Google shared a new update on Nov. 5, confirming that Gemini Deep Research can now use context from your Gmail, Drive and Chat. This allows the AI to pull information from your messages, attachments and stored files to support your research.
Some people view this as a convenience. They like the idea of faster answers and easier searches. If you feel that way, too, that is completely fine.
However, many people do not want AI scanning private messages or personal documents. If that sounds like you, there is good news. You can turn these features off with a few quick taps in Gmail.
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Google’s new update allows Gemini to scan Gmail. These steps help you take control of your privacy.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why this update matters
This feature gives Google permission to scan every email in your Gmail account. That includes personal notes, financial documents, tax files and any sensitive information in your inbox. AI looks for patterns to improve responses, but Google says Gmail content is not used to train the Gemini model and that no user settings were changed automatically.
Google also says that Gmail, Docs and Sheets are not used for AI training unless you directly give Gemini that content yourself.
While Google says the feature improves your experience, some users prefer more control. You may want privacy first and convenience second. If so, you can opt out today.
You can turn this off directly in Gmail settings. Follow these steps:
Open Gmail to start the process of turning off AI features.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Tap the gear icon in the top right
Tap the gear icon to access your main Gmail settings.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Select See all settings to reach the full menu.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Scroll until you find Smart Features
Turn off Smart features by clicking it off.
Scroll until you find Smart features and personalization. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
It will ask you to click “Turn off and reload.”
Turn off Smart features to reduce scanning across your inbox.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Now, scroll to Google Workspace smart features and click “Manage Workspace smart feature settings.”
Go to Google Workspace smart features for the next control.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Turn off both checkboxes and then click Save.
Turn off both checkboxes to stop extra data scanning.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
A pop-up will appear in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen that says “Your preferences have been saved.”
Watch for the confirmation pop up that tells you the changes are active.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Once you switch these off, Gmail stops scanning your messages for smart features or AI enhancements. This returns control to you.
What happens when you turn it off
After you disable these settings, features like smart email suggestions may stop working. That includes predictive text, automatic bill reminders and quick booking prompts. You can always turn them back on if you change your mind.
Turning these off does not break Gmail. Your inbox works the same. You simply gain more privacy while you use it.
Want a more private inbox?
If you’d rather keep your email fully separate from AI features, you may want to consider a privacy-focused email service. They don’t scan your messages or use your inbox to train any systems. Everything stays private and encrypted.
For people who want more control over their digital privacy, these private and secure email providers offer a straightforward way to keep email activity protected. They give you peace of mind knowing your messages aren’t being analyzed in the background.
For recommendations on private and secure email providers, visitCyberguy.com.
Take my quiz: How safe is your online security?
Think your devices and data are truly protected? Take this quick quiz to see where your digital habits stand. From passwords to Wi-Fi settings, you’ll get a personalized breakdown of what you’re doing right and what needs improvement. Take my Quiz here: Cyberguy.com.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Google’s newest update blends convenience with automation. It can simplify research by tapping into your Gmail, Drive and Chat. Still, many people want a clear boundary between AI tools and personal messages. With a few quick steps, you can keep your inbox private without losing access to core Gmail features. Just keep in mind: Google says Gmail content isn’t used to train Gemini unless you explicitly give that content to the AI.
Do you think AI tools should have access to your messages by default or should companies ask before scanning anything? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Amazon began the process of issuing refunds to eligible Prime members this week as part of a large settlement the company agreed to over federal allegations that it misled customers.Related video above: Amazon Scam exposed — Don’t fall for this refund text trickIn 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon. In it, and in media releases since, the FTC has said the company “enrolled millions of people in Prime subscriptions without their consent – and then made it hard for those unwilling Prime subscribers to cancel.”On Sept. 25, 2025, Amazon, without admitting liability, reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC. “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” Amazon said upon reaching the settlement. “We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world. We will continue to do so, and look forward to what we’ll deliver for Prime members in the coming years.”As part of the agreement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to eligible customers. So, do you qualify? Here’s everything we know about the Amazon refunds.When are refund payments being sent out? Amazon has already started the process of issuing automatic refunds to eligible Prime customers. The automatic payments began being doled out on Nov. 12, and that process will continue through Dec. 24, 2025. How much money will I get? According to the FTC, under the settlement, eligible Prime customers can receive a refund of their Amazon Prime subscription fees, up to $51.Who is eligible for the automatic refunds? To qualify for the automatic refund, you had to have signed up for Amazon Prime in the U.S. between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.Customers only qualify if they signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through a “challenged enrollment flow,” which the FTC says includes “the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single page checkout, or the Prime Video enrollment flow.”If you’re unsure of whether you signed up through a challenged enrollment flow, you don’t need to worry. According to an FAQ document linked to the FTC’s alert about the refund payments, “you will not need to determine whether or not you signed up through a Challenged Enrollment Flow. That analysis is being completed for you.”Furthermore, to qualify, you must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in “any 12-month period following Amazon Prime enrollment,” according to the FTC. Those benefits include Prime Music or Prime Video products offered for free to Prime subscribers.How will payments be issued? Those who are eligible will receive an email. The FTC says refunds must be accepted within 15 days. Refunds can be issued via PayPal or Venmo. However, those who would rather get a check should “ignore the email from Amazon,” the FTC said in its alert. If you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, a check will be sent to the default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription. The checks must be cashed within 60 days, the FTC said.What if I didn’t get an automatic refund?If you think you are eligible but don’t get an automatic refund, the FTC says you “don’t need to do anything right now.””In 2026, Amazon will begin its claims process for eligible Prime customers who didn’t get an automatic refund between November and December 2025,” the FTC said in its alert, adding, “You don’t need to contact the FTC to receive a refund.”The FTC said it will update its “Amazon Refunds” webpage when the claims process begins.You can also sign up to receive emails by going to this website.Don’t fall for scamsIn its alert about the automatic refunds, the FTC is cautioning consumers that the FTC “will never ask you to pay to get a refund.””Don’t pay anyone who promises you a refund in exchange for a fee. And don’t give personal information to anyone who contacts you promising a refund,” the FTC said.
Related video above: Amazon Scam exposed — Don’t fall for this refund text trick
In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon. In it, and in media releases since, the FTC has said the company “enrolled millions of people in Prime subscriptions without their consent – and then made it hard for those unwilling Prime subscribers to cancel.”
On Sept. 25, 2025, Amazon, without admitting liability, reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC.
“Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” Amazon said upon reaching the settlement. “We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world. We will continue to do so, and look forward to what we’ll deliver for Prime members in the coming years.”
As part of the agreement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to eligible customers.
So, do you qualify? Here’s everything we know about the Amazon refunds.
When are refund payments being sent out?
Amazon has already started the process of issuing automatic refunds to eligible Prime customers.
The automatic payments began being doled out on Nov. 12, and that process will continue through Dec. 24, 2025.
How much money will I get?
According to the FTC, under the settlement, eligible Prime customers can receive a refund of their Amazon Prime subscription fees, up to $51.
Who is eligible for the automatic refunds?
To qualify for the automatic refund, you had to have signed up for Amazon Prime in the U.S. between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.
Customers only qualify if they signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through a “challenged enrollment flow,” which the FTC says includes “the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single page checkout, or the Prime Video enrollment flow.”
If you’re unsure of whether you signed up through a challenged enrollment flow, you don’t need to worry. According to an FAQ document linked to the FTC’s alert about the refund payments, “you will not need to determine whether or not you signed up through a Challenged Enrollment Flow. That analysis is being completed for you.”
Furthermore, to qualify, you must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in “any 12-month period following Amazon Prime enrollment,” according to the FTC.
Those benefits include Prime Music or Prime Video products offered for free to Prime subscribers.
How will payments be issued?
Those who are eligible will receive an email. The FTC says refunds must be accepted within 15 days.
Refunds can be issued via PayPal or Venmo. However, those who would rather get a check should “ignore the email from Amazon,” the FTC said in its alert. If you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, a check will be sent to the default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription. The checks must be cashed within 60 days, the FTC said.
What if I didn’t get an automatic refund?
If you think you are eligible but don’t get an automatic refund, the FTC says you “don’t need to do anything right now.”
“In 2026, Amazon will begin its claims process for eligible Prime customers who didn’t get an automatic refund between November and December 2025,” the FTC said in its alert, adding, “You don’t need to contact the FTC to receive a refund.”
The FTC said it will update its “Amazon Refunds” webpage when the claims process begins.
You can also sign up to receive emails by going to this website.
Don’t fall for scams
In its alert about the automatic refunds, the FTC is cautioning consumers that the FTC “will never ask you to pay to get a refund.”
“Don’t pay anyone who promises you a refund in exchange for a fee. And don’t give personal information to anyone who contacts you promising a refund,” the FTC said.
This week’s edition of Finovate Globallooks at recent fintech headlines from South Africa.
Lesaka Technologies to Acquire Bank Zero
Lesaka Technologies, a fintech that provides low-cost financial services to underbanked South Africans, has secured approval from the Competition Commission to acquire Bank Zero. An app-only bank co-founded by Michael Jordaan in 2018 and publicly launched three years later, Bank Zero today has more than 40,000 funded accounts and deposits of more than $22 million. The financial institution offers personal and business banking solutions to both underbanked and tech-first customers.
