WHAT’S INSIDE

👇️ Todays’ Feature: Google and PayPal Bid to Rule AI Commerce

• Tech News: Fed Cut, Weak jobs, China v Nvidia, Oracle, Kimmel, Kirk

• Company Watch: Groww, Groq, Salesforce, World Labs, PayPal, Upscale AI

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Markets Surge — Wall Street and global stocks hit record highs following the Fed's rate cut citing labor market weakness, with Intel shares jumping 23%. Despite easing, USD and Treasury yields also rose. Two more cuts are expected this year.

China Blocks Nvidia — China has prohibited major tech firms from purchasing Nvidia's AI chips as Huawei unveils SuperPoD tech, clustering up to 15k AI chips and China Unicorn unveils a massive $390M local chip-powered data center.

Oracle's AI Surge — Oracle's stock jumped over 80% this year on AI demand, raising bubble concerns. With a P/E ratio of 43, analysts remain cautious, though 70% still recommend buying, citing growth potential and its role in the TikTok takeover.

Kimmel Controversy — ABC indefinitely cancels "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" after controversial remarks over Charlie Kirk. Critics cite threats to free speech over Trump’s backing, underscoring differences over media control and political influence.

Tech Titans Testify — The House Oversight Committee has summoned CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Reddit, and Steam to address concerns over online radicalization linked to platforms following Charlie Kirk's murder.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SURF LAKES

This Technology Makes Every City a Potential Surf Destination

Topgolf revolutionized golf by turning it into a social, tech-driven game for anyone. And they’ve made billions in annual revenue doing it. Surf Lakes is applying that same model to surfing. 

Their patented tech creates 2,000 ocean-quality rides per hour, anywhere in the world, across all skill levels. And it’s a major untapped opportunity in surf tourism: a $65B global industry. Fewer than 1% of people live near real waves, but Surf Lakes is bringing the waves to them. 

They’ve already sold licenses across the U.S. and Australia, with plans for a first commercial park in the works.  

Actor Chris Hemsworth has praised Surf Lakes. 3x world surfing champ Tom Curren and surf icon Mark Occhilupo have even joined as ambassadors and shareholders. This is a rare moment to join them as a Surf Lakes shareholder.

_{*Disclaimer: This is a paid advertisement for Surf Lakes’ Regulation CF offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.surflakes.com}

Google and PayPal Bid to Rule AI Commerce

TechBuzz Editorial

Agentic payments, crypto rails, and cloud power converge in a fight to own the next era of commerce.

The Checkout Button Just Checked Out…For Good

On Tuesday, Google introduced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard for AI-driven transactions. Backed by more than 60 merchants and financial institutions, AP2 gives AI agents the ability to shop on behalf of consumers while preserving a traceable transaction history. Its two-step authorization process (an intent mandate to search and a cart mandate to approve) creates a verifiable system that could finally make autonomous shopping viable. In certain scenarios, agents will even be able to complete purchases without waiting for human approval, marking a shift from assistance to execution.

Less than a day later, payments giant PayPal revealed a multi-year partnership with Google, aligning its payments network and infrastructure with AP2. This positions PayPal as both a payments backbone and an industry advocate for the new standard. Together, the two companies are taking aim at one of the most important questions in digital commerce: who defines the rules for automated transactions.

Building a Framework for AI Commerce

The global agentic commerce market is projected to reach $5.1B by 2033. But such figures are inherently speculative when dealing with such a major transition in the core technology underpinning our digital commerce. Agent-led commerce has long been stalled on a simple problem. Authentication is mature — biometrics and two-factor verification prove who you are — but authorization is trickier. What exactly is an AI allowed to do on your behalf?

AP2 finally offers one clear path forward. Mandates provide a way to delegate authority to agents without losing oversight. The protocol gives structure to a process that has until now relied on workarounds like redirect links and manual checkouts. It could become the foundation on which automated shopping is built.

PayPal strengthens that case. Its global merchant network, fraud detection tools, and consumer trust make the protocol more credible. Pairing those assets with Google’s AI and search dominance creates a combination that could accelerate adoption well beyond early experiments.

The Stakes of Standard-Setting

The timing highlights how much the lines between search, payments, and commerce are eroding. Historically, these functions operated in sequence — one platform showed results, another processed the checkout, and banks moved the money. With AP2, the journey can collapse into a single flow where an agent handles discovery and payment in one motion.

Google is already moving to reinforce this integration. Chrome just added 10 AI features ranging from contextual search suggestions to automated password management. These tools look like consumer conveniences on the surface but also act as scaffolding for agent-driven shopping experiences. The same AI that suggests queries or changes passwords can manage authorization events in AP2.

