The 75% success rate and under-three-minute average are vendor-reported, so the test is whether the platform sustains those results across customer environments. A further 19% of incidents were deemed useful but not classified as successful root cause analysis.

5. 5

   John Deere launches JD AI assistant for farmers

   John Deere announced JD, an AI assistant embedded in its Operations Center, at a press event at Iowa State University. An Early Access Program opened September 1st for U.S. agriculture customers, with broader availability later this year. JD lets farmers query their own field and machine data instead of searching dashboards, which could improve yields and savings. It answers from a farmer's own data, not generic advice.

   JD's in-cab G5 display integration and work-plan creation are future plans, not launched features. The test is whether JD handles incomplete data well, as Baca said it will flag missing data and ask follow-ups.

6. 6

   Honeywell to miners: build AI on existing plants

   At a Sept. 24 Santiago summit organized by AmCham Chile and Honeywell, Honeywell's José Simón proposed expanding advanced process control, training simulators, and remote operation centers first. As copper concentration in rock falls, more material must be processed for the same metal, so these upgrades are presented as the base for later AI and autonomous operations.

   Mining Council's Joaquín Villarino warns that the capacity to acquire technology far exceeds the capacity to use it, so adoption likely hinges on management and boards dedicating time and training.