Initially announced in July, the acquisition is valued at $60 million. The transaction consists of a combination of newly issued shares in Lesaka and up to $5 million in cash. Post-transaction, Jordaan will remain as Bank Zero’s chairman, and co-founder Yatin Narsai will continue to serve as CEO. Bank Zero’s entire management team will also remain in place.
Lesaka anticipates that the acquisition will fortify its balance sheet, enhance lending performance, and reduce the firm’s dependence on bank debt. The fintech suggested that the move could lower its gross debt by $57 million.
“The acquisition of Bank Zero is a transformative event in Lesaka’s journey, enabling us to better serve our consumers, merchants, and enterprise clients, by embedding a trusted, well-engineered neobank capability into our fintech platform,” Lesaka Chairman Ali Mazanderani said. “I am delighted to welcome the Bank Zero team to Lesaka as partners.”
Lesaka Technologies offers banking, lending, and insurance products to consumers and cash management, billpay, business funding, and card acquiring solutions to retail merchants in both the formal and informal sectors. Founded in 1997, the company is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.
South African Retailer Explores New Banking Venture
One of South Africa’s largest discount retail groups may be getting into the banking business.
Pepkor Holdings operates more than 5,800 stores across a wide number of brands including PEP, Ackermans, and Tekkie Town. A subsidiary of Steinhoff International, Pepkor is reportedly looking to launch a new banking venture—informally referred to as “Pep Bank”—that will leverage the company’s market reach to offer zero-fee banking to millions of consumers with lower incomes. The company is said to be in conversation with Investec, seeking a partner to support the new bank’s regulatory, operational, and financial infrastructure.
There has been no public commentary from Pepkor on the initiative, and press reports assert that the talks are in “early stages.” Further, the launch of a new bank would require approvals from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the National Credit Regulator, and no such engagement has been reported to date.
Speaking of launching banking operations in South Africa, Revolut announced that it has officially begun the process of securing a banking license in the country. The company has confirmed that it submitted a Section 12 application under the country’s Banks Act, the first step in becoming a licensed bank in South Africa. Revolut first signaled its intention to launch a bank in South Africa in September, highlighting the country as a “key growth market” with increasing rates of digital adoption and an openness to innovative financial products and services.
“Becoming a licensed bank will allow us to bring a full suite of products to the market and ensure we become the go-to financial app for millions of South Africans,” Revolut South Africa CEO Jacques Meyer said.
As a sign of the company’s growing engagement with the South African market, Revolut has appointed Dr. Gaby Magomola as Chairman of Revolut South Africa. A pioneer in the history of banking in South Africa, Dr. Magomola has served in senior executive roles at Citibank, Barclays Bank, First National Bank, and African Bank. He most recently served as Deputy Chairman of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
“Dr. Magomola’s experience is invaluable as we deepen our commitment to the South African market,” Meyer said. “His strategic counsel will be critical in navigating the local regulatory environment, ensuring we build a locally relevant service that addresses the financial needs of all customers in South Africa.”
Revolut’s presence in South Africa would bring significant additional competition to the country’s digital bank industry, which consists of TymeBank, Discovery Bank, and Bank Zero, which has been acquired by Lesaka Technologies, as we noted in this week’s column. Already one of the largest digital banks in the world, Revolut has said its expansion in South Africa is part of the company’s goal to grow its customer base from 65 million to 100 million by 2027. Revolut also seeks to be active in 30 markets by 2030.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
Japan’s largest trust bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, selected SCSK Corporation and OneSpan to enhance security for its mobile banking operations.
Australian superannuation fund Brighter Super partnered with Napier AI to enhance its compliance infrastructure.
Is Jack back? South China Morning Post featured Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma’s return to the campus of Ant Group.
Sub-Saharan Africa
South African fintech Lesaka Technologies received approval to acquire Bank Zero in a deal valued at $60 million.
Revoluthas applied for a banking license in South Africa.
South Africa’s Discovery Bank announced new crypto trading offering.
Central and Eastern Europe
Lithuanian regtech iDenfy unveiled its new solution that conduct instant license checks during the KYC process.
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) announced that Wero for e-commerce is now live in Germany.
Mastercardintroduced open loop transit payments in Azerbaijan.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Crypto payments company MoonPay expanded its partnership with Israel-based Zengo Wallet. The firm’s venture arm, MoonPay Ventures, also announced a strategic investment in the self-custodial crypto wallet.
First Abu Dhabi Bank teamed up with Thunes to enable global mobile wallet payouts.
Yuze Digital, a AI-powered fintech platform for freelancers and independent businesses, launched its pilot in India.
Pakistani fintech Abhi partnered with UAE-based digital platform Numou to help SMEs access financial services.
Indian fintech Yubi raised $46.4 million to enhance its debt marketplace, collection systems, and AI capabilities.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Uruguay-based cross-border payment platform dLocal partnered with global payouts orchestration company PayQuicker to help the firm serve more merchants in emerging markets.
Latin American accounts receivable management and collections automation platform Moonflow acquired Mexican fintech Kobro.
Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released 20,000 documents from the estate of registered sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. They included thousands of emails sent between Epstein and high-profile people like Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, political strategist Steve Bannon, journalist Michael Wolff, and former US treasury secretary Larry Summers, as well as revealing text messages. Many of them allude or directly refer to president Donald Trump.
Now, you can browse all those emails just like you would on your own Gmail account.
Jmail is a website that looks very much like Gmail, except that there is a little hat hanging on the logo and that the profile picture in the top right corner is a grinning Epstein. (Click on it and it says “Hi Jeffrey!”) The inbox lets you click through thousands of emails, formatted to look exactly like a regular message would in your inbox. In the sidebar, you can sort by Inbox, Starred, and Sent. In Gmail, a lower sidebar section reads Labels and separates emails by category. In Jmail, it is a list of people who corresponded with Epstein.
The site was created by serial pranksterRiley Walz and Luke Igel, cofounder of an AI video editing tool called Kino AI. Igel tells WIRED that he brought the idea to Walz—something Walz confirms—and then the two of them put the website together with Cursor in a single night. Walz revealed Jmail in an X post, writing, “We cloned Gmail, except you’re logged in as Epstein and can see his emails.”
Jmail is a much more readable way to peruse the huge cache of emails released from the Epstein estate than parsing through tens of thousands of PDFs on a Google Drive. Among its useful features is that it rejiggers Gmail’s starring feature, letting users flag emails they view as important and then ranking them based on how many people do so. By default, the inbox lists the emails in the order of recency; the community starring feature is a way to surface what people see as more important emails.
“The emails were just so hard to read,” Igel says. “It felt like so much of the shock would’ve come if you saw actual screenshots of the actual inbox, but what you were seeing was these really low quality, poorly scanned PDFs. You have to do a few steps of imagination to remind yourself that this is indeed a real email.”
Being able to see these emails in a more familiar, readable format makes it much easier to follow threads and back-and-forths, but also reveals weird things about Epstein’s communications. Igel says there’s a noticeable increase in typos and sporadic formatting when Epstein switches from a desktop keyboard to a touchscreen device in the early 2010s.
How can financial institutions determine the correct digital modernization strategy that will help them achieve their goals while respecting the role of legacy technologies? Can organizations effectively modernize their operations, leveraging enabling technologies like AI, without risking the potential disruptions that change—even positive change—can bring?
This year at FinovateFall 2025, I caught up with Casey Ferguson, VP of Marketing at Zoot Enterprises to discuss the company’s phased approach to modernizing financial systems and integrating legacy technologies. Ferguson explains how effective transformations should embrace incremental progress, cross-functional collaboration, and layered fraud defenses.
At Zoot we look at modernization this way: it’s not about tearing everything down. When you look at this kind of ‘rip and replace’ mentality, you have to remember it can be pretty risky. It can be very expensive and it can be slow, as well. When you think about the pace of change, architecting the perfect environment, the world may have changed by the time you have a perfect picture of all this. So working on things incrementally and in phases can really make a difference.
Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, and founded in 1990, Zoot Enterprises provides acquisition, origination, and decision management solutions for businesses ranging from leading banks and payment providers to automobile manufacturers and retailers. Zoot’s technology leverages advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights for compliance, risk management, fraud prevention, customer experience, workflow efficiency, digital transformation, and more. The company boasts more than 90 partners and providers, and 300+ data connections to access the most accurate and reliable data in real time.
Superannuation fund Brighter Super is upgrading its compliance infrastructure courtesy of a partnership with Napier AI.
Migrating to Napier AI’s Continuum platform enables Brighter Super to benefit from Kubernetes-based scalability and intuitive rule-testing capabilities, helping compliance teams adapt to changing regulations.
Headquartered in London, Napier AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2018.
One of the largest superannuation funds in Queensland, Australia, Brighter Super, has partnered with financial crime prevention platform Napier AI. The fund will leverage Napier AI’s Continuum solution to improve scalability, increase regulatory preparedness, and boost operational efficiency.
“Brighter Super is an excellent example of how a forward-looking institution can use technology to drive compliance transformation,” Napier AI CEO Greg Watson said. “By adopting Napier AI Continuum, Brighter Super has built a scalable, future-ready compliance operation that not only meets today’s regulatory expectations, but also positions them for continued growth.”
