AI Launches: Fashion, EdTech, speech tech, monitors, fintech, data, trading, cloud, AI defense & model

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent launches in the superfast field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Fashion: Free AI Tool to Streamline and Elevate Higg FEM Performance for Fashion Manufacturers

GreenStitch, an AI-powered sustainability solution for fashion and textile industry, launched the first in the segment Higg FEM AI Gap Analyser, a free AI-powered tool designed to help manufacturers unlock higher Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) scores with unmatched ease, accuracy and speed.

Narendra Makwana, Co-founder and CEO of GreenStitch, states “Factories today are under growing pressure from brands and regulators to prove their sustainability claims, but they often lack the time, tools, or expertise to act on vague audit feedback. Our AI agent flips the model as it doesn’t just diagnose problems, it shows the exact fix and what it’s worth. This is about moving from compliance confusion to instant clarity.”

Features

• Manufacturers can simply upload their Higg FEM report and, within minutes, receive a complete AI-powered breakdown of which questions have gaps in the Higg assessment, what requirements were missed, and exactly how to improve them.
• The tool also predicts the score increase each fix can deliver—a first in the market. For sustainability teams, this means prioritizing with purpose, acting with clarity, and preparing for third-party verification without the need for expensive consultants or ESG specialists.
• Unlike traditional support methods that rely on generic feedback or manual consulting, the Higg AI Gap Analyser is fully automated, aligned with the latest Higg Index v4.0 and built to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.
• It strengthens alignment with other frameworks like ZDHC, CDP, SBTi, and EU CSRD, by helping manufacturers improve core reporting data around emissions, energy, water, and chemical management.

EdTech: World’s first AI Royalty Model for Educators; to Pay Faculty for their AI Avatars

Masters’ Union, an Indian business and technology school, announced an AI Royalty Model for educators – a new compensation framework where its professors will be paid royalties every time their AI avatar teaches a student. Inspired by models used by Spotify and YouTube, this framework treats educators not as employees, but as IP holders, whose teaching continues to generate value at scale.

Pratham Mittal, Founder, Masters’ Union said, “The future of online education won’t be static or one-size-fits-all. It will be intelligent, responsive and deeply personal. Instead of just uploading lectures online which puts the entire onus of learning on the students, we are creating living, thinking versions of our faculty – available anytime, anywhere. And we are doing it while respecting their intellectual rights, just like any modern creative economy. We believe this will redefine both how MOOCs are delivered, and how effective they can be.”

Features

• Under the model, faculty will earn a flat fee per unique learner per subject and a one-time honorarium will be paid to each professor licensing their likeness.
• A reward program has been designed to recognise and reward the most-streamed digital twins.
• The model will be extended to the visiting faculty and practitioners who wish to monetise their AI avatars through Masters’ Union.

Speech tech: Labs to Redefine Voice AI Infrastructure

In a move that redefines the future of human-machine communication, United We Care, focused on AI-powered mental health care, launched Shunya Labs — a deeptech spinout engineered to dominate the infrastructure layer of AI speech technology. With a world-beating ASR engine, real-time on-prem capabilities, and a privacy-first foundation, Shunya Labs.AI is live and rewriting the rules of speech recognition.

“We didn’t set out to beat the benchmarks — we set out to invent what didn’t exist,” said Ritu Mehrotra, Founder of United We Care. “And when we built it, we realized we’d created something the world didn’t know it needed: AI voice infrastructure that listens like a human, runs like a machine, and respects the sanctity of privacy. That’s Shunya Labs.”

Features

• An Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) platform that outperforms in multilingual fluency, having natively cracked 32 + Indic languages (and 7 upcoming) — from Hindi and Marathi to Assamese and Maithili.
• Can power everything from rural tele-health kiosks to Bharat-scale call centre, inference speed, edge deployment, and raw accuracy.
• Has a record-smashing 3.37% average Word Error Rate and optimized for both GPU and CPU environments.
• It cuts enterprise cloud bills by 20× while delivering military-grade privacy and explainability.

Monitors: AI-powered 4K QD-OLED Smart Monitor that Transforms Work, Streaming & Gaming

Samsung announced its all-new Smart Monitor family, featuring the luxurious M9 (M90SF), alongside enhanced editions of the M8 (M80SF) and M7 (M70F). With advanced AI features across the lineup, the new offerings provide a more personalized and connected screen for work and entertainment.

