Europe – October 15, 2026 -- 75% of banks are exploring agentic AI, yet 39% remain in the proof-of-concept phase, according to CGI's latest Voice of Our Clients research. CGI argues that lenders must now prepare for customers who delegate product selection to AI agents.

APIs replace the app as the bank's front door

CGI says AI agents will compare, calculate and negotiate based on structured product information, reliable APIs, transparent pricing and lending criteria that software can interpret, rather than on app design. An agent could assess a bank's offering in milliseconds, reject its API and move on to a competitor. CGI frames API quality as a business capability and a source of competitive advantage, not only an IT metric.

Global – – October 15, 2026 -- Launching a global capability center (GCC) no longer differentiates a bank, according to CGI, which identifies five attributes that separate high-performing banking GCCs from those that fall short of their potential.

Top GCCs are judged on business outcomes, not headcount or utilization

Many centers are still measured on headcount growth, utilization rates, cost savings and project volumes. CGI argues that leading banks instead tie GCC success to the initiatives it accelerates and the value it helps create in modernization, growth, resilience and customer experience.

Los Angeles – October 15, 2026 -- Chubby Group has closed a $50 million Series A led by Prysm Capital at a $500 million valuation and signed a letter of intent to acquire 47 U.S. GEN Korean BBQ restaurants and four development sites from GEN Restaurant Group (Nasdaq: GENK) in a transaction valued at up to $100 million.

The round is Chubby's first institutional funding. The restaurant operator behind Chubby Cattle, Wagyu House, The X Pot, NIKU X, Chubby Skewers and Chubby Bowls says the deal would make it one of the largest Asian dining groups in the U.S.

GEN deal includes $1.5 billion convertible note and perpetual brand license

GEN will hold a note convertible into Chubby Group equity at a $1.5 billion valuation as part of the consideration. Chubby will receive a perpetual license to the GEN brand. Closing remains subject to definitive agreements, license and lease transfers, and regulatory approvals.

Arlington – October 15, 2026 -- U.S.-based travel agency air ticket sales totaled $29.7 billion in the third quarter of 2026, up 18% from $25.1 billion a year earlier, according to Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) data.

September sales rise 18% while passenger trips grow 2%

Agency air ticket sales reached $10.2 billion in September 2026, an 18% increase from September 2025 and 4% above August. Passenger trips totaled 25.7 million, up 2% year over year. Sales growth therefore far outpaced growth in passenger volume.

Third-quarter trips climb 3.5% to 77.4 million

Agencies ticketed 77.4 million passenger trips in the quarter, a 3.5% increase from the same period in 2025. ARC Chief Commercial Officer Steve Solomon said demand held firm despite geopolitical uncertainty and inflationary pressure, and that passenger volume stayed steady as the summer season ended.

St. Louis – October 15, 2026 -- Graybar, the electrical, industrial, automation and connectivity products distributor, has won four Top Workplaces Culture Excellence awards, three Featured awards and the Distribution Industry award from workplace-survey firm Energage for 2026.

This is the sixth consecutive year Graybar has received Culture Excellence awards. It is also the fifth consecutive year the company has won the Distribution Industry award. Graybar was one of just three distributors with more than 2,500 employees to receive the industry honor.

Graybar collects four Culture Excellence and three Featured awards

The Culture Excellence awards cover Work-Life Flexibility, Purpose & Values, Employee Well-Being and Professional Development.

Irving, Texas – October 15, 2026 -- Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) has allocated up to $10 million to prepare North Carolina workers for modern manufacturing and industry technician roles. It is the sixth allocation under the company's five-year, $100 million Building the Future Workforce Initiative.

Caterpillar pairs $10 million training fund with a $1 billion North Carolina build-out

The workforce money follows Caterpillar's announcement that it plans to invest approximately $1 billion in North Carolina. The capital will expand manufacturing capacity for its Cat Compact business, which supplies compact equipment to small contractors and growing businesses. The plan includes a new facility in Sanford to increase production of compact track loaders and telehandlers.

Caterpillar's Clayton facility in the state already builds small wheel loaders and supports distribution of backhoe loaders.

Washington – October 15, 2026 -- The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has eliminated federal requirements for fuel additive containers, saving businesses an estimated $10.7 billion over 30 years and removing $545.7 million in annual regulatory costs.

CPSC rules fuel additives are not flammable liquid fuels under the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act

The action clarifies that additives used to clean engines, improve performance, extend engine life, prevent weather-related effects, or stabilize fuel do not qualify as "flammable liquid fuels" under the Act. Manufacturers of these products will not have to equip containers with flame mitigation devices designed for gasoline cans and other portable fuel containers.

Las Vegas – October 15, 2026 -- MassPay reported a 510% year-over-year increase in third-quarter payout volume and a 112% rise in gross revenue, marking its third consecutive record quarter.

Volume growth accelerates every quarter while revenue growth rises

Payout volume grew 317% in Q1, 408% in Q2 and 510% in Q3, all measured against the prior-year period. Gross revenue growth rose from 98% in Q2 to 112% in Q3. The company said that as clients send more money through more corridors and rails, the model strengthens rather than thins.

CEO Ran Grushkowsky said clients are no longer testing the platform and are consolidating their money movement on it.

MassPay Collect launches in the US to bring funds in on the same platform

MassPay Collect went live in the US in Q3, letting businesses receive funds on the platform they already use for payouts. Europe, Canada and the UK are next on the roadmap.

New York – October 15, 2026 -- Mindbeam raised the Level 2 KernelBench score of NVIDIA's Nemotron 3.5 Super VL from 22.8% to 82.1% through post-training, ahead of the 57% accuracy the company reports for GPT 5.6 Sol.

The New York-based AI infrastructure company announced a collaboration with NVIDIA covering two layers of the open source AI stack: a post-trained model that writes CUDA kernels, and an inference engine that serves NVIDIA's latest open models.

Litespark Nemotron 3.5 Super VL gains 11.2 points on Level 1 tasks

Mindbeam post-trained NVIDIA's Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (120B-A12B) to produce Litespark Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, an open-weights model for CUDA code generation. The task is to take a PyTorch module and generate a raw CUDA kernel that reproduces the forward pass within tight numerical tolerances while staying architecture-agnostic.

New York – October 15, 2026 -- Gartner has named Deloitte a Leader in its 2026 Magic Quadrant for Global Digital Marketing Agencies, and the firm was also recognized in all seven Use Cases of the companion 2026 Critical Capabilities report.

Deloitte earns placement across all seven Gartner Use Cases

Gartner singled out Deloitte in four of the seven Use Case categories: AI-Driven Marketing Innovation, Digital Commerce & CX Overhaul, Website & Digital Product Design, and Data-Driven Performance Marketing. The Magic Quadrant was published on 25 August 2026 (ID G00841300). The Critical Capabilities report followed on 26 August 2026 (ID G00850979). Both were authored by Gartner analysts Jay Wilson, Philip Black and Jen Kady.

The result adds to Deloitte's earlier placement as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Services.