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Hey Explorers!
Meta's AI assistant just dethroned ChatGPT on the App Store, and PayPal is wiring checkout straight into it. Anthropic opened an app store for agents with 2,000 connectors on day one, while Amazon handed its sellers always-on agents that watch prices, inventory, and ads around the clock.
The agent isn't coming for the store. It is the store…
Here's the signal that matters 👇🏼
🗞️ TECH & TRENDS | The Agent IS The Store
🛒 Meta Just Turned Its AI Into a Store
Meta's personal assistant Muse launched September 8 and is already beating ChatGPT on the App Store. Last week PayPal wired checkout directly into it, joining Stripe Link (300M+ users), Shopify's Shop Pay, Expedia, and Instacart. Amazon's response: a popup blocking Muse from its site on September 20. The new gatekeeper isn't search ranking. It's whether the platform you sell on lets the agent through the door. (via Metaverse Post)
🧩 Claude Got an App Store
Anthropic launched Claude Marketplace on September 23 with more than 2,000 connectors and plugins on day one. Partners include CrowdStrike, Cursor, Harvey, Hebbia, Lovable, and Snowflake, plus services from Accenture, BCG, and Deloitte. Customers can spend a chunk of their committed Anthropic budget on partner products. Agents are getting their own shelf space, and Anthropic wants to own the aisle. (via gHacks)
🤖 Amazon Gave Its Sellers Always-On Agents
Amazon rolled out "workflows" inside Seller Assistant on September 23: agents that keep watch over ratings, pricing, inventory, and ads, and act with the merchant's permission. It's free and optional, and it plugs into Amazon's Quick and Anthropic's Claude. Amazon also opened Seller Central to manage Walmart, eBay, Shopify, and TikTok orders. The pitch: one agent layer running your whole storefront, wherever it lives. (via Reuters)
📈 “Sparky” AI Agent is Making Walmart a LOT of Money
Walmart's US CEO told investors that shoppers who use the Sparky chatbot place orders 40% higher than average, and visual search converts 57% better than text search. Sparky usage is up 60% quarter over quarter. He also named the new game: "agentic engine optimization." Shoppers arriving through ChatGPT and Gemini partnerships, he said, convert at very high rates and keep coming back. (via Food Navigator)
💰 OpenAI Cut Model Prices in Half
On September 22 OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and Luna at 50% below the promo rates of their GPT-5.6 predecessors. Sol runs $2 per million input tokens; Luna costs a dime. OpenAI says Sol makes roughly half as many factual errors as its predecessor. Cheaper, sharper models aimed squarely at coding, automation, and high-volume work. (via Reuters)
📉 Display Ads Just Got 45% Cheaper
AdRoll's Q3 report found display prospecting CPMs down 45% year over year, with retargeting down 29%. Versus last quarter, prospecting dropped 25.5% and retargeting 40.2%. With inflation at 3.4% and households still spending, the read is simple: consumers are hunting value, and awareness inventory is on sale before Black Friday pricing kicks in. (via Martech Cube)
Every story this week points to the agent becoming the storefront and the checkout.
This week's OpenAI DevDay is accelerating the shift, with pre-event leaks pointing to a persistent agent codenamed "O" as the headline act. So the questions for your team: when the agent is the one buying, who does your brand actually need to impress? If platforms can block the agents they don't like, where does that leave your distribution? And are you optimizing for the answer box yet?
Those are the questions we're helping leadership teams answer right now.
We've trained over a thousand senior executives and business owners to think AI-native. Lately that looks like:
→ A regional bank: designing a managers' retreat on growing through innovation, automation, and AI
→ A health system: a leadership development series on AI, built together with FIU where Ralph and Gianni are AI Innovation Fellows
→ A sales organization: an AI strategy session turning their pipeline into agent workflows
That's the work we do with leadership teams.
Hit us up. We can help.
Signal over noise. Always.
Ralph & Gianni
🌎 WIRED WORLD FAIR IS COMING TO MIAMI
WIRED is launching its first-ever World Fair right here in Miami, and they gave our community a discount. Not a conference - a festival of the future: The Onion's Ben Collins, Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue, Alexis Ohanian, a dolphin-communication researcher next to the guy bringing back the woolly mammoth, plus an exclusive screening of the new Musk documentary with Alex Gibney for VIP holders. Use code PURPLEHORIZONS15 for 15% off.
Some teams never seem to stop moving. They're on Attio, the agentic CRM.
Every customer signal is captured in one shared context layer, always current and compounding. Agents and workflows build pipeline, chase every buying signal, and move deals forward, an always-on revenue engine running alongside your team.
With Attio, you’ll get:
Leads automatically prioritised and routed to the right rep
Expansion and risk signals caught the moment they land
Follow-ups written in your voice, already there when you arrive
Teams like Parallel, Turbopuffer, and Wordsmith build on Attio. Are you one of them?
📅 LET’S HANG OUT | Upcoming Events
📍 10/6 South Miami Tech Tuesdays @ Bougies in South Miami
📍 10/13 Cafecito & Pastelitos @ Chug’s in Coconut Grove
📍 11/4 WIRED World Fair @ The Sacred Space in Wynwood (Use code PURPLEHORIZONS15 for 15% off)
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