Based in Queensland, Australia, Brighter Super migrated from an on-premise system to Napier AI’s hosted environment. The fund now features streamlined post-merger integration, Kubernetes-based scalability, and intuitive rule-testing capabilities that will help future-proof compliance teams, enabling them to better adapt to ever-evolving regulations.
“Napier AI has been instrumental in helping us modernize and scale our compliance operations to keep pace with an evolving superannuation industry,” Brighter Super Chief Risk Officer Shawn Chan said. “As we integrated multiple funds and transitioned to a cloud-based environment, Napier’s platform gave us the flexibility and control we needed—without added complexity. The user-friendly interface meant our team could adapt quickly, even during structural changes.”
Brighter Super manages more than A$36 billion ($23.3 billion) in retirement savings for more than 348,000 members. The fund has experienced significant, M&A-related growth in recent years, merging with Energy Super in 2021 and acquiring Suncorp Portfolio Services Limited in 2022. This fall, Brighter Super announced that it had chosen SuperChoice as its clearing house partner ahead of the new Payday Super regulations that go into effect in July 2026. Also this fall, Brighter Super extended its partnership with MATES in Energy. MATES is a construction industry charity created in 2008 to help reduce the high suicide rate among construction workers. The charity has since been expanded to include workers from other industries, such as energy.
Headquartered in London, and founded in 2015, Napier AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2018. The company began this year securing a majority growth investment from Marlin Equity Partners, which took the company’s total funding to more than $55 million. The past few months have been especially busy for Napier AI. The company appointed Noel King as Chief Technology Officer in June, Kenneth Paqvalén as Chief Financial Officer in July, and Adam Flowers as new Chief Revenue Officer in September. Napier AI partnered with UAE-based lottery operator Game LLC in October and, earlier this month, was selected for FCA Supercharged Sandbox launch—supported by fellow Finovate alum NayaOne.
“When deployed in specialist areas such as financial crime, AI can drive billions in cost savings,” Napier AI Chief Product Officer Will Monk said. “The Napier AI / AML Index showed that UK financial institutions could save £2.5 billion annually through AI-driven AML solutions, and the FCA’s Supercharged Sandbox is the perfect platform to streamline this development and deployment to put this cost saving into action.”
This is a sponsored blog post from Capgemini, a financial services consulting and technology firm.
Unlock large-scale growth with cloud-powered AI agents
Cloud and AI agents boost efficiency and personalization, but adoption remains nascent.
Cloud-powered AI agents unlock value by automating tasks and enabling real-time, personalized CX.
To maximize impact, financial institutions must redesign processes and align cloud-AI strategies with compliance.
AI is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of almost every industry. Today, it’s everywhere – discussed, adopted, and integrated across sectors. Now, we’re entering the era of agentic AI. Here’s what it means for financial services.
According to Capgemini’s latest World Cloud Report – Financial Services 2026, 87% of financial institutions have implemented some form of AI, but only 10% are using AI agents at scale. This gap represents a major opportunity for banks, insurers, and market operators to move beyond basic automation and embrace the AI-driven revolution.
Meanwhile, cloud platforms have evolved from simple infrastructure providers into powerful innovation engines. Today, they enable AI-driven transformation across the entire value chain, delivering speed, resilience, and compliance in a highly regulated environment. Together, cloud and AI promise faster time-to-market, hyper-personalized experiences, and greater operational agility. However, according to the report, success requires more than technology. It demands a cultural change, robust governance, and a clear roadmap.
Adapt: Embracing AI evolution and cloud’s changing role
AI has traveled an impressive path, from early machine learning models to generative AI and now agentic AI. These intelligent agents go beyond responding to prompts, and now autonomously manage workflows, make decisions, and learn continuously. For financial services, this means moving past traditional tools like robotic process automation toward systems that can handle complex tasks like underwriting, fraud detection, and customer onboarding with minimal human intervention.
According to the report, 75% of banks and 70% of insurers already deploy AI agents for customer service. Other top use cases include fraud detection, loan processing, and claims handling. Yet, despite these advances, only one tenth of firms have scaled AI agents’ enterprise-wide, signaling untapped potential.
Cloud is the enabler of this evolution. Hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are gaining traction, with 26% of financial institutions migrating more than half of their workloads to hybrid environments. The reasons include scalability (87% of respondents), legacy modernization (86% of respondents), and compliance (32% of respondents).
Forge: Creating business value with cloud-powered AI agents
By utilizing the scalability and flexibility of cloud platforms, firms can gain efficiency, optimize operations, innovative topline growth and deliver superior CX.
These agents automate manual tasks such as underwriting and credit scoring, reducing errors and accelerating turnaround times. With orchestration capabilities and unified large language model layers, they enable seamless coordination across workflows and drive real-time decision-making.
Building on these efficiency gains, AI agents also help institutions evolve toward autonomous operating models. Tasks once dependent on human oversight, like risk scoring and policy servicing, are increasingly performed by AI, freeing employees to focus on more strategic initiatives. This shift is supported by smaller, task-specific models that improve speed, explainability, and compliance while reducing compute costs.
Customer experience is another key dimension. Intelligent agents deliver hyper-personalized interactions, proactive query resolution, and faster service, helping banks and insurers boost acquisition, engagement, and retention.
Orchestrate: Building a cloud-native, AI-centric future
The orchestration phase is where strategy meets execution. Financial institutions are mapping business processes to identify where cloud-based AI agents can deliver the greatest optimization. Capgemini’s latest report divides these into 4 categories:
Quick wins – high-value and easy to adopt
Open for evaluation – strategic but more complex
Need for education – simple to adopt but offer limited value
Investigate – low in both priority and ease of adoption.
Quick wins like credit underwriting and CRM-integrated sales stand out as ideal starting points for rapid returns.
Orchestration goes far beyond technology deployment. It demands strong governance and compliance frameworks. With 96% of executives citing regulatory complexity as a major barrier, institutions must embed explainability, fairness, and accountability into AI systems from the start.
At the same time, numerous behavioral challenges still remain. In fact, 92% of leaders report skill gaps and cultural resistance. Overcoming these requires enterprise-wide AI literacy programs, clear communication of benefits, and collaborative development models.
Closing thoughts
AI agents are poised to redefine financial services, unlocking speed and innovation. Firms should start with a clear buy-or-build strategy that weighs solutions, internal capabilities, compliance, scalability, and privacy, supported by resilient cloud infrastructure.
Leaders must drive an AI-first culture by securing stakeholder buy-in, prioritizing high-value use cases, and enforcing safeguards like human oversight and transparency. Training teams and democratizing access to tools accelerates adoption and creativity.
Embedding these initiatives into digital transformation and cloud strategies enables specialized agents, autonomous operations, and multi-agent collaboration. Combined with a solid cloud strategy to cut costs and remove geographic limits, this approach positions financial institutions to lead the next era of agility, personalization, and growth, where those who act boldly will set the pace for the industry.
Digital banking solutions provider ebankIT has forged a strategic partnership with banking and financial services software company Alogent.
The partnership integrates ebanktIT’s omnichannel digital banking platform with Alogent’s advanced remote deposit capture (RDC) and item processing technologies.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Porto, Portugal, ebankIT won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015.
Digital banking solutions provider for community financial institutions (CFIs), ebankIT, has announced a strategic partnership with banking and financial services software firm Alogent. The partnership integrates ebankIT’s omnichannel digital banking platform with Alogent’s advanced remote deposit capture (RDC) and item processing technologies. This will create a unified experience that enables financial institutions to accelerate digital transformations, boost security, and enhance customer journeys.
“Our partnership with ebankIT delivers secure, seamless experiences that build trust and keep users engaged across every channel, helping financial institutions modernize faster and smarter,” Alogent VP of Business Development Chris Wilson said. “The combined strengths of both organizations empower banks and credit unions to provide consistent, digital experiences that enhance customer engagement and meet evolving market demands.”
The partnership combines Alogent’s expertise in image capture, deposit automation, and fraud mitigation with ebankIT’s omnichannel capabilities, responding to a demand from community financial institutions, including credit unions, for greater integration between digital banking and payments technologies. This collaboration facilitates flexibility, speed-to-market, and greater customer engagement, and the integrated solution delivers robust compliance, reduced implementation time, and continuous innovation with AI-driven insights and personalized financial tools.
“This partnership is a natural fit,” ebankIT VP of US Market Development Paul Provenzano said. “Alogent’s deep expertise in payments and deposit automation perfectly complements ebankIT’s vision for a flexible and scalable digital banking ecosystem. Together, we’re helping financial institutions deliver seamless journeys, from deposits to payments, within a single, intuitive interface.”
Headquartered in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, Alogent offers solutions for check payment processing, enterprise content and information management, and loan and exception tracking. Serving financial institutions of all sizes—from global banks to credit unions—Alogent helps companies lower costs, boost processing efficiency, mitigate fraud, generate revenue, and enhance the customer experience across channels. The company announced a number of new partnerships last month, including collaborations with lending accelerator for banks and credit unions Vine, Georgia-based Embassy National Bank ($285 million in assets), and Pennsylvania’s First Capital Federal Credit Union ($350 million in assets). Company co-founder Dede Wakefield is CEO.
