WHAT’S INSIDE

👇️ Todays’ Feature: OpenAI/Stripe Join the Agentic Commerce Standards Battle

• Tech News: CPI, Goldilocks Over?, UN AI Debate, OpenAI Commerce, Tariffs

• Company Watch: Robinhood, AEXA, Friend, Paid, Anything, Alex, Black Forest

• 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

Steady Inflation, Rising Spend — Core inflation held at 2.9% in August. Personal income and consumption expenditures rose by 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively. With strong consumer spending and a personal saving rate of 4.6%.

Goldilocks Warning — Goldman Sachs cautions that the current "Goldilocks" stock market, buoyed by AI and tech optimism, may face risks from growth setbacks, no Fed rate cuts, or a declining dollar, with the S&P 500 nearing all-time highs.

AI Sovereignty — The U.S. dismissed proposals for international AI oversight at the U.N. General Assembly, prioritizing national sovereignty. While the Secretary-General pushed for a global framework, opinions varied on collaborative governance.

Tariff Exceptions Granted — President Trump's new pharmaceutical tariffs will exempt the EU and Japan due to existing agreements, capping duties at 15% for the EU and preserving current rates for Japan on drugs and semiconductors.

China's STEM Visa Strategy — China launches the K visa to attract foreign STEM graduates without job offers, competing with the costly U.S. H-1B visa. Challenges include vague criteria, language barriers, and limited citizenship pathways.

OpenAI E-Commerce — OpenAI launches Instant Checkout for ChatGPT, allowing direct purchases from Etsy and Shopify with o-s protocols and merchant-friendly fees. It also released a safety routing system and parental controls for ChatGPT.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ENTERPRET

Turn customer feedback into evidence that moves your product roadmap faster

For PMs who need buy-in fast: Enterpret turns raw feedback into crisp, evidence-backed stories.

Explore any topic across Zendesk, reviews, NPS, and social; quantify how many users are affected and why; and package insights with verbatim quotes stakeholders remember.

Product teams at companies like Canva, Notion and Perplexity use Enterpret to manage spikes, stack-rank work, and track sentiment after launches—so you can show impact, not just ship lists.

Replace hunches with data that drives planning, sprint priorities, and incident triage.

Book a demo, today!

OpenAI/Stripe Join the Agentic Commerce Standards Battle

TechBuzz Editorial

ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout escalates the race to define the rules of AI shopping.

A couple of weeks back, we covered Google and PayPal’s bid to control Agentic E-commerce standards through Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) — an open standard for AI-led transactions designed to solve the thorny issue of authorization. As we said then, the deal signaled the beginning of a standards war over who sets the rules for agentic commerce.

OpenAI responded yesterday with Instant Checkout, a feature that lets ChatGPT users in the U.S. buy products from Etsy (and soon over a million Shopify merchants like Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori “coming soon”) directly inside conversations. Instead of bouncing between product pages and external checkout flows, a user can tap “Buy” while still in the chat. Payments can run through Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, or a credit card, with fulfillment handled by merchants.

From Search to Conversation

Google’s strategy with AP2 was to collapse the traditional chain of search → click → checkout into one seamless flow, with Chrome’s new AI features as the on-ramp. The partnership with PayPal brought payments credibility and cloud migration muscle.

OpenAI is playing a similar game from the opposite direction. Its starting point isn’t search, but the conversation. ChatGPT already fields queries like “What’s a good gift for someone who loves ceramics?” and delivers curated product suggestions. With Instant Checkout, that moment of discovery now ends with a completed purchase inside the same chat window.

If enough consumers adopt this behavior, it could divert retail discovery away from Google Search and Amazon’s marketplace, redistributing the power over what products people see first.

ACP vs. AP2: The Protocol Clash

Underneath the product launch sits the more strategic move: OpenAI is open-sourcing the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), the framework powering Instant Checkout. Built with Stripe, ACP allows merchants and developers to plug directly into ChatGPT’s purchasing flow.

This pits ACP directly against Google’s AP2, announced only a week earlier. AP2 introduced a mandate-based authorization system, giving consumers structured control over what their AI agents can and can’t do. ACP, meanwhile, is focused on developer adoption and frictionless integration, leveraging Stripe’s reach across millions of merchants.

What began as Google staking a claim with AP2 has quickly become a two-protocol standoff, with OpenAI and Stripe on one side Vs Google and PayPal on the other. The pace of announcements suggests neither wants to let the other set the standard unopposed.

Stripe as OpenAI’s Anchor

Stripe’s involvement is critical. The payments giant already handles transactions for a vast swath of the internet economy, from startups to global brands. Its positioning as “economic infrastructure for AI” fits neatly with ACP’s ambition to become the default checkout layer for agents.

By tying ACP to Stripe’s network, OpenAI ensures merchants don’t have to overhaul their systems to participate. Integration becomes an upgrade rather than a rebuild. That practicality could accelerate adoption, giving ACP momentum even before consumers fully embrace agent-led shopping.

The Battle Lines with Google

For Google, AP2 was about defending its role at the start of the shopping journey. Chrome’s AI features feed into AP2, and PayPal’s migration to Google Cloud ensures that transactions themselves sit inside Google’s infrastructure. The goal: remain indispensable as commerce shifts from human clicks to agentic flows.

OpenAI’s Instant Checkout challenges that head-on. If ChatGPT becomes the place where shopping begins, Google risks losing the discovery traffic that underpins its advertising empire. What was already a rivalry in AI research now extends into retail infrastructure and payments.

