Reusable AI skills, agents that sell, and banks open earnings season
AI launches, business news and the market in one short read, each with its date and the original source. Plain words, no hype.
Dow Jones · close 51,850.55
+0.38%
S&P 500 · close 7,807.24
−0.06%
Nasdaq Composite · close 27,245.90
−0.44%
AI3 stories
Google · Oct 13
Mid-Nov
when the Gemini app skills rollout, starting Oct 13, should be complete
Top story · Oct 13 · Google Workspace
Google is rolling out reusable "skills" in the Gemini app
What it means for you: If your team keeps retyping the same instructions, saving them once as a skill makes the tool follow your standard every time instead of starting from scratch.
Full story
Google began rolling out skills in the Gemini app on October 13, with the rollout expected to finish by mid-November. A skill is a set of custom instructions you save once and reuse any time you prompt Gemini, and you can stack several in one prompt, for example a brand-voice skill plus a formatting skill. Skills use the open SKILL.md standard, so instructions made on other tools can be brought in. They replace Gems, which move to a settings panel on November 17 and, for business and enterprise accounts, stop working no sooner than March 1, 2027.
sales lift Salesforce reports from plain-language product search
Oct 12 · Salesforce
Salesforce turned on its Agentforce agents for everyday selling
What it means for you: If you sell online, letting customers search in their own words is a concrete change you can turn on and measure against your current search.
Full story
Salesforce made its Winter ’27 release generally available on October 12, with 15 new features. Its Agentforce agents gained Agentic Commerce Search, which lets shoppers search a store in plain language instead of exact product names; Salesforce says early results show a 13% lift in purchases and a 17% rise in add-to-cart rates. The release also added voice agents that book appointments without a human handoff and the ability to run agents from AWS, Azure and Google alongside Salesforce’s own.
more AI work per unit of power Microsoft claims for its Maia 300 chip
Oct 12 · Microsoft
Microsoft unveiled a new AI chip built to use less power
What it means for you: The firms that sell AI are spending to cut the power each answer uses, which is the cost pressure sitting behind the price you pay for AI tools.
Full story
Microsoft announced Maia 300, its next custom AI chip, and said it will expand its Maia systems to multi-gigawatt deployments starting in 2027. Microsoft says Maia 300 delivers 40% more work per unit of power than leading chips from other makers, and up to seven times the output of its earlier Maia 200 chip in a full server rack. Production begins in 2027; the Maia 200 is already running some of Microsoft’s own services.
The three AI stories are all about making agents dependable and repeatable rather than just capable. Google lets you save instructions as reusable skills, Salesforce hands search and scheduling to agents inside a store, and Microsoft is building chips to run all of it at lower cost. The question keeps shifting from what AI can do to whether it does the same thing well every time.
Business3 stories
Earnings · Oct 13
$18.68B
Goldman Sachs quarterly revenue, above the $16.71B expected
Oct 13 · CNBC
The biggest banks opened earnings season
What it means for you: Bank results are an early read on how businesses and households are borrowing and spending, and this set pointed to steady activity rather than a pullback.
Full story
The largest U.S. banks reported third-quarter results on Tuesday. Goldman Sachs posted revenue of $18.68 billion, well above the $16.71 billion analysts expected, helped by strong trading. JPMorgan Chase reported revenue of $50.91 billion and raised its full-year forecast for net interest income, the gap between what it earns on loans and pays on deposits, to $106.2 billion. Wells Fargo earned $1.87 a share on revenue of $21.87 billion.
Domino's U.S. same-store sales growth, down from 5.2% a year earlier
Oct 13 · CNBC
Domino's U.S. sales growth nearly stalled
What it means for you: When a large everyday brand sees its sales growth stall, it is a sign households are watching discretionary spending, worth noting if you sell to consumers.
Full story
Domino's Pizza reported third-quarter revenue of $1.19 billion, up 3.4% from a year earlier. U.S. same-store sales rose just 0.3%, down sharply from 5.2% a year earlier, and international same-store sales growth slowed to 0.2%. Net income rose to $152.2 million, or $4.60 a share, in the first report under new chief executive Joe Jordan.
the inflation goal a voting Fed official said still calls for high rates
Oct 12 · CNBC
A voting Fed official argued for keeping rates high
What it means for you: At least one voting official wants rates kept high to fight inflation, so businesses counting on cheaper borrowing soon may be waiting longer.
Full story
Cleveland Federal Reserve President Beth Hammack, a voting member of the Fed’s rate-setting committee, said on Monday that a "restrictive monetary policy stance is appropriate to ensure a timely return to 2 percent inflation." She added that she prefers smaller, quicker rate adjustments over waiting and risking a larger correction later.
The Dow rose while tech pulled the S&P and Nasdaq lower
Monday, October 12: percent change
U.S. index closes
Dow Jones · close 51,850.55+0.38%
S&P 500 · close 7,807.24−0.06%
Nasdaq Composite · close 27,245.90−0.44%
Asia close
Kospi · Seoul−3.65%
Our view: Oil’s climb lifted energy shares and the Dow, while worry over chip competition and this week’s inflation report weighed on tech. Moves driven by oil prices and a single data release can reverse quickly.
Full story
On Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 195.60 points, or 0.38%, to close at 51,850.55. The S&P 500 slipped 0.06% to 7,807.24 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.44% to 27,245.90. Energy was the strongest group as Brent crude traded above $105 a barrel on Middle East tensions, while technology and chip stocks were the weakest, with Micron falling after a Chinese memory maker announced advances. Japan’s market was closed for a holiday, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 3.65% to 6,384.24.
This is a summary of the news, not investment advice. Markets move, and past moves do not predict the next one.
If you run one of these
Real estate: Google’s skills let you save a standard instruction once, say a listing description format or a follow-up style, so the tool writes to your template instead of starting over each time.
Investment trackers: The bank results are the first hard third-quarter numbers of the season, a cleaner read on lending and markets than the forecasts that came before them.
Family offices: With a voting Fed official arguing to keep rates high, plans that assume cheaper borrowing soon are worth a second look.
Free, any time
Ask us anything about AI for your business. Or send us the one task your team repeats every week, and we will tell you what we would automate first.