A Finovate alum for more than a decade, ebankIT won Best of Show in its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2015 in London. The company demonstrated its technology most recently at FinovateFall 2025, showing how it is leveraging Agentic AI to bring automation and intelligence to a growing number of operations from payments to fraud detection.
We have tragic news to report from the world of social media today.
Mikey Rijavec, the YouTuber who gained a massive following with his fishing videos, has passed away.
Rescue crews had been searching for Rijavec since November 11, when the Coast Guard received a mayday signal from his 14-foot skiff off the coast of Mexico.
Fishing influencer Mikey Rijavec has been found dead. (YouTube)
Sadly, the team located both the boat and Rijavec’s lifeless body on Sunday.
US and Mexican authorities were joined in their search by dozens of private boat owners in the area.
News of Rijavec’s passing comes courtesy of a GoFundMe page created by his family.
“It is time for the countless people involved in the search for Mikey to finally rest and begin to find peace,” reads an update on the page that appeared on Tuesday.
“Mikey’s body was found in the water near San Cristobal earlier today. As difficult as it is to accept this, we are grateful that it provides us some closure.”
Fishing influencer Mikey Rijavec has been found dead. (YouTube)
Mikey’s brother Gregory went on to praise those who worked tirelessly to rescue the late fisherman.
“As we begin to process and reflect on what has happened over the last several days, it is clear what was at the core of the search for Mikey: love,” wrote Gregory.
“Everyone poured everything into finding Mikey, because whether they knew him or not, they knew a son, a brother, a friend, a fisherman, a fellow human needed help. Everyone has been extremely selfless during this time, and selflessness is one of the greatest acts of love. We were united in the search and we are united in love.”
Continued Gregory in his tribute to his late brother: “Mikey was mindful and present every day, and that allowed him to live a longer life than can be measured on a calendar.
“His mission was to spread his positive energy and make every person he came in contact with better, and he did. Mikey prepared us to deal with this, and if we live by his example we will not only be OK, we will be better.”
In a heartfelt Facebook post, Mikey’s close friend Phil Friedman paid tribute to the late content creator:
“Mikey brought so much joy, laughter, and passion to the fishing community, and his absence leaves a huge void,” he wrote.
“Please keep his family, loved ones, and everyone who knew him in your thoughts and prayers during this incredibly difficult time. Rest easy, brother.”
It’s unclear at this time what may have caused Mikey’s outboard motor to become detached from his boat.
Investigators say they intend to launch a full investigation into the matter.
Our thoughts go out to his family, and we will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
Insights-led customer engagement platform MoEngage helps marketers and product owners leverage AI-powered automation and optimization to enable hyper-personalization at scale. Effective across multiple channels including mobile and web push, email, SMS, on-site and in-app messaging, cards, and more, MoEngage empowers brands to analyze customer behavior and engage consumers through highly personalized communication.
This is what UAE-based Union Coop sought when it selected the San Francisco, California-based company as its customer data and engagement partner this week.
“Union Coop’s success is rooted in how we cater to our loyal member base,” Union Coop Chief Marketing Officer Sanjay Patney said. “To deliver on this promise and as we enhance our app-based Tamayaz loyalty program, we needed to move to a complete, all-in-one solution. We chose MoEngage for its powerful ability to unify our members’ data and orchestrate the beautifully designed, highly personalized campaigns our members deserve. This partnership is a key step in leapfrogging our digital strategy to boost engagement and reward our loyal, repeat shoppers.”
Headquartered in Dubai and founded in 1982, Union Coop is one of the largest consumer cooperatives in the UAE. Union Coop operates 28 hypermarket branches throughout Dubai and manages seven shopping malls in the emirate. Union Coop will use MoEngage’s Customer Data and Engagement Platform to unify member data from across multiple systems to provide a single, comprehensive view; orchestrate highly personalized, app-based journeys in real time; increase member engagement; and incentivize repeat shopping with personalized campaigns.
More than 1,350 international consumer brands—including Samsung, McAfee, and Deutsche Telekom—use MoEngage’s technology to boost campaign velocity, shorten time-to-market, optimize at scale, and reduce redundancy while ensuring both data security and privacy. MoEngage helps brands engage 20% of the world’s population a month, analyzing a trillion data points. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2022 in London.
MoEngage’s partnership news with Union Coop comes just days after the company announced that it had achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Financial Services ISV Partner Competency. The designation recognizes MoEngage’s industry expertise as well as its success in providing innovative engagement solutions for customers in banking, insurance, fintech, capital markets, and more.
“(This achievement) underscores our commitment to delivering industry-specific engagement solutions that help financial services providers build trust, drive loyalty, and unlock growth,” MoEngage Head of Strategic Alliances Sanjay Kupae said. “From hyper-personalized onboarding journeys to AI-driven retention strategies, we’re enabling banks and financial services to connect with customers in a secure, compliant, and intelligent way.”
MoEngage was founded in 2014. Raviteja Dodda is Co-Founder and CEO.
U.S. Bank partnered with Kyriba to launch Liquidity Manager, an AI-powered cash forecasting and liquidity management tool for commercial clients.
The solution offers real-time visibility, scenario planning, reconciliation, and multi-bank reporting, helping firms automate workflows and reduce operational risk.
The move signals U.S. Bank’s push into tech-forward treasury capabilities, positioning it to compete with modern finance platforms like Ramp.
U.S. Bank has teamed up with treasury solutions company Kyriba to launch a cash forecasting tool to offer businesses visibility and control over their cash and liquidity positions. The new tool, Liquidity Manager, is powered by Kyriba’s liquidity performance platform.
Leveraging Kyriba, U.S. Bank will deliver cash forecasting, scenario planning, and operational efficiencies to its mid- to large-scale commercial clients. Kyriba’s SaaS solutions empower CFOs, treasurers, and IT leaders to connect, protect, forecast, and optimize their liquidity. Founded in 2000, the company aims to help companies and banks improve their financial performance and increase operational efficiency.
“Many companies struggle to obtain a timely and accurate view of their liquidity, especially when managing multiple bank accounts across geographies and currencies,” said U.S. Bank Treasury and Payment Solutions Lead Kristy Carstensen. “This solution builds on the strengths of both U.S. Bank and Kyriba to address these challenges. By automating processes and providing actionable insights, U.S. Bank Liquidity Manager, powered by Kyriba, will empower our clients to make strategic financial decisions with confidence and ease.”
The new tool will improve firms’ cash forecasting by using historical cash flow data to predict future inflows and outflows, providing greater accuracy in daily cash position reporting and supporting more informed scenario planning. Liquidity Manager will also include cash positioning and reconciliation, cash pooling for zero-balance accounts, multi-bank balance and transaction reporting, and real-time visibility for all stakeholders. U.S. Bank expects these capabilities will help firms reduce costs through automated, centralized cash oversight and streamline workflows that minimize manual effort and operational risk.
Liquidity Manager will be available through U.S. Bank’s treasury management platform SinglePoint, which the bank updated a few weeks back. The new SinglePoint release aims to reduce manual work, deliver actionable insights, optimize common user flows, and help clients uncover operational blind spots.
“Working together, Kyriba and U.S. Bank can elevate liquidity management and cash forecasting for businesses,” said Kyriba CRO Bruno Ferreira. “By combining Kyriba’s secure, trusted AI-enabled technologies with U.S. Bank’s deep payments and banking expertise, we deliver real-time visibility across every account and region. This clarity empowers treasurers and finance teams to make confident decisions exactly when they need to, without guesswork or delays.”
Launching advanced treasury management tools may be U.S. Bank’s way of competing with platforms like Ramp, which are expanding beyond spend management into broader operational finance functions. Ramp, in fact, has proven that there is an appetite for this model, disclosing in a funding announcement yesterday that it is now valued at $32 billion.
By strengthening its digital treasury stack, U.S. Bank positions itself as not just a traditional banking partner, but as a technology-minded bank capable of meeting CFO-level expectations around automation, visibility, and real-time decision support.
As part of the alliance, Pleo will now serve as FreeAgent’s preferred expense management partner. This will enable seamless syncing of expenses, card transactions, receipts, and attachments—as well as categories and VAT—from Pleo into FreeAgent. Automated syncing removes the reliance on error-prone and cumbersome manual entry, makes it easier for employees to complete their expense reporting responsibilities, and provides for more accurate, up-to-date bookkeeping for small businesses.
“We know how frustrating and time-consuming it can be for small businesses to keep track of spending, especially when lots of different people are making purchases,” FreeAgent CEO and Co-Founder Roan Lavery said. “This partnership with Pleo takes a huge amount of that stress away. Expenses are recorded and sent straight into FreeAgent without the usual chasing around for receipts or spreadsheets. It just works in the background, so business owners can focus on running their business, not wrestling with their books.”
Pleo provides small businesses with smart virtual or physical company cards that enable complete control over spending limits and policies. The technology automatically tracks, categorizes, and matches all transactions with a receipt in Pleo, then syncs directly into FreeAgent. This integration will provide business owners and finance teams with comprehensive, real-time visibility of company spending, from one-off purchases to recurring expenses.
