Affairs

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21.05.26

E-Trading and Business Services Ltd (ETABS) has partnered with DNA Payments, an independent payments provider, to bring reliable and secure integrated payment solutions to UK retail, trade, and warehousing businesses, both in-store and online. ETABS’s unified software helps retail businesses manage everything from large inventories to busy trade counters and shop floors, covering tasks such as online and in-store ordering and stock management.

Research from Harmonic Security, based on analysis of 1,935,247 classified AI-session minutes, finds that the division between "work AI" and "personal AI" does not reflect how employees actually behave - as workers bring identical tasks to whichever AI tool is open, regardless of whether it is employer-provided or personal, free or paid. The survey reveals that 64.5% of all activity on personal and free-tier AI accounts is business use, not personal use, while 45.6% of all personal AI activity occurs on enterprise-licensed plans the employer is already paying for.

20.05.26

Visual communication platform Canva has  launched its Connected App for Google Gemini - so Gemini users can now generate and edit Canva designs, search their Canva content, and turn Nano Banana images into layered, editable designs to refine and publish in Canva. Building on previous collaborations with Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot, the Connected App in Gemini represents a milestone in Canva’s strategy to every surface where work and ideas begin.

The latest  Global Employee Benefits Trends Report (GEBTR) published by health insurance brokerage and employee benefits specialist Pacific Prime shines lights on businesses’ responses to the pressing cost challenges and evolving workplace demographics; according to the report, cost dominates benefits strategies for employers worldwide, while evolving workplace demographics also call for benefits that are more responsive to employees at differing life stages.

19.05.26

Worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.59 trillion in 2026, a 47% increase year-over-year, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company. “Through the next several years, the need for capacity will make AI infrastructure, including AI-optimised IaaS, AI-optimised servers, AI network fabric, AI processing semiconductors and devices, the largest segment of the market, accounting for over 45% of spending, which will be driven by vendors,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.

ITC Infotech, a global technology services and solutions provider, and InsureMO, the global insurance infrastructure platform, have formed a strategic alliance to help insurers accelerate modernisation through agentic AI. The partnership will focus initially on the Middle East, Africa, and India, with plans to expand into additional markets, bringing together two complementary capabilities: ITC Infotech's K-Fabric agentic AI framework, which orchestrates autonomous AI agents across business workflows, and InsureMO's platform of 2,500+ atomic APIs spanning policy, claims, underwriting, distribution, and product configuration.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory has integrated Libra, the company’s legal AI workspace, with Kleos, its cloud‑based practice management solution for law firms. The integration is designed to support seamless, end‑to‑end legal workflows, enabling legal professionals to move more easily from research and analysis into day‑to‑day case and matter work, combining practice management with AI‑supported capabilities.

18.05.26

LogicMonitor, a platform for Autonomous IT, has expanded its availability within Deutsche Telekom’s managed services portfolio across selected European markets - including DACH, Benelux, and the Nordics. The expansion builds on operational use of LogicMonitor in the United Kingdom since 2023, where it has supported Deutsche Telekom’s service teams in improving visibility across network, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure environments.

Technology-driven business transformation group Endava has formed a strategic partnership with Tyl by NatWest, NatWest Group’s merchant-payments arm, to accelerate the evolution of its offering. The partnership is focused on enabling Tyl’s customers to access a modern, fully integrated payments acceptance experience.

Alternative investments specialist Arboris Capital Limited has selected private markets technology and infrastructure provider ROYC AB to support the continued development of its private markets offering through its platform, CapGain.

15.05.26

Data and technology company Experian has formed a multi-year partnership with ServiceNow, an AI control tower for business reinvention, to harness the power of autonomous AI agents across platforms, helping businesses make faster and smarter decisions at scale. Through this partnership, autonomous AI agents can gain the ability to act faster, and more consistently, starting with employee onboarding, third-party risk management and model life cycle governance use cases.

Kioxia Corporation has collaborated with Dell Technologies to deliver a 2U server configuration capable of scaling to an unprecedented(1) 9.8 petabytes (PB) of flash storage. By combining the Dell PowerEdge R7725xd server with AMD EPYC processors and 40 KIOXIA LC9 Series E3.L form factor 245.76 terabyte (TB) NVMe SSDs, the companies are enabling a new class of storage-optimised platforms built to meet the demands of AI, large-scale data lakes, and data-intensive enterprise workloads.

AI data activation company Boomi and AI-powered enterprise knowledge platform Guru have created a technology partnership to help organisations unlock the full value of their enterprise data for AI-driven decision-making. The partnership makes Guru a launch partner for Boomi Connect, Boomi’s new managed connector service, and integrates Guru’s knowledge agents with Agentstudio and the Boomi MCP Registry to deliver richer, more accurate, and more actionable insights to knowledge workers and AI agents alike.

14.05.26

WorkJam, a  frontline operations platform, has published research revealing that retailers are increasingly prioritising cost control over employee experience as rising labour costs and operational pressures force organisations to rethink how they manage their frontline workforce. The findings, based on a survey of over 150 retail professionals conducted at the Retail Technology Show 2026, suggest the sector is undergoing a significant strategic shift compared to last year, with retailers moving away from workforce engagement strategies and toward short-term cost and operational measures.

13.05.26

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has developed a technology to accurately estimate the amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural land by combining optical measurements with two SOC dynamic models: a root biomass model and a microbially mediated organic matter decomposition model. The new technology will enable the efficient, low-cost, large-scale monitoring of SOC by eliminating the need for soil sampling and laboratory chemical analyses. By supporting the evaluation of agriculture‑derived carbon reductions within the GX‑ETS, the technology will improve agricultural productivity and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

TotalEnergies and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on exploration activities, covering a large area located in the north-western offshore of Egypt, establishing a framework for technical cooperation including preliminary exploration and subsurface evaluation activities. “This agreement will support the assessment of Egypt’s deep offshore exploration potential,” said Nicola Mavilla, SVP Exploration at TotalEnergies.

12.05.26

Owl Labs, which offers AI-powered, 360-degree video conferencing solutions, has formed a distribution partnership for the UK and Ireland with Westcoast Limited, one of the country’s largest  IT distributors. The agreement will see Westcoast distribute the full range of Owl Labs’ award-winning Meeting Owl and Owl Bar products across the UK and Ireland, providing greater choice, availability, and dedicated support for resellers and end customers navigating the demands of hybrid work.

According to a survey by Gartner, Inc., which provides business and technology insights, CMOs are allocating an average of 15.3 per cent of marketing budgets to AI initiatives, yet most marketing organisations lack the maturity to scale those investments. While 70 per cent of CMOs say becoming an AI leader is a critical goal for 2026, only 30 per cent report mature or fully developed AI readiness capabilities.

08.05.26

The Health Impact Alliance (HIA) has partnered with Infineon Technologies AG, which operates in the field of semiconductor solutions, to develop advanced connectivity solutions for the rapidly growing senior care market. The partnership combines Infineon’s AIROC CYW55512, Wi-Fi 6 1x1 dual-band and Bluetooth 6.0 combo IC, and PSOC Edge E84, ML-Enabled Arm® Cortex-M MCU powering the HIA’s revolutionary Connected Healthcare Ecosystem. This advanced technology solution will be implemented through Lancens Technology, the HIA’s core technology provider, to deliver superior connectivity and performance across a wide range of senior care devices spanning healthcare watches, emergency response, predictive analytics and family coordination tools.

AI scaleup operation causaLens has expanded its strategic partnership with Syneos Health, a biopharmaceutical solutions organisation, to advance the industry’s shift toward faster, more intelligent and scalable commercialisation. The companies initially partnered to execute advanced causal AI models to optimise commercial programmes, pivoting from time-intensive data science tools to faster, AI-driven decision-making to speed business outcomes. Darko Matovski, CEO, causaLens, said, "y combining causal reasoning, a field we pioneered, with multi-agent automation, we’re helping Syneos Health translate complex data into meaningful commercial action for biopharma brands."

07.05.26

Kraken, one of the world’s longest-standing, most secure and most liquid crypto platforms, and MoneyGram, one of the world’s leading global payments networks, have formed a strategic global partnership enabling millions of Kraken customers to withdraw crypto as cash in hundreds of fiat currencies using MoneyGram’s extensive global cash pickup network.

AI solutions company RWS has acquired Obviously Group Limited, an integrated platform that enables enterprise clients to seamlessly manage, protect and enforce their Intellectual Property and brand integrity. RWS will pay £16.5 million in initial cash consideration, with up to a further £23.5 million in deferred contingent consideration payable over three financial years subject to agreed profit targets, taking total potential consideration to £40 million.

European software growth private equity firm Bregal Milestone has taken a majority growth investment in meteoviva GmbH, which works in AI-powered predictive building energy management. meteoviva's intelligent solutions combine a proprietary physics-based thermodynamic model with AI to deliver energy cost reductions of up to 45 per cent across large-scale commercial real estate portfolios, without structural retrofits.

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., which provides financial market technology and data powering global capital markets, has committed to a strategic collaboration to enhance transparency and consistency in the global sustainable bonds market with the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), an international organization providing the global standard for certification in the sustainable bonds market. As part of the collaboration, ICE’s Sustainable Bonds Classification data will support CBI’s sustainable bond universe and its research and alignment assessments. ICE also plans to integrate CBI alignment indicators into its sustainable bond solutions, strengthening the insights available to market participants.

03.05.06

SoftBank Robotics Corp. has debuted its autonomous cooking robots, STEAMA and FLAMA. The robots' development has been  based on SoftBank's FOOD DX expertise cultivated in Japan.

According to The Business Research Company, the animal antibiotics and antimicrobials industry has witnessed significant growth recently, driven by various factors linked to the rising demand for animal health solutions. As the livestock sector expands and veterinary care improves, this market is poised for continued development in the coming years. Below is a detailed overview of the market size, key drivers, regional trends, and future outlook.

02.05.26

WisdomTree, Inc. has completed the acquisition of Atlantic House Holdings Limited. The acquisition strengthens WisdomTree’s ability to design, launch and scale differentiated active ETFs globally, accelerating innovation in outcome-oriented strategies and supporting the planned launch of 15-20 defined outcome ETFs globally, over the next 18 months. It also expands the firm’s Models and Portfolio Solutions platform into the UK wealth market, deepening adviser relationships and enhancing distribution across Europe.

Genius Sports Limited has completed its acquisition of Legend, provides a scaled media platform with marketing technology powering owned and operated digital properties including Covers.com, Casino.org and Casino Guru. In 2025, Legend generated 320 million annual visits from 118 million unique visitors, with more than two-thirds returning on a regular basis.

Payward, a unified financial infrastructure platform advancing an open, global financial system, has completed the acquisition of Bitnomial, the first fully CFTC-licensed derivatives company in the United States built for digital assets. Payward now owns the complete US derivatives stack – a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), a Designated Contract Market (DCM), and a Derivatives Clearing Organisation (DCO) – built over more than a decade with digital asset markets as the design basis.

01.05.26

Data published by Navan, an AI-powered business travel and expense platform, indicates that overall Europe-U.S. transatlantic flight bookings have increased by 17.4% year-over-year - driven by a nearly 15% year-over-year increase in U.S.-UK business travel and confirms that high-stakes, in-person collaboration is a non-negotiable growth driver for global enterprises. Dane Molter, SVP of Travel Marketplace at Navan, noted, “Double-digit growth of this magnitude proves that in-person connection is at the core of international business. Navan’s AI is eliminating complexity in international booking and expense, helping companies scale their global footprints with unmatched efficiency."

Lab Thread Ltd, a UK‐based life science software company, today announced the worldwide commercial release of its Unified Lab Software Platform. By linking functional modules including molecular biology tools, electronic notebook (ELN) records and laboratory information management (LIMS) functionality, Lab Thread creates a simple, secure digital thread – bringing together scientific teams, data and entire laboratory workflows to accelerate biological research and advance scientific discovery.

Freedom Fibre and Truespeed have today confirmed the completion of their merger, following regulatory approval, creating the Freedom Truespeed Group: a scaled, capital-efficient full fibre platform with an expanded regional footprint across the UK. The transaction brings together two highly complementary full fibre networks, with the combined business serving more than 412,000 premises Ready for Service (RFS) and around 70,000 customers across the North West, West Midlands, South West and East of England.