Author Archives: David Birch

xxx The End of Seduction? How Agentic AI Is Redefining Commerce The rise of agentic AI in commerce marks a turning point. Instead of human consumers browsing, comparing, and buying, shopping agents now negotiate directly with merchant agents. But today’s commercial system was built on human emotion — desire, aspiration, even impulse. So the questionContinue reading “(11) Agentic AI Commerce: From Human Emotions to Machine Logic | LinkedIn”

xxx Catena Labs is building the first AI-native financial institution: a regulated entity designed from the ground up for AI agents and their human collaborators. We’re enabling AI to securely identify itself and transact safely, while providing businesses and consumers with a trusted partner for this new economic era, underpinned by a commitment to pioneeringContinue reading “Catena Labs”

xxx The following outlines the structure of a single enclave application: In this diagram Host represents a standard AWS virtual machine. We run a basic application that receives traffic from the network and calls into the enclave. This creates a layer of insulation from our most secure environment and offers a convenient place to gatherContinue reading “Secure Enclaves – Turnkey”

xxx Hiring another agent. The user asks to hire a Meridian research agent. The system checks the agent’s decentralized identity, pulls its reputation score (87/100, 142 attestations), and auto-approves because the score meets the configured threshold. Agent-to-agent commerce with identity verification built in. Standing authorization. The user delegates ongoing spending authority — $20/month on MeridianContinue reading “What Agents Need Before They Handle Real Money – Catena Labs”

xxx Sharing a product feed The Product Feed Spec defines how merchants share structured product data with OpenAI so ChatGPT can accurately surface their products in search and shopping experiences. Merchants provide a secure, regularly refreshed feed (TSV, CSV, XML, or JSON) containing key details such as identifiers, descriptions, pricing, inventory, media, and fulfillment options.Continue reading “Remember how ChatGPT shopping was going to work?”

xxx Aggregate statistics across 846 documented custody incidents where legitimate owners, heirs, or authorised parties encountered barriers accessing Bitcoin. From: Bitcoin Custody Incident Archive Statistics | CustodyStress. xxx

xxx In the dystopian nightmare scenario imagined by opponents of facial recognition technology, an innocent person sitting at home might find themselves erroneously flagged by facial matching, and instantly turned into a criminal in the eyes of the law. Probable cause standards and police procedural policies are supposed to prevent this kind of error, butContinue reading “US woman jailed 5 months after facial recognition mismatch, lax police work | Biometric Update”

xxx Under the law, food stores and other retail establishments cannot require consumers to pay by credit card or use another cashless transaction method to complete their purchase. They also cannot charge consumers a higher price if they pay in cash. Stores that violate the new law will face maximum civil penalties of $1,000 forContinue reading “New York state force stores to accept cash”

xxx AI agents favor suppliers with structured, machine-readable offers. Intermediaries have moved fastest, building agent-ready data and transaction layers. However, most airlines still operate digital stacks optimized for humans—leaving their offers only partially visible to AI agents and pushing high-intent demand into fragile scraping or manual servicing paths. The implication is straightforward: To compete inContinue reading “Is the Airline Industry Ready for Agent-Led Bookings? | Bain & Company”

xxx Moreover, LLMs frequently directed users to an OTA rather than an FSC website—even when an FSC was a “first choice” option. The implication is clear: LLMs gravitate toward the source with the easiest downstream interaction, and OTAs currently produce cleaner, more structured, and more agent-readable data. From: Is the Airline Industry Ready for Agent-LedContinue reading “Is the Airline Industry Ready for Agent-Led Bookings? | Bain & Company”