Consumer Trust Still in Question

Despite the hype, adoption is far from guaranteed. Surveys show only a quarter of U.S. consumers are currently comfortable letting AI complete purchases. Both AP2 and ACP try to bridge that gap differently: Google emphasizes authorization controls, while OpenAI highlights simplicity and merchant responsibility for fulfillment.

In OpenAI’s design, ChatGPT acts as an intermediary—passing payment details securely but leaving order processing to the merchant. That model may reassure users wary of handing over too much financial control to a chatbot, while still delivering the convenience of in-chat checkout.

Standards Wars End with Winners

History suggests that once a protocol gains traction, it locks in market power for years. The choice between VHS and Betamax, iOS and Android, or TCP/IP and proprietary networks shaped entire industries.

Agentic commerce now faces a similar inflection point. Both approaches are open, but each carries the DNA of the companies behind it. The outcome will determine who governs the data layer of consumer intent and preference that surrounds them. Also, where other major players such as Amazon and Apple fall on this could play a huge part in tipping the scales. Either they go their own way, or join forces with one or both of the two protocols. Either way, the days of clicking “checkout” may be numbered, and the standards chosen today will decide who profits from its replacement.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

Oracle — Plans to raise $15B through bond sales to support its AI infrastructure initiatives following a $300B deal with OpenAI. Also negotiating a $20B deal with Meta, reflecting a strategic shift to infrastructure-as-a-service.

Lithium Americas — The Trump admin is aiming for a 10% equity stake in the company during a $2.26B DOE loan renegotiation. The Thacker Pass mine will be the largest lithium operation in the Western Hemisphere, crucial for GM's EV supply chain.

Robinhood — The company has surged 229.2% since its inclusion in the S&P 500, driven by strong financial results and expansion into new products. Diversifying revenue with community trading features and wealth management tools.

AEXA — Chamath Palihapitiya launches American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp, a $345M SPAC targeting institutional investors with improved sponsor compensation tied to performance. Aims to bridge private-public markets.

Friend — The AI startup launched a $1M subway ad campaign in NYC for its wearable AI device, facing criticism for the tech’s perceived surveillance. CEO Avi Schiffman sees the ads as provoking social commentary amid AI skepticism.

Paid — Manny Medina's startup focuses on a results-based billing model for AI agents, raising $21.6M in a seed round. This model allows agent makers to charge based on value delivered, attracting early customers like Artisan and IFS.

Anything — The AI coding startup achieved $2M ARR within two weeks and secured an $11M Series A at a $100M valuation. Focused on full-stack infrastructure, Anything helps users launch revenue-generating applications.

Black Forest Labs — The German AI image lab startup working with xAI and Mistral is targeting a $4B valuation in a new funding round, raising $200-$300M. It has previously been valued at $1B. Image-editing AI demand surge drives its growth.

Alex — An AI recruiting startup that automates job screening calls, secured $17M in Series A funding. Thousands of interviews daily, Alex is set to transform recruitment amid rising application volumes and budget constraints.

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

OpenAI — Sora 2 model powers app for AI-generated 10-sec TikTok'ish vids.

Apple — Testing Veritas chatbot to enhance Siri's AI, no public release planned.

Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 advances autonomous development.

DeepSeek V3.2-exp — Sparse attention tech cuts AI inference costs by 50%.

HSBC — Tokenised Deposit Service for real-time, cross-border transactions.

Brave — Detailed AI answers launched to compete with Google Search.

Maximor — AI agents for financial task automation, reducing closing times.

BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

NVIDIA — New tools and models enhance robot training, real-world adaptation.

3,000 Qbit Computer — Harvard system operates 2+ hours using optical lattice.

Quantum Nuclear Spin — UNSW links nuclear spins in silicon chips for scaling.

Superconducting Magnet — 351,000 gauss magnet sets record, aiding fusion.

World's Largest Hydrogen Power Plant — 108 MW plant powers 270k homes.

CRYPTO WATCH

European Banks' Stablecoin Initiative — Aiming to attract crypto-averse investors, a consortium of European banks plans to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin. Could boost demand for regulated digital euro solutions.

Flying Tulip Soars — Andre Cronje's Flying Tulip has secured $200M at a $1B valuation to create a comprehensive onchain DeFi exchange. With plans for an $800M public sale, it will integrate trading, lending, and insurance.

Swift's Blockchain — Swift is set to incorporate a blockchain-based ledger for cross-border transactions, partnering with Consensys and over 30 financial institutions.Aims to enable secure, real-time transactions and ensure interoperability.

BitMine's Ethereum Surge — BitMine has amassed over 2.65M ETH worth $10.8B, becoming the largest corporate Ethereum holder. With assets totaling $11.6B, the company targets 5% of Ethereum's supply, backed by institutions.

Zerohash — Raised $104M at a $1B valuation, led by Interactive Brokers. Rising institutional interest, with backing from Morgan Stanley and Apollo Global Management. CEO notes strong growth in crypto brokerage and stablecoin services.

Hyperliquid's Hypurr NFTs — Hyperliquid launched its Hypurr NFT collection of 4,600 NFTs on HyperEVM, reaching a $68,900 floor price and $45M in trade volume. Meanwhile, the HYPE token rose by 4.65%.

SPACE_RACE

China's Rocket Factories_Automotive-inspired method boosts rocket production

Atlas_High-energy laser enhances space security, satellite protection.

Charlotte_Spider Bot to 3D print lunar habitats and homes in 24 hrs

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