Happy Thursday.
The current thing in tech and business is the discourse around yesterday’s Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft earnings.
Today’s lineupStripe Co-Founder & President John Collison at 11:00 AM
Stripe Co-Founder & CEO Patrick Collison at 11:10 AM
Privy Co-Founder & CEO Henri Stern at 11:30 AM
Stripe Product Lead Jeff Weinstein at 11:45 AM
Bridge Co-Founder Zach Abrams at 12:20 PM
Today’s the second day of Stripe Sessions 2026, the payment company’s annual conference. Yesterday, they unveiled nearly 300 new products and features to an audience of over 9,000 entrepreneurs and builders. The focus of this year’s Sessions has so far been very much AI and agentic AI. Among other new features, yesterday the company announced:
Agentic Commerce Suite, which lets businesses sell through AI agents by uploading product catalogs and managing agent access from the Stripe Dashboard
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a partnership with Google that will soon allow customers to buy products in “AI Mode” and the Gemini app
Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), which enables agents to handle microtransactions and recurring payments in stablecoins and fiat
Link Agent Wallet, which will allow agents to pay using Link while controlling spending through approvals
Issuing for Agents — a preview of virtual cards for agents to manage financial workflows
A partnership with Meta which will allow native checkout inside ads on Facebook
We’re here at the conference on the second day to interview John Collison and several other Stripe and Stripe-affiliated executives. See you on the stream.
HeadlinesStripe: Everything we announced at Sessions 2026
Key Context by Tae Kim: The State of AI After Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft Earnings
OpenAI: Where the goblins came from
The Information: Anthropic Receives Investment Interest at $900 Billion Valuation
WSJ: Big Tech Strikes Gold With AI, but at a Steep Cost
FT: Elon Musk says he was ‘a fool’ to fund the launch of OpenAI
OpenAI to roll out GPT-5.5-Cyber, a frontier cybersecurity model
TIME: How Sundar Pichai Pushed Google To the Front of the AI Race
Bloomberg: NSA Testing Anthropic’s Mythos to Find Flaws in Microsoft Tech
Front Office Sports: Seahawks Sale Watch: Zuckerberg, Cook Among Rumored Bidders
WSJ: Retailers Flock to TikTok Shop to Find New Shoppers, Sales Growth
The Information: Google Defends Military Work After Employee Backlash to Pentagon Contract
NYT: Uber Can Already Bring You Dinner. Now, It Wants to Book Your Hotel Room.
Eric Seufert: “Meta’s advertising revenue grew 33% year-over-year in Q1 2026, to $55BN”
WSJ: SoftBank Plots IPO for New Robotics Venture
WSJ: Sports Streamer DAZN Makes $100 Million Bet on Technology Company ViewLift
PYMNTS: Meta Begins Offering Stablecoin Payments to Creators
Bloomberg: AI Hallucinations Put South African Ministers on the Spot
SquareMind raises $18M in funding led by Sonder Capital
Posts of the Day