For PayPal, the partnership means more than simply supporting a new standard. The company will shift its infrastructure from resolutely in-house onto Google Cloud, reworking applications and payment systems with advanced machine learning and analytics. That migration gives PayPal access to fraud detection and transaction optimization capabilities while opening new distribution opportunities through Google’s ecosystem.

Crypto as the Missing Piece

A missing layer of coverage of this story lies in the import for crypto integration. AP2 is designed to natively handle digital wallets. Translation: Google just green-lit crypto wallets in combination with AI agents. How is this not making the headlines?

On top of that, PayPal is expanding aggressively with PYUSD, its dollar-backed stablecoin. A new permissionless version, PYUSD0, will expand from ETH to circulate across chains like Tron, Avalanche, and Sei while remaining fully fungible with the main token.

For Google, which has moved cautiously on digital assets until this week, PayPal’s crypto strategy plugs directly into the protocol. Together they create rails for programmable money that can move as easily as data. That flexibility may prove essential for agents that operate across borders and need reliable settlement methods beyond card networks.

Rivals Are Moving Quickly

The consolidation of AI and payments is not confined to Google and PayPal.

• Apple is expected to blend Apple Intelligence with Apple Pay, drawing on deep reservoirs of user preference data from its private cloud compute system. This will likely be a major rival to Google, but Apple is taking a cautious approach to both AI and payments innovation to date.  

• Visa and Mastercard have launched their own frameworks — Agent Pay and Intelligent Commerce — to standardize AI purchases across merchants. It is being adopted by major players like OpenAI, Stripe, Microsoft, and Samsung.

• Amazon has already begun testing “Buy for Me,” allowing agents to transact directly within its app. It also just yesterday announced new Seller-focused AI agent features, and will likely update its buyer tools soon. 

Each approach comes with different technical assumptions and business incentives. The outcome will shape not just how payments are processed but who owns the flow of consumer intent and preference data. Control over that layer can be more valuable than the transaction fees themselves.

Why This Standards Battle Matters

Every technology wave has hinged on standards — protocols that determine compatibility, adoption, and market power. Agentic commerce is no exception. Fragmentation would slow progress and force consumers to juggle incompatible shopping assistants. A widely accepted protocol could accelerate trust and adoption, turning agentic commerce from novelty into infrastructure.

Google and PayPal are positioning AP2 as that common language. By combining distribution reach, payments credibility, and AI capabilities, they hope to establish a protocol before competitors lock in their own ecosystems. The next few years will reveal whether that strategy has been a success.

What Comes Next

Surveys show hesitation remains. Only about a quarter of U.S. consumers are comfortable allowing AI to complete purchases. But that was before Google’s latest reveal, and adoption curves tend to bend quickly once standards reduce friction and trust increases. Google is already trusted in many other areas like Google Wallet.

The more consequential questions lie in governance and economics. Will tech platforms, financial institutions, or open consortia control the protocols? How will regulators approach a landscape where software executes financial decisions? And will stablecoins and wallets gain ground as the preferred money of agents, or will card networks retain their dominance? Visa and Mastercard have already made their own forays into crypto and agentic commerce, which may well be an admission of defeat.

This week’s announcements hint at the trajectory. The era of clicking “Buy” is checking out forever. What replaces it will depend on which standards gain adoption — and which companies succeed in defining the rules of agentic commerce.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

[IPO] Groww — India's largest retail brokerage firm is preparing a multi-billion-dollar IPO, aiming to raise $121M and valuing the company at $9B. Backed by prominent investors like Satya Nadella.

Nvidia — Acquiring a $5B stake in Intel to co-develop AI chip products, integrating Nvidia's NVLink for data transfer efficiency. The partnership will create customized x86 CPUs and system-on-chips with RTX GPUs, aiming to boost Intel's AI presence.

Google Cloud — Experiencing robust growth, with $50B ARR, expected to hit $58B in new revenue over two years. It partners with top AI startups like Lovable and Windsurf, providing incentives like cloud credits and Nvidia GPU access.

Microsoft / Microsoft — Investing $4B in a Wisconsin data center for ChatGPT (opening 2026 with Blackwell chips) and $30B in UK AI infrastructure to build the nation's largest supercomputer.

Groq — Raised $750M at a $6.9B valuation, challenging Nvidia with its Language Processing Units for AI inference. With over 2M devs using it, Groq aims to scale manufacturing and sales to meet AI infrastructure demand.