“Pleo is thrilled to launch our integration with FreeAgent, two partners with a shared vision of empowering SMBs with seamless financial tools,” Pleo SVP Haresh Bajaj said. “This partnership is a step forward in simplifying workflows and unlocking greater value for our customers, and we’re excited about the impact we’ll achieve together.”
Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pleo offers solutions for expense management, accounts payable, reimbursements, and vendor management, as well as smart business expense cards with individual spending limits. With more than 40,000 business users of its technology, Pleo notes that 75% of administrators using Pleo have said its solutions have made their companies more productive. Pleo recently announced its Cash Management solution which combines spend and cash management to give businesses full visibility over all accounts, lower FX costs, and earn on idle cash in a single resource.
Founded in 2007, FreeAgent offers accounting software and support for small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping teams. The Edinburgh, Scotland-based fintech made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2013, and was acquired by NatWest Group in 2018. With more than 200,000 users, FreeAgent also recently announced a partnership with Australian corporate performance management (CPM) software provider Fathom.
Hyundai AutoEver America discovered on March 1, 2025, that hackers had compromised its systems. Investigators found the intrusion began on February 22 and continued until March 2.
Hyundai AutoEver America (HAEA) provides IT services for Hyundai Motor America, including systems that support employee operations and certain connected-vehicle technologies. While the company works across Hyundai’s broader ecosystem, this incident did not involve customer or driver data.
According to the statement provided to CyberGuy, the breach was limited to employment-related information tied to Hyundai AutoEver America and Hyundai Motor America. The company confirmed that about 2,000 current and former employees were notified of the incident in late October. HAEA said it immediately alerted law enforcement and hired outside cybersecurity experts to assess the damage.
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The exposed data reportedly includes names, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, making this breach far more serious than one involving passwords alone. Experts warn that these details can be used for long-term identity theft and financial fraud. Because Social Security numbers cannot easily be changed, criminals have more time to create fake identities, open fraudulent accounts and launch targeted phishing attacks long after the initial breach.
Experts warn that stolen Social Security and driver’s license information could be used for identity theft and fraud.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Who was affected in the Hyundai AutoEver America data incident
AEA manages select IT systems tied to Hyundai Motor America’s employee operations, along with broader technology functions for Hyundai and Genesis across North America. Its role includes supporting connected-vehicle infrastructure and dealership systems.
According to the company, this incident was limited to employment-related data and primarily affected approximately 2,000 current and former employees of Hyundai AutoEver America and Hyundai Motor America. No customer information or Bluelink driver details were exposed. While some filings reference sensitive data types such as Social Security numbers or driver’s license information, the incident did not involve Hyundai customers or the millions of connected vehicles HAEA supports.
Earlier reports suggested that 2.7 million individuals were affected, but Hyundai says that figure is unrelated to the breach. Instead, 2.7 million is the estimated number of connected vehicles that Hyundai AutoEver America helps support across North America. None of that consumer or vehicle data was accessed.
Hyundai also clarified that the United States has about 850 Hyundai dealerships and emphasized that the scope of this incident was narrow and contained.
We reached out to HAEA for a comment, and a representative for the company provided CyberGuy with this statement:
“Hyundai AutoEver America, an IT vendor that manages certain Hyundai Motor America employee data systems, experienced an incident to that area of business that impacted employment-related data and primarily affected current and former employees of Hyundai AutoEver America and Hyundai Motor America. Approximately 2,000 primarily current and former employees were notified of the incident. The 2.7 million figure that is cited in many media articles has no relation to the actual security incident. The 2.7 million figure represents the alleged total number of connected vehicles that may be supported by Hyundai AutoEver America across North America. No Hyundai consumer data was exposed, and no Hyundai Motor America customer information or Bluelink driver data was compromised.”
Scammers may now pose as company representatives, contacting people to steal more personal details.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What you should do right now
Monitor your bank, credit card and vehicle-related accounts for suspicious activity.
Check for a notification letter from Hyundai AutoEver America or your car brand.
Enroll in the two years of complimentary credit monitoring offered by HAEA if you qualify.
Be cautious of emails, texts or calls claiming to be from Hyundai, Kia or Genesis. Always verify through official websites.
Smart ways to stay safe after the Hyundai AutoEver America breach
Whether you were directly affected or just want to stay alert, this breach is a reminder of how important it is to protect your personal information. Follow these practical steps to keep your data secure and reduce the risk of identity theft or scams.
Contact major credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion and Equifax — to set a fraud alert or freeze. This helps block new accounts from being opened in your name.
2) Protect your vehicle apps
If you use apps tied to your vehicle, update passwords and enable multi-factor authentication. Avoid saving login details in unsecured places. Also, consider using a password manager, which securely stores and generates complex passwords, reducing the risk of password reuse.
Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our #1 password manager (see Cyberguy.com) pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.
Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2025 at Cyberguy.com
3) Watch for fake support messages
Scammers may use news of the Hyundai AutoEver America breach as a way to contact Hyundai, Kia or Genesis owners, pretending to be from customer support or the dealership. They might claim to help verify your account, update your information or fix a security issue. Do not share personal details or click any links. Type the brand’s web address directly into your browser instead of clicking links in messages or emails. Always confirm through the official brand website or by calling the verified customer service number.
4) Use strong antivirus protection
Using strong antivirus software helps block phishing links, malware downloads and fake websites that might appear after a data breach. It can also scan your devices for hidden threats that may try to steal login data or personal files.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
5) Use a data removal service
Data removal tools automatically find and delete your personal information from people-search and data-broker sites. These services reduce the chances that criminals will use leaked data to target you with phishing or social-engineering scams.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
6) Monitor your digital footprint
Consider using identity monitoring services to track your personal information and detect possible misuse early.
Identity Theft companies can monitor personal information like your Social Security number (SSN), phone number and email address, and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account. They can also assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals.
See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft at Cyberguy.com.
7) Keep your devices updated
Regularly install security updates on your phone, laptop and smart car systems to reduce the risk of further attacks.
8) Report suspicious activity the right way
If you notice unusual account activity, fraudulent charges, or suspicious messages that appear tied to this breach, report it immediately. Start by contacting your bank or credit card provider to freeze or dispute any unauthorized transactions. Then, file a report with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at IdentityTheft.gov, where you can create an official recovery plan. If you suspect a scam message or call, forward phishing emails to reportphishing@apwg.org and report fake texts to 7726 (SPAM).
This incident highlights how much personal data is connected to modern cars and how vulnerable those systems can be. When your vehicle is linked to your identity, protecting your data becomes just as important as maintaining the car itself. Stay alert, use the tools available to safeguard your accounts and report any suspicious activity right away.
Should companies like Hyundai AutoEver be doing more to keep customer data secure? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Automated regulatory intelligence company CUBE has agreed to acquire agentic AI compliance specialist Kodex AI. Terms of the acquisition were not immediately available.
The acquisition will enable CUBE to leverage Kodex AI’s agentic AI technology to offer “co-worker functionality” for compliance teams to help them keep up with ever-evolving regulations.
Headquartered in Berlin, Germany and founded in 2022, Kodex AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024 in London.
Agentic AI compliance specialist Kodex AI has agreed to be acquired by automated regulatory intelligence company CUBE. Calling the agreement “more than an acquisition,” Kodex AI framed the deal as the “beginning of a new era for regulatory technology” in a statement on the company’s website. The acquisition combines CUBE’s regulatory data and risk capabilities with Kodex AI’s agentic AI technology to offer an AI that is more co-worker than tool to assist compliance teams as they seek to implement ever-evolving regulations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Combining Kodex AI’s technology leadership with CUBE’s market-leading regulatory and risk data is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine the compliance and risk space,” Kodex AI Co-Founder Thomas Kaiser said. “This is the perfect use case for advanced AI, and together we’ll push the boundaries of what’s possible.”
The technology integration, specifically the introduction of co-worker functionality, will automate complex processes, reduce operational costs, and leverage continuous monitoring and proactive updates. This will promote better—and easier—adherence to regulatory requirements. The addition of Kodex AI’s technology will also enable access to richer data sources and broader coverage across jurisdictions.
“Thomas and Claus (Lang) have built an exceptional and disruptive European technology business, pioneering the use of agentic AI through an agent-based architecture to solve regulatory complexities,” CUBE Founder and CEO Ben Richmond said. “Kodex AI is a natural next step in CUBE’s strategy, allowing us to instantly deliver enhanced, AI-based compliance and risk capabilities to our global customers.”
With 1,000 customers in banking, insurance, payments, asset and investment management, and more, CUBE specializes in Automated Regulatory Intelligence (ARI) and Regulatory Change Management (RCM). Founded in 2011, the London-based regtech offers a RegPlatform product portfolio powered by its regulatory AI engine (RegBrain). The technology tracks, analyzes, and monitors laws and regulations in every country to provide always-up-to-date regulatory insights.
Based in Berlin, Kodex AI made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2024 in London. At the conference, the company showed how its AI-powered solution empowers financial professionals to find information, analyze data, and instantly draft reports in minutes rather than days. The company’s specialized Large Language Model (LLM) and Generative AI Agents are designed for financial data, providing a targeted approach that ensures factual intelligence without “hallucinations.” Kodex AI was co-founded in 2022 by Thomas Kaiser (CEO) and Claus Lang (CTO).
