The CE 100 Index resumed its winning ways in a holiday-shortened week, notching a 1.7% gain that was powered, in part, for investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI)-related news.
Only two pillars declined through the final trading days of May, and those losses were muted, as the Shop pillar was 0.3% lower and the Eat segment slipped 0.6%.
The Enablers segment added 2.6%, and here’s where we saw the momentum from AI initiatives.
C3.ai shares were the standout and were 17% higher. The company’s fiscal fourth quarter results, announced Wednesday indicated that overall revenues were 26% higher for the period as measured year over year and ending in April. The consolidated top line came in at $108 million. Subscription revenue rose 9% to $87.3 million, and engineering services revenue jumped 196% to $17 million.
Generative AI-related sales doubled across the fiscal year. The company also renewed its in-place relationship with oil firm Baker Hughes that the firms said would focus on “joint solutions that are proven to improve production efficiency, reduce downtime, and increase operational visibility across assets in the world’s largest oil and gas companies.”
Meta is reorganizing its generative AI team to accelerate rollouts of products and features, we reported last week.
The reorganization, detailed in an internal memo from Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, aims to streamline operations and clarify roles. The products team will oversee practical applications and rollout of AI features, such as the Meta AI assistant, Meta’s AI Studio, and AI capabilities in Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to media reports.
The artificial general intelligence (AGI) team will handle Meta’s large language model family, Llama, and initiatives to improve reasoning, multimedia and voice capabilities.
Meta shares gathered 3.3%.
Payment Names Move Higher
In the Pay and Be Paid segment, which was higher by 2.3%, payment networks led the surge.
Mastercard has launched a suite of digital tools, data and educational resources designed for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. The company’s Small Business Navigator program offers small businesses an AI-powered chatbot that “acts as a mentor” for business owners; actionable insights and data from the Mastercard Economic Institute and the Mastercard SpendingPulse report; and educational content covering cybersecurity, marketing and digital tools, according to an announcement by the payment network.
To help with cybersecurity, Small Business Navigator offers access to My Cyber Risk powered by RiskRecon, which guides small businesses in strengthening their defenses, and personalized recommendations.
Mastercard’s shares were 3.9% higher.
In Visa-related news, which helped advance the stock by 3.3%, Hong Kong-based digital bank ZA Bank has become the first card-issuing bank to enable Visa Click to Pay in Hong Kong and will do the same in 11 more Asia-Pacific markets in the future. Click to Pay enables cardholders to complete online transactions in seconds, without having to manually enter their card information, Visa said at the beginning of the week.
Within the Shop segment, PDD Holding shares declined by more than 19%.
The parent of Chinese eCommerce giant Temu said tariffs helped eat into its quarterly profits, which fell 38% year over year. Chairman and Co-CEO Lei Chen said during an earnings call that there has been an intensification of competition in China’s eCommerce space.
Since the second half of 2024, the company has “significantly expanded” its fee reduction plan for merchants. This year, it has become clear that merchants need help, leading the company to launch an even more expanded version of that program, he said during the call. The results indicated that total revenues in the quarter were 95.672 billion yuan ($13.1 billion), an increase of 10%.