Salesforce — Launched Missionforce, a new unit integrating AI into defense operations for military personnel. Led by Kendall Collins, this move aligns with tech giants like OpenAI and Google providing specialized services to the U.S. govt.

World Labs — Released Marble, a groundbreaking beta model for creating navigable 3D worlds from images or text. It focuses on stability and geometric coherence, offering creators tools to build complex environments.

PayPal — The digital payment leader has partnered with Google to enhance AI-driven shopping experiences. PayPal will integrate its payment solutions across Cloud, Ads, and Play, promoting the Agent Payments Protocol for AI-purchases.

Upscale AI — Raised over $100M to develop AI networking infrastructure based on open standards. Aims to ease network strain with high-performance networks and ultra-low latency interconnects. Targeting a $20B AI infrastructure market.

CrowdStrike — The cybersecurity firm based in Sunnyvale, CA, announced a target of $20B ARR by 2036, following the acquisition of AI security platform Pangea and a Salesforce partnership. Strategic moves and strong AI capabilities solidify leadership.

 SignalPulse — Read the Top signals, Startups + Deals From Last Week

TECH BUZZ DIRECTORY
Featured Products*

SEO Bot — A fully autonomous "SEO Robot" with AI agents for busy founders.

Memelord — Meme Software for marketing memes, tech memes, & sales memes.

Otonomos — Incorporate your Delaware C-corp or tax advantaged foundation and get 5% OFF.

BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

Meta — $799 Ray-Ban Display with neural interface; AI-powered Horizon; $499 Oakley Vanguard for athletes; Ray-Ban Gen 2 with 8hr battery; Hyperscape VR.

Google — Chrome gets Gemini AI + Google Agent Payments Protocol (AP2).

Amazon — Seller Assistant AI for efficient 3rd-party seller business management.

American Express — Platinum card refresh raises fee to $895 with $3,5k benefits.

Microsoft — New AI agents in Teams automate tasks, enhancing collaboration.

Zoom — AI update adds cross-app note-taking and photorealistic avatars.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

GPT-5 & Gemini 2.5 — AI models top complex coding at Programming Contest.

MicroFactory — Compact AI robot factory learns from human demonstrations.

Delphi-2M AI Tool — Predicts 1,000 diseases risks 20 years ahead un UK study.

Solid Oxide Cell — Lightweight 3D-printed hydrogen fuel cell for aerospace use.

Light-Powered Motors — On-chip motors fit in a strand of hair with laser light.

CRYPTO WATCH

SEC Streamlines Crypto ETFs — The SEC approved generic listing standards to expedite spot crypto ETFs approval. This move aims to boost investor choice and digital asset innovation.

Bullish Gets Green Light — Bullish has obtained a BitLicense and Money Transmission License in New York, paving the way for crypto trading and custody services. With backing from Peter Thiel and a $1.1B IPO, it aims to expand in the U.S.

REX-Osprey DOGE ETF — Launches as the first U.S. exchange-traded fund tracking Dogecoin under the ticker DOJE. Registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, it offers active management, with trading volume expectations at $2.5 million.

PayPal Expands PYUSD — PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin is expanding to Tron, Avalanche, and Sei through LayerZero, offering a permissionless version, PYUSD0. With a $1.9B supply, it trails Tether, Circle. Includes a new crypto p2p payment tool.

Circle & Hyperliquid — Circle has launched a native version of USDC on Hyperliquid’s HyperEVM. The initiative focuses on educational content, with a disclosure about commissions and the Bankless team's crypto holdings.

SPACE_RACE

Joint Satellite Maneuvers_Collab between US-UK enhance space defense

SpaceX Starlink Mobile_Eyes satellite-to-cell integration with chip makers

Blue Origin New Shepard_Suborbital mission with 40 scientific payloads

Hubble Network — Satellite Bluetooth network targets 1B devices by 2028

AxODC Nodes_Axiom Space boosts ISS computing with optical nodes.

Icarus Robotics_Robots automate ISS cargo logistics tasks for efficiency

Impulse Space_Same-day satellite transport in geostationary orbit transit

FOR INVESTORS
Open Deals
Investors– request an intro to startups - invest@techbuzz.ai.

Before we restart our placements of raising startups, we’re sharing an open call to send in your own company. Just shoot us an email with a deck and we may feature you in this bulletin.

For detailed pitch materials, please email invest@techbuzz.ai with your deck.
🔥 — hot deal!
⏰ — leaving soon.

FOR EMPLOYERS
Job Candidates

Employers– request an intro to candidates - jobs@techbuzz.ai