When your phone buzzes with a message saying your flight is canceled, your first instinct is to panic. Scammers are counting on that.
A new travel scam is spreading through fake airline texts that look convincing but connect you to fraudsters instead of customer service.
These cybercriminals claim to help rebook your trip. In reality, they’re after your credit card or personal details.
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How the flight cancellation text scam works
The scam starts with a text that looks like it’s from your airline. It may include your name, flight number and a link or phone number. The message includes urgent language that says your flight is canceled or delayed and tells you to “call this number” or “click to rebook.”
Scammers send fake flight cancellation texts that look official, using real airline names, flight numbers and logos to trick travelers into calling them.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Once you do, you’re talking to a scammer pretending to be an airline agent. They’ll offer to “help” rebook your flight for a fee. They might ask for payment details or personal information like your birth date or passport number.
In some cases, they’ll send confirmation emails that look official to make the lie more believable.
AI-generated messages make these scams harder to spot, mimicking airline alerts so well that even frequent flyers can be fooled during busy travel seasons.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why the scam feels real
Scammers use real airline names, logos and flight numbers to make their messages look official. Many now use AI tools to generate convincing language and fake confirmations that mimic real airline alerts. These messages often arrive during busy travel seasons or storm delays, which makes them feel even more believable.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that criminals impersonate airline customer service through fake texts and calls that say your flight is canceled. They use that panic to push you into rebooking or sharing personal details.
Meanwhile, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) reports a surge in fake cancellation notices that include phony phone numbers leading straight to scammers.
Because these alerts look real and use urgent language, even experienced travelers can mistake them for genuine updates. Staying calm and verifying directly with the airline is the best defense.
Staying calm and verifying through official airline apps or websites is the safest way to protect your money and personal information before you take action.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Steps to stay safe from fake flight cancellation texts
Scammers use fear and urgency to trick travelers into clicking bad links or calling fake numbers. Follow these steps to keep your trip and information safe.
1) Verify flight changes only through official airline sources
Always confirm flight updates using the airline’s official website or mobile app. Log in directly instead of clicking on links from unexpected texts or emails. Scammers design fake links that look real, but one tap can expose your personal information.
If you need to call customer service, use the number listed in your booking confirmation, the airline’s app or on its verified website. Never trust a phone number sent by text or social media message. Real airlines will never change their contact information mid-trip.
3) Stay calm and spot urgency traps
Scammers count on panic. Messages that say “call now,” “act fast” or “your seat will be canceled” are meant to rush you. Slow down and verify before responding. Taking a minute to check the official flight status can prevent you from losing money or data.
4) Protect your personal and financial information
Legitimate airline staff will not ask for gift card numbers, wire transfers or your bank login. Use a strong antivirus program to block phishing sites and malware designed to steal personal data if you accidentally click a bad link.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
5) Remove exposed data before scammers find it
Use a data-removal service to help scrub your personal details from people-search websites. These sites make it easier for scammers to target travelers by name, location and phone number. Keeping your information private reduces your risk.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
6) Report suspicious messages immediately
Forward scam texts to 7726 (SPAM) and report fake airline messages to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Sharing reports helps agencies shut down active scams and protect other travelers.
Fake flight cancellation scams are spreading fast, especially during busy travel seasons. Stay calm, verify changes through official airline sources, and never click random links or call unknown numbers. Technology makes travel easier, but awareness and caution are still your best defense.
Have you ever received a fake flight alert that almost fooled you? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Here’s a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.
1. I’ve fired my new employee before
I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, I’ll have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out on the team and a high-level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone that worked for me before and who I terminated for cause due to performance at my previous company.
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What do I communicate to my management team and/or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately, this could be a management issue — I’m sure this employee doesn’t feel great about the situation. On the other hand, I don’t want to risk harming this person’s reputation at this company if they are doing a good job so far. This person is pretty new here, too, and my impression is they are either doing a better job in this role or management has not yet identified an issue with their performance.
Green responds:
Have you talked to the employee yet? That’s important because they are undoubtedly really uncomfortable, if not outright panicking. Ideally you’d tell them that you’re happy to be working with them again, you’ve heard good things about the work they’ve been doing (if that’s true), and while you know your last time working together didn’t go the way either of you wanted, this is a different situation and, as far you’re concerned, both of you are starting fresh.
I do think you’re right that you need to mention it to your management team or HR. It’s unfortunate because this person is entitled to a fresh start without the firing following them to a different job, but it’s relevant not as a predictor of the person’s work now but because it could affect the dynamic between the two of you, and either of you could struggle not to interpret things through that old lens. You can keep it very brief — “I managed Jane at a previous company and unfortunately the fit wasn’t right and we ended up parting ways. I’m very willing to start fresh with her and I’m hopeful the role she’s in could be a great match, but I wanted to flag the prior work relationship.” Also, if it’s been a while since you worked together, stress that too.
2. Why do people respond to emails with a phone call?
What’s the etiquette on responding to people who you have emailed and they respond with a phone call? I understand there are times when a phone call is necessary. I’ve been getting dozens of phone calls (after sending out a ton of emails on a certain work issue) and they all ask me to call them back. I’m just frustrated because if I email someone, it’s because I don’t want to talk on the phone. And the question is usually easily answered via email. What’s the best way to respond?
Green responds:
I get being annoyed, but it’s not always up to you — and sometimes it makes sense.
Sometimes people will call you back because they think — often rightly — that it’ll be faster. They might not be sure about the meaning of your email and they want to clarify before responding, and figure they’ll just jump on the phone rather than going back and forth. Or their answer might take a long time to write out but be easier to deliver over the phone. Or they just prefer the phone, just as you prefer email. And not everyone feels they communicate as well in writing as they do out loud.
As an email fan, this can be annoying! When you like email, it feels efficient and convenient and respectful of everyone’s time. Plus, sometimes it’s helpful to have a written record of what was discussed as a reference you can look back at later if needed. And if you’re having an especially busy day or suspect a call will be 30 minutes when it should be five, it might be fine to let the call go to voicemail, then email later with, “Got your voicemail. I’m in back-to-back meetings and will be hard to reach today — any chance email will work?” Maybe it will, and they’ll tell you if it won’t. But save that for when I really need it — because while you get to have your preferences, they get to have theirs too.
3. Setting boundaries on requests for help from a significant other’s network
I am engaged to a wonderful person. We both work in the same field, though for different organizations. We are working to create healthy boundaries between our personal and professional lives and it is important to both of us that we are able to pursue careers independently.
My organization is bigger and engages in some grant-making activities. A coworker of his recently reached out to me for more information on how their organization could acquire funding. I directed her to publicly available resources but she responded seeking a personal introduction to our grant officer. This made me uncomfortable; I’m happy to connect anyone who asks to public information, but it felt like she was leveraging my personal relationship to gain access. I know the importance of networking and personal connections, but I have no professional relationship with this person and we’ve only met once in passing.
My fiancé and I discussed the need for a policy on how to deal with these kinds of inquiries as we see this being a recurring issue as we move forward in our careers. I would love advice on how to navigate these kinds of requests.
Green responds:
The way you handled it sounds just fine! When she asked for an introduction to the grant officer, you could have said, “Oh, we get such a high volume of interest in funding that we ask all grant applicants to follow the process listed on our website.” And if she still pushed: “I’m sorry I can’t help. We’re really rigorous about asking everyone to use the process on our website so that everyone is treated the same. Thanks for understanding!”
In other words, not so different from how you’d probably handle it if your fiancé weren’t in the picture. Explain what the person should do, and then reiterate that if necessary. Be warm and friendly, but hold firm on what you are and aren’t willing or able to do.
My answer would be different if the person had been requesting something different. If she were asking for something like an informal chat about moving into your field — as opposed to this kind of special treatment — I’d encourage you to consider that, like you presumably would consider other similar requests that came through a mutual contact.
You open your inbox and see a message titled “Payment order settled” with an official-looking invoice from Geek Squad. At first glance, it looks legitimate. It includes your email address and even a phone number for help. That is exactly what happened when I received one of these messages this week.
This new Geek Squad scam email is designed to make you panic, call the fake number and share sensitive information before realizing it is a trap. Before you know it, your curiosity could turn into a costly mistake, so let’s look at the red flags to watch for and how you can protect yourself.
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Fake Geek Squad invoice emails are flooding inboxes, seeking to trick recipients into handing over private financial information.(pixelfit/Getty Images)
Red flags that give the scam away
When I looked closer, several warning signs stood out:
The email said “Dear User” instead of using my name.
It also says TO: KAREN HILL, which is obviously not me.
The sender’s address was from a Gmail account, not Geek Squad.
It listed a phone number urging me to call customer support to cancel the renewal, or my account would be debited.
The invoice said $580.57 would be charged for a two-year Geek Squad subscription, even though I never signed up for one.
These details are meant to create urgency and push you to react before thinking.
This fake Geek Squad invoice looks professional, but small red flags, like a generic greeting, expose the scam.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
How the scam works
The scam depends on fear and confusion. Once you call the number, the person on the line sounds polite and professional. They might say they need to verify your payment or reverse a charge. In reality, they are trying to get your credit card number or convince you to install software that gives them access to your computer.