“By combining Samsung’s 4K QD-OLED brilliance with intuitive vision AI, the M9 elevates the display into something more than a monitor. With real time picture and sound optimization, a sleek all-in-one design and seamless access to your favorite streaming and work tools, the M9 delivers a sharper, smarter and truly immersive experience,” said Puneet Sethi, Vice President, Enterprise Business, Samsung India.

Features

• Flagship M9: The M9 introduces QD-OLED technology to the Smart Monitor lineup for the first time. Merging flagship-level visuals with TV-grade smart functionality, the 32-inch M9 is engineered to deliver stunning contrast, vibrant colors, and immersive visuals. With a sleek, all-metal chassis, it blends museum-quality aesthetics with functional elegance, apt for a chic design studio or the coveted corner office.
• Samsung’s Smart Monitor M9 introduces OLED Safeguard+ to maintain screen integrity over time, featuring a proprietary cooling system that minimizes the risk of burn-in. Its Glare-Free display reduces reflections, ensuring consistent visibility and comfort even in bright environments.
• The M9 leverages AI-driven technologies like AI Picture Optimizer, 4K AI Upscaling Pro, and Active Voice Amplifier (AVA) Pro to enhance picture and sound quality in real time, adapting automatically to content and surroundings for optimized performance.
• As a smart entertainment hub, the M9 offers access to popular streaming apps, Samsung TV Plus, and Samsung Gaming Hub, enabling cloud-based gaming without a console or PC. With a 165Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms response time, and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility, it delivers smooth, high-performance visuals ideal for gaming and other demanding tasks.
• Paired with its 4K QD-OLED display, the monitor delivers visuals that align with content creators’ intentions, offering clarity and confidence for any application.
• M8 and M7: The Smart Monitor M8 and M7 expand Samsung’s smart monitor lineup with 32-inch 4K UHD screens powered by advanced VA panel technology for sharp detail and rich contrast. Both models feature AI-powered tools like Click to Search and Tizen OS Home for intuitive content discovery and personalized recommendations.
• All three models integrate seamlessly with SmartThings, support Multi Control between Samsung devices, and offer Multi View for multitasking. With Microsoft 365 access, users can create and edit documents directly from the monitor without a PC, making them versatile solutions for modern work and entertainment setups.

Fintech: MCP Server to Power AI-Driven Personal Finance Experiences

In a global first from India, Fi Money, a money management platform launched a personal finance MCP Server, a foundational layer that lets users securely view and interact with their entire financial life using any AI assistant.

Sujith Narayanan, cofounder, Fi Money, said, “This is the first time any personal finance app globally has enabled users to securely connect their actual financial data with tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. With MCP, we’re giving users not just a dashboard, but a secure bridge between their financial data and the AI tools they trust. It’s about helping people ask better questions and get smarter answers about their money.”

Features

• Users can see their entire financial life in one place, from bank transactions and investment apps to assets like stocks and mutual funds, and liabilities like loans and credit cards.
• Privately export that view into an AI-friendly format and share it to an AI tool of their choice.
• Alternatively, configure the MCP server for near-real-time information
• Use AI to privately ask personal, data-specific questions like “Can I afford a 6-month career break?”, “Identify 3 mistakes in my portfolio”, “How much money will I have when I turn 40?”, and “How do I diversify my portfolio?”

Data: Trust Score for AI in Qlik Talend Cloud

Qlik®, a data integration, data quality, analytics, and AI platform announced the general availability of Qlik Trust Score™ for AI, an industry-leading innovation designed to help organizations assess whether data is truly ready for AI, before it ever reaches a model. Included within Qlik Talend Cloud®, the Qlik Trust Score for AI introduces purpose-built scoring across AI-specific dimensions, helping customers establish the data foundations needed for responsible, scalable AI.

“Most companies still treat data trust like an IT hygiene issue. It’s not. It’s the foundation of every AI decision a business makes,” said Drew Clarke, EVP of Product and Technology at Qlik. “If you can’t measure trust, you’re gambling with outcomes, compliance, and customer experience. With Qlik Trust Score for AI, we’re giving leaders a living signal, not a gut check, that their data is fit for purpose. That’s how you close the gap between AI ambition and AI impact.”

