Next to Lead

Mastercard is betting on a new era of agentic commerce, where AI agents can act on behalf of consumers, make purchases, and even transact with other machines. But handing an AI agent your wallet raises new questions around trust, identity, and accountability. What happens when an agent buys the wrong thing, exceeds its authority, or gets manipulated? And how do you build a payments system that can distinguish between human and non-human actors? Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sits down with Ed McLaughlin, Mastercard’s President and Chief Technology Officer, to discuss the future of agentic commerce, AI-powered fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and what happens when machines become participants in the global economy. 0:00 AI Agents Are About to Change How We Shop 1:04 What’s Keeping Mastercard’s CTO Up at Night? 3:46 How Mastercard Transformed Over 20 Years 5:33 Lessons From a Startup Founder 8:34 How Mastercard Makes Decisions at Scale 11:15 How to Move Fast Without Breaking Things 16:11 Is Identity the New Challenge of the AI Era? 20:14 Mastercard’s Biggest AI Opportunities 26:17 Who’s Liable When an AI Agent Makes a Purchase? 36:30 The Leadership Skills AI Can’t Replace Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Toast started as a point-of-sale company. Today, the restaurant technology platform serves over 180,000 locations globally and is expanding into areas including payments, payroll, marketing, reservations, retail.In this episode of Fortune Next to Lead, C-suite and Leadership Editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Toast CMO and COO Kelly Esten to discuss the company’s growth strategy and its vision for the future of restaurant technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meta is spending billions to catch up in the AI race, betting that its latest model, Muse Spark, can help close the gap with its biggest rivals. But the company’s aggressive AI investments, ranging from advertising tools to its latest AI-powered smart glasses, are coming at a cost: Meta’s profits fell 14% in the second quarter, as spending surged alongside hefty legal penalties.  In this episode of Next to Lead, Fortune’s C-suite and Leadership Editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta’s Head of Global Business Group, in Cannes to discuss the company’s AI ambitions, the creator economy, and Meta’s push towards AI supremacy. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:08 Ad 01:38 How AI is Shifting All Business 03:02 Meta’s AI Ad Stack Advantage 04:26: Meta’s Creative Workplace Launch 04:53 Meeting Customers Through Messaging, Business Agents 06:43 Meta’s Customers Key Pain Points 07:20: Case Study: Car Rentals in Brazil 07:54 Is Meta Taking Too Much Control? 09:07 Estée Lauder Experiment 10:44 Kylie Jenner x Meta Glasses 12:04 Creators, Community, Commerce 13:40 AI Hype, Responsibility 14:48 Future of Creators, Agents 16:28 Looking Ahead for Nicola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As dating apps experiment with AI, Tinder CMO Melissa Hobley is drawing a line between using the technology to help people connect and using it to replace human connection. Tinder wants AI to help users choose their best profile photos, make sense of complex astrology charts, and ultimately spend less time on their phones—not create artificial people to date. At Cannes Lions, Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sits down with Hobley to discuss AI avatars, the future of digital intimacy, and where technology’s role should end and real-life connection begin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI is rewriting the rules of marketing, but not every brand is ready for it. At Cannes Lions, Fortune's Ruth Umoh sat down with the marketing and growth chiefs behind four major brands to drop the polish and tackle the messy middle: what's really holding AI adoption back. How do you build momentum when your data strategy is still warming up? How do you chase innovation without torching the budget? And what happens when "AI-powered everything" creates more noise than results? Expect straight talk, live debate, and hard numbers on where the hype ends and the business impact begins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices