AI is moving fast and might break things: Keen Technologies’ goal for human-like AI is part of a trend that’s triggered an ethical AI backlash. But there’s a common-ground approach.

Canada’s consumers are slowly but surely shifting to online shopping, with ecommerce more than doubling its share of total retail sales since 2019. In this report, we look at the various retail milestones Canada will reach in 2022, as well as our first-ever breakdown of the country’s ecommerce sales by product category.

Shopify broadens the services it offers merchants: It partnered with YouTube to allow creators and merchants to sell products on their channels and bolstered its logistics platform by buying Deliverr.

Shopify offered a lifeline for merchants during the pandemic. Now, as the ecommerce environment grows more challenging, the company is devising new strategies to help brands expand their reach.

Since the start of the pandemic, Shopify has emerged as a leading ecommerce platform for merchants large and small.

A new Frontier for startups: A handful of startups just got funding to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Using carbon as a raw material could help them reach market viability.

By 2026, nearly 30% of US consumers’ average retail spending (excluding food and beverage sales and ticketing) will be made using proximity mobile payments, as providers look to build on the pandemic-driven adoption of the technology.

The beauty industry is getting a digital makeover, thanks to Gen Z, viral TikTok trends, AR capabilities, and new consumer behaviors. Brands will need to take a multichannel approach to keep up.

Enabling Crypto.com Pay lets customers pay merchants with over 20 cryptos.

How should businesses view these global trends and events? How are behaviors and spending changing? In this report, Insider Intelligence analysts weigh in on the questions they’re being asked by both clients and the media about the shifting landscape in key areas like digital advertising, retail and ecommerce, and financial services.

As online shopping continues to increase, gross payment volume (GPV) across digital commerce platforms in the US is expected to grow by 26.4% to reach $275.2 billion this year.

Shopify doubles down on logistics with its latest acquisition: The company is spending $2.1 billion on ecommerce fulfillment startup Deliverr to help it offer an “end-to-end logistics platform.”

Amazon looks to blunt Shopify’s momentum: Buy with Prime extends the marketplace’s reach by letting shoppers use their Amazon Prime membership to receive fast shipping on other retailers’ websites.

‘This is what we’ve always needed’: We talk with Delta CleanTech’s Lionel Kambeitz about what Big Tech’s plan to invest $925 million in carbon removal technologies means for his industry.

Increasing digitization among the 32 million US small businesses is changing the competitive landscape and forcing banks, acquirers, and fintechs to invest in next-generation features. These features range from payments and value-added services to outreach.

SXSW’s return reemphasized the importance of experiential marketing activations: Prime Video and others made big splashes, though pandemic-era virtual experiences remain.

Inflation hasn’t cooled consumers’ desire to spend: Nonstore sales rose 14.5% in January, and overall retail sales increased 3.8%, in the latest sign that the US economy remains strong.

Payments Ecosystem: This year will reveal how providers must adapt to lasting pandemic-driven digitization across payments channels, ranging from in-store retail to B2B ecommerce.

Payments Ecosystem: POS hardware, POS software, and gateway providers are working to become one-stop shops for merchants. Offering simple, robust access to front- and back-end solutions across industries lets them better serve merchants demanding integrated solutions.