In some cases, they claim to refund too much money by accident and ask you to send part of it back. That is how victims lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Scammers want you to panic and call their number. Remember, real companies never ask for sensitive details over the phone or email.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why these scam emails look so real
Scammers have refined their tactics. In this Geek Squad scam email I received, they copied the official logo, used clean layouts and included my actual email address to make it look legitimate. They often get this information from data leaks or security breaches found online.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) now makes these scams even harder to spot. It helps scammers write natural messages, design fake invoices and create support scripts that sound real. With these tools, they can make almost anyone believe the email is genuine.
Always pause before reacting. Read carefully, check the sender, and question anything that feels suspicious. If you want to stay one step ahead, here are some other things that can help keep you safe.
How to stay safe from scam emails
Scam emails like the fake Geek Squad invoice are becoming more common and more convincing. They use fear and urgency to make you click or call before you think. Protecting yourself means slowing down, verifying every detail and strengthening your digital defenses. Here is how you can stay safe.
1) Do not call or click anything in the email, and use strong antivirus software
The phone number or link in the message connects you directly to scammers, so don’t click or call. Once you engage, they can pressure you into sharing personal details or even install harmful software on your device. The moment I saw that “Payment order settled” email, I realized something was off because I don’t even have a Geek Squad account. That alone was a major red flag. If you ever get a message about a service you never signed up for, delete it right away. Instead of calling the number in the message, go to the official Best Buy or Geek Squad website to confirm if there is a real issue with your account. Also, sign up for strong antivirus software. Antivirus software acts as your digital guard. It scans downloads, detects malicious links and warns you before dangerous sites load. Choose a trusted program that updates automatically and includes email protection features. This extra layer of defense can prevent malware from taking hold if you accidentally click something suspicious.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
2) Check the sender’s email address carefully
Scammers often use email addresses that look real but have slight differences, such as extra numbers, misspelled words, or unusual domains. A genuine Geek Squad or Best Buy email will come from @bestbuy.com. Always hover over the sender’s name to see the actual address before responding.
3) Never share personal or payment details with unexpected callers
If someone contacts you claiming to be from Geek Squad or Best Buy, stay calm and skeptical. Real companies do not ask for banking details, gift card payments, or remote access to your computer over the phone. Hang up and contact the company directly through its verified website or customer service number.
4) Use a data removal service
Many scams start with stolen or leaked personal data. A data removal service can help delete your information from data broker sites that sell contact lists to marketers and scammers. Reducing your digital footprint makes it harder for criminals to target you with fake invoices or phishing emails.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services, and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
5) Watch your bank and credit card statements
Even with precautions, it is smart to monitor your accounts. Check your bank and credit card activity weekly for any charges you do not recognize. If you see something suspicious, contact your financial institution right away to report and dispute the charge.
6) Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Two-factor authentication adds another barrier between you and scammers. Even if someone steals your password, they cannot log in without the secondary code sent to your phone or authentication app. Turn on 2FA for your email, online shopping and banking accounts.
7) Use strong, unique passwords
Weak or repeated passwords make you an easy target. Create long, unique passwords for each account. A password manager can securely store them and generate complex combinations that are hard to guess or crack.
Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our No. 1 password manager pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.
Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2025 at Cyberguy.com.
8) Update your software regularly
Old software is one of the easiest ways for hackers to slip in. Keep your operating system, browser and security programs updated. Turn on automatic updates so you do not have to think about it. These patches often close known security holes that scammers exploit.
9) Check official accounts before panicking
Before reacting to any invoice or payment alert, go straight to the official account or service mentioned, such as Geek Squad, PayPal, Amazon or your bank. Log in directly through their website or app to verify the details. If nothing shows up there, the email is a scam. This quick step can save you from a costly mistake.
10) Report the email as phishing
Reporting suspicious emails helps stop scammers from targeting others. Most email services, including Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, allow you to mark messages as phishing. You can also forward the email to reportphishing@apwg.org, which goes to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), or to abuse@bestbuy.com to alert the proper teams.
Receiving one of these fake invoices can be stressful, but remember that many people get the same message every day. The goal is to recognize the signs, refuse to respond and report them to protect others.
Have you ever received a convincing scam email like this? How did you handle it? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department, and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimesA JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, but was spared a long jail term when the U.S. attorney in Florida agreed not to prosecute him over allegations that he had paid many other children for sexual acts. After serving about a year in jail and a work release program, Epstein resumed his business and social life until federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in 2019. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”On social media Friday night, Hoffman called for Trump to release all the Epstein files, saying they will show that “the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander.” He added, “I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT.” Hoffman bankrolled writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Trump.After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Trump called Clayton “a great man, a great attorney,” though he said Bondi chose him for the job.Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.Trump changes course on Epstein filesTrump suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up the government’s case files on Epstein, but changed course in recent months, blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” amid questions about what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong exploitation of underage girls.On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019 in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls” and asked Maxwell to stop.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to smear Trump.Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed a far bigger trove of Epstein’s email correspondence, including messages he sent to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon and to Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew settled a lawsuit out of court with one of Epstein’s victims, who said she had been paid to have sex with the prince.The House is speeding toward a vote next week to force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein.“I don’t care about it, release or not,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re going to do it, then you have to go into Epstein’s friends,” he added, naming Clinton and Hoffman.Still, he said: “This is a Democrat hoax. And a couple, a few Republicans have gone along with it because they’re weak and ineffective.”__Bedayn reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.
NEW YORK —
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department, and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”
In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.
It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.
None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimes
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”
Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, but was spared a long jail term when the U.S. attorney in Florida agreed not to prosecute him over allegations that he had paid many other children for sexual acts. After serving about a year in jail and a work release program, Epstein resumed his business and social life until federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in 2019. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.
Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
On social media Friday night, Hoffman called for Trump to release all the Epstein files, saying they will show that “the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander.” He added, “I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT.” Hoffman bankrolled writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Trump.
After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”
Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”
Trump called Clayton “a great man, a great attorney,” though he said Bondi chose him for the job.
Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.
Trump changes course on Epstein files
Trump suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up the government’s case files on Epstein, but changed course in recent months, blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” amid questions about what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong exploitation of underage girls.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019 in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls” and asked Maxwell to stop.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to smear Trump.
Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed a far bigger trove of Epstein’s email correspondence, including messages he sent to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon and to Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew settled a lawsuit out of court with one of Epstein’s victims, who said she had been paid to have sex with the prince.
The House is speeding toward a vote next week to force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein.
“I don’t care about it, release or not,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re going to do it, then you have to go into Epstein’s friends,” he added, naming Clinton and Hoffman.
Still, he said: “This is a Democrat hoax. And a couple, a few Republicans have gone along with it because they’re weak and ineffective.”
__
Bedayn reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.
Trulioo is launching a new credit decisioning tool, adding financial, credit, and risk insights to its global identity platform.
The update unifies identity, fraud, risk, and credit intelligence into one workflow, enabling faster, more accurate onboarding powered by AI-driven models.
With this expansion, Trulioo shifts from ID verification to full-stack onboarding and risk assessment, putting it in direct competition with Alloy, Prove, Experian, Equifax, and Bureau.
Digital identity platform Trulioo is launching credit decisioning this week. The new capability offers financial, credit, and risk insights through Trulioo’s global identity platform, its tool that connects to hundreds of international data sources to instantly verify people and businesses in nearly every country.
Trulioo’s credit decisioning tool will facilitate smarter evaluation, routing, and decision-making during the onboarding process by bringing identity, fraud, risk, and credit intelligence into a single workflow. The company will leverage its global identity platform to bring these insights into AI-driven models that not only accelerate onboarding but also improve decision accuracy.
“Trulioo is the only solution global enterprises need for KYB,” said Trulioo Chief Product Officer Zac Cohen. “We continue to push the boundaries of innovation, building the most sophisticated engine for onboarding businesses, understanding their risk profiles and driving faster, more confident growth. With credit decisioning, we’re uniting identity, fraud, and credit intelligence to redefine what streamlined, trusted onboarding looks like on a global scale.”
Adding credit decisioning to its identity and fraud intelligence suite, Trulioo is extending itself beyond identity verification. It’s positioning itself as an end-to-end onboarding and risk-assessment platform. This move pushes Trulioo into more direct competition with global decisioning and underwriting players such as Alloy, Prove, Experian, Equifax, and Bureau, while differentiating itself through its broad international coverage.
The credit decisioning tool sits alongside Trulioo’s existing identity verification and fraud intelligence solutions that cover 195 countries and can verify more than 14,000 identity documents and 700 million business entities while checking against more than 6,000 watchlists.
Headquartered in Canada and founded in 2011, Trulioo has raised $475 million. The company has demoed at 10 Finovate events, most recently showcasing its identity platform at FinovateEurope 2023.
How can banks and other financial institutions offer their customers dynamic, AI-powered experiences that provide better, faster, more personalized solutions and services compared to the generic, static interactions of the past?
In this extended conversation, Finovate Global talks with Jac Dunne, Founder and CEO of Dimply, about what her company is doing to help financial services companies design, deploy, and optimize embedded journeys for their customers.