Features

• Measures how representative and balanced the data is, helping to reduce bias in AI training.
• Captures the freshness of data flowing into AI models, ensuring relevance for more accurate decision-making.
• Flags values that fall outside user-defined business rules or unreliable quality expectations that can erode organizational trust in AI.
• Combined with existing metrics like Discoverability and Usage, it AI offers a practical way to validate datasets for use in AI training, RAG pipelines, or intelligent automation, with Security and LLM Readiness dimensions to follow.

Trading: Model Context Protocol (MCP) for AI-Powered Trading Integration

5paisa Capital, Indian discount broking firm, launched its Model Context Protocol (MCP). This framework integrates Claude, a state-of-the-art large language model (LLM), with 5paisa’s internal APIs. This launch represents a strategic integration aimed at enhancing user experience and brings AI-powered trading capabilities to 5paisa users. With MCP, 5paisa users can now perform a wide range of trading tasks — from placing orders and analyzing market data to backtesting strategies — simply by interacting with Claude via natural language. This rollout aligns with 5paisa’s vision to simplify advanced trading tools for everyday investors.

“We believe the future of investing lies in empowering users with intelligent tools that are not just data-driven, but context-aware. Model Context Protocol is our answer to the growing need for adaptive AI in financial decision-making,” said Gaurav Seth, MD & CEO, 5paisa Capital. “With MCP, even non-coders can now interact with complex datasets and advanced trading strategies through natural language — truly putting the power of institutional-grade analytics into the hands of everyday investors.”

Features

• AI-enabled Trading Assistant: Built-in support for Claude LLM, with plans to support additional AI models soon.
• Prompt-Based Interface: No coding knowledge required — simply type commands like “Backtest my breakout strategy from Jan 2021 to Dec 2022”.
• Custom Data Integration: Users can include external context (e.g., climate data, economic forecasts) for enhanced decision-making.
• Encrypted & Private: All data shared is encrypted during transit; users retain full control of data sharing.
• Free for Existing Users: MCP is available at no additional cost to all current 5paisa account holders.
• Cross-Platform Support: Available on Windows, Mac, and Linux via Claude Desktop.

AI Defense: MCP Gateway: enterprise-grade runtime defense for MCP-Connected AI Applications

Operant AI, the world’s only Runtime AI Defense Platform, launched MCP Gateway, an expansion of its flagship product, AI Gatekeeper™ platform that secures AI systems built on the increasingly adopted Model Context Protocol (MCP). As more companies use open-source MCP servers and AI agents, MCP Gateway stands out as the only enterprise-grade solution that protects these critical workflows in real time, with the industry’s first active-blocking capabilities for API security.

“While MCP is a powerful AI integration framework, the growing adoption of open-source MCP servers also brings new challenges around security and governance,” said Vrajesh Bhavsar, CEO and co-founder of Operant AI. “Many organizations are deploying these tools without full visibility into their behavior, data access, or usage. MCP Gateway helps close this gap by providing enhanced security, observability, and control across the MCP ecosystem.”

Features

Unlike traditional guardrails and static cyber-security tools, MCP Gateway is purpose-built for the inter-connected AI agent era, empowering organizations to safely and effectively leverage AI agents and MCPs through three core capabilities:

MCP Discovery

• Automatic real-time MCP tool catalogs and AI agent discovery across all environments
• Live traffic graphs and telemetry showing active access patterns between AI agent clients and MCP servers
• End-to-end visibility from development tools to cloud deployments, eliminating shadow MCP server blind spots
• Comprehensive discovery spanning coding agents to remote AI agents in multi-cloud environments

MCP Detections

• Real-time detection of sensitive data leakage to and from AI agents and MCP tools
• Identification of emerging agentic AI threat vectors, including tool poisoning, jailbreaks, and unauthorized access
• Supply chain security monitoring for vulnerabilities in local MCP servers and misconfigurations in remote servers
• Trust and risk scoring for all MCP servers in the environment

MCP Defense

• Enforcement of MCP trust zones with live blocking of untrusted servers and tools
• Prevention of sensitive data and IP leakage through real-time flow blocking and auto-redaction
• Least privilege execution controls and granular access permissions for the MCP tool usage
• Centralized governance framework for enterprise-wide AI agent and tool management
• Rate limiting and encryption standard enforcement for all MCP communications

Cloud: AI Innovations to Stop Attacks, Protect Sensitive Data, and Enable Businesses to Embrace AI Securely

Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZS), the cloud security platform announced advanced artificial intelligence (AI) security capabilities and new AI-powered innovations to enhance data security and stop cyberattacks. These advancements address critical challenges for businesses