The famous designer, technology consultant and writer Neal Stephenson is the man who coined the term “Metaverse”. What today is the main character of the economic and technological revolution we’re witnessing, is the result of Stephenson’s visionary genius. In this interview by Alex Zhavoronkov, Stephenson shares his opinions on technology, literature and life.

Julie VerHage-Greenberg interviews Jeff Seibert, co-founder of Digits - a fintech platform that provides real-time accounting for small businesses. They discuss how the pandemic changed the focus of small business and of the fintech firm, and what are the challenges for the future.

If we have to see the upside, the pandemic forced firms to focus more on people needs, and to find easy and useful solutions to overcome the many issues that people and businesses were facing - and are facing. Some of the solutions found may continue to be improved even after pandemic, and Fintech Futures covers the main three in this article.

Among the innovative solutions found by fintech firms there is the frictionless checkout technology, which allows customers to just walk out of a store after purchasing. Zippin is becoming one of the best providers of this technology, and it could even rival Amazon.

FTFT Capital Investments LLC - a subsidiary of the Future Fintech Group Inc. - launches a new crypto markets price aggregator - ftftx.com: the platform will provide real-time data and information, tracking not only major cryptos but also hundreds of altcoins, gathering data from hundreds of crypto exchanges.

The financial sector is one of the many sectors that use artificial intelligence (AI) to maximize profits and improve services: fraud detection, accounting automation risk assessment are just some of the fields where AI is used.

According to Aite-Novarica Group, in 2020 at least 47% of Americans experienced some form of identity theft, and according to CNBC $5.8 was lost in 2021 due to frauds. Financial technology is developing new tools to avoid frauds in the future, to allow people to feel safe and prothect their money.

It is expected a new wave of consolidation in the UK fintech industry: financing rounds show that investors are willing to invest more in fintech, and that new technologies – mainly based on artificial intelligence – will be exploited to support the growth of the whole fintech industry.

Vic.ai, the fintech startup focused on providing enterprises with automate accounting and financial processes, launched a new tool for further cost optimization: Spend Intelligence, the new AI-based tool created by the company, will provide companies with insights and improve their existing financial processes.

Ben Goertzel, founder of the SingularityNET Foundation, shares his thoughts about the Metaverse. Despite the digital reality is one of the most discussed topics, Goertzel affirms that many of the projects created so far only involve gaming. We're far from enjoying all the advantages of the Metaverse, but AI can help us.

Mike Whitmire, CEO of the fintech company FloQast, analyzes the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on the job market. Inspired by the Benenden Health’s study, which assesses that around 63% of managers in the financial sector are considering quitting their jobs for burnout, Whitmire affirms that automation can lead workers to focus on less stressful, less repetitive, and more enriching tasks.

Fintech is not just a trend: it created a model that is sufficiently agile to recover after crises and offer solutions that can cope with an increased need for digitalization. Nathan Sinnott covers the main opportunities to leverage, and how these fintech’s key elements improved businesses.

Cooperation doesn't involve only people, but also artificial intelligence. Braina is among the top essential software: Braina, a mix of “brain” and “artificial”, was created to be your personal virtual assistant. Realized thanks to AI modeling, it works on PCs and is able to recognize commands in different languages – as long as you speak naturally.

A pivotal element in digital lending is actually data analysis. To implement this kind of analysis, AI modeling and machine learning play major roles: to better assess the credit worthiness of each borrower, artificial intelligence is able to gather and analyze data that doesn’t seem to be directly connected to credit history, like social media profiles and digital behavior of each user. If this improves lending businesses to improve conversion rates, customers share a huge amount of data to use digital lending services.

The European Union will finalize its EU Artificial Intelligence Act – EU AI Act – to regulate artificial intelligence. The act could have several implications on how AI is developed, and also influence international cooperation related to AI.