Dimply offers a no-code solution that enables non-technical teams to transform data into hyper-personalized, embedded journeys in apps, websites, portals, and more. Dimply’s technology combines data orchestration, personalization, and seamless integration to help firms boost engagement, enhance trust, and deliver customer value.
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Dimply was founded in 2020. The company made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2024 and subsequently demonstrated its technology before Finovate audiences at FinovateEurope 2025 and FinovateFall 2025.
What problem does Dimply solve and who does it solve it for?
Jac Dunne: Financial institutions hold vast amounts of customer data, but struggle to translate this into experiences people find helpful. The gap is widening. Customers now expect the personalization they experience with consumer apps, but financial services organizations move too slowly to meet these expectations.
The problem sits at the intersection of strategy and execution. Product managers understand what customers need. Designers know how experiences should work. But both depend on engineering teams to make anything real. Simple changes take quarters. Testing ideas means filing tickets. By the time something launches, priorities have shifted.
Dimply gives product practitioners the ability to build and deploy customer experiences without engineering dependencies. Product managers, designers, marketing specialists, and business analysts work directly on the platform to create journeys across web and mobile. We empower them to launch in weeks instead of quarters. Changes go live in hours, not development cycles.
We solve this for banks, insurers, wealth managers, and pension providers. These are organizations where engineering bottlenecks prevent product teams from acting on what they learn about customers. Where the backlog of journey improvements grows faster than IT resources to address them.
Tell us more about Dimply’s primary customers? How do you reach them?
Dunne: Dimply’s primary customers are financial institutions such as global banks and leading insurers, whose key stakeholders are Product Managers and Digital Transformation teams. These customers are primarily located in the B2B enterprise space and are seeking to solve the pain point of slow, costly digital CX development due to complex legacy IT systems and onerous development cycles. Dimply enables speed to market by letting teams build, manage, personalize, and embed experiences directly into their own infrastructure, or as a stand-alone solution, if required.
Dimply reaches these customers through a direct, B2B enterprise sales model involving direct engagement with C-suite and product leadership, heavy participation in fintech industry events, and building strategic partnerships with core technology providers, consulting and system integration firms who can work with Dimply as a solution during large-scale digital transformation projects.
What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Dunne: Financial services used to move faster before the weight of legacy systems, compliance layers, and endless IT queues—teams turned customer insights into action quickly. Product people built experiences. That speed has been lost.
We spent many years both working inside and collaborating with these organizations: major insurers, pension providers, and banks. Our founding team observed brilliant product managers drafting requirement documents rather than building journeys. Designers handed off static mock-ups only after understanding the complete flow. Business analysts documented processes they should have managed end-to-end.
This pattern repeated everywhere. Teams had data showing where customers struggled. They knew which experiences would succeed. They understood what needed to change. Then they filed tickets, waited for sprints, and competed with other priorities. By the time anything launched, the market had already moved.
This gap between knowing and doing frustrated everyone. Not because people lacked skill or the ideas were wrong, but because the tools forced the wrong workflow. Technical teams became bottlenecks for non-technical problems. Simple changes took quarters, and testing ideas required development resources.
Frustrated with this reality, we decided to build something better. Something that would give product practitioners the same level of autonomy that software engineers have. What started as a journey flow builder has evolved into a complete financial experience platform (FXP). Teams describe what they want, and the system builds it. AI handles the technical complexity. Product managers own outcomes without engineering dependencies.
We don’t think of Dimply as a better tool. We think of it as a better way to build financial service experiences. One where the people closest to customers have the power to act on what they learn.
We care deeply about the quality of our work. Every feature ships purpose-built for financial services. Our background gave us conviction about the problem. Our experience gave us clarity about the solution. Financial services deserve tools built for modern customers’ expectations.
What role do enabling technologies like AI play in helping you empower teams to build compelling, dynamic experiences for customers?
Dunne: AI accelerates two parts of the experience creation process:
First, building journeys. Teams describe what they want in natural language, and the AI generates working experiences. A product manager explains the flow of a pension calculator in plain English. The AI produces the complete journey with conditional logic, branching paths, and data integrations. No templates, no technical knowledge required. AI has reduced the amount of technical expertise and training needed for Dimply Hub for product owners and designers to use it. Teams test ideas in minutes instead of weeks.
The AI learns from every journey built in the system. Results improve as more experiences are created. Complex workflows with conditions, loops, and parallel paths emerge from conversational descriptions. This means product practitioners spend time refining customer outcomes rather than wrestling with tools.
Second, personalizing experiences. AI nodes can sit inside customer journeys and adapt what people see based on their circumstances. These nodes generate facts in real time, which can be used to tailor the experience.
The combination removes friction; business teams build faster, and customers receive experiences tailored to their financial situation and behavior. AI handles the technical complexity while product practitioners focus on outcomes.
Can you talk more about the connection between of AI and delivering greater personalization?
The demand for personalization and customer engagement solutions is paramount, and Dimply is perfectly positioned to cater to that. Our personalization extends far beyond basic demographic segmentation or transaction categorization. We are developing what we call intelligent, behavioral personalization that takes into account not just what customers have, but how they behave, their financial goals, and their emotional connection with money, all in real-time.
Our AI continuously learns and adapts in real-time. If someone’s financial situation changes, our AI detects these shifts and modifies the experience to suit their new circumstances.
The outcome is that we can iterate and deliver new insights, content, and tools specifically tailored to each customer’s situation and goals. This transforms generic financial services into personally relevant experiences that encourage genuine engagement and promote financial well-being.
At Finovate Fall, Dimply demoed its Dimply Hub. Can you tell us a little about the solution and how the demo was received at the conference?
Dunne: What we demoed was our AI Builder in planning mode. This allowed us to describe a journey in conversational language and watch the platform construct the experience. The demo showed someone requesting a protection journey for high-net-worth clients, with all the logic and recommendations. The AI generates the complete flow with all the business logic intact.
After the demo, we got great engagement with high-ambition banks, particularly around how they can change their current workflows using Dimply.
Can you tell us about a particularly interesting deployment or feature of your technology?
Dunne: AIB Life reaches 3.2 million customers through embedded journeys in their AIB retail mobile banking app. The deployment demonstrates how the platform works at scale within existing digital channels.
The fact engine sits on top of AIB Life’s core systems, stitching together data from policy administration, CRM, and transaction history. This creates real-time customer profiles without moving sensitive data. When someone logs into the app, the platform knows their complete financial picture and serves a personalized experience accordingly. Journeys adapt dynamically. Life events trigger recalibration.
Dimply has racked up number of awards and recognitions from impressive forums, including Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50. What are these organizations seeing and liking about Dimply?
Dunne: They appreciate how we embody innovation, efficiency, and customer-centricity through our award-winning platform, particularly our speed-to-market and our ability to support any type of financial data and deliver truly personalized customer experiences, enabling us to support all areas of financial services.
Our platform is proven, live, and deployed within major financial institutions, driving measurable strategic impact in the real world. Our journey illustrates not just where we’ve been but where we’re headed; towards a future where financial services are more accessible, engaging, and secure for everyone, everywhere.
Ireland is one of those countries that seems to produce a disproportionately high amount of fintech innovation for its small population. Do you agree?
Dunne: Yes, the talent, technical agility, regulatory maturity, and global reach from its open borders are why, in my opinion, Ireland is considered a world leader in producing scalable, enterprise-grade fintech.
Ireland’s fintech sector punches above its weight because it combines a large, mature financial services sector with a world-class founder, technology, and talent ecosystem, together with the unique geopolitical advantage of being the EU’s English-speaking gateway. This, coupled with a landscape of strong investment partners to support innovation and growth, significantly contributes to the vast fintech innovation here in Ireland.
What accounts for that success?
Dunne: Ireland’s strategic geography and EU membership, combined with an English-speaking, common law legal system, simplify international scaling and business operations.
We offer an attractive tax and business environment alongside a mature financial services industry that supports new fintechs to build on existing infrastructure. Bolstering this foundation is the availability of a skilled workforce, the co-location of major technology players, and proactive investment and support for innovation and R&D from state agencies
The ecosystem benefits from a strong mix of experienced startups and multinationals, access to global capital, and regulatory openness to innovation, fostering a culture where firms are built to focus globally rather than just domestically.
What is the fintech scene like in Ireland right now?
Dunne: The fintech sector in Ireland is currently dynamic, resilient, and expanding, establishing the country as a key international fintech hub. Over the past five years, the sector has attracted significant investment, and despite the global slowdown in fintech investment, Ireland—in 2024, according to KPMG Ireland—experienced over 290% growth in investment compared to the previous year, continuing to demonstrate growth and resilience.
What can we look forward to seeing from Dimply in the months to come?
Dunne: Our near-term strategic focus is twofold: Product-Led Growth (PLG) and the rapid advancement of our AI capabilities. We are implementing the PLG model to ensure our technology is easily accessible and immediately beneficial, effectively putting the platform into the hands of as many people as possible. Importantly, we are also intensifying our investment in AI, using cutting-edge machine learning to deepen personalization, improve predictive insights, and automate complex financial journeys.
This combined approach—maximizing distribution through PLG and delivering unparalleled intelligence through AI—is central to our mission: to enable demonstrably better, more confident financial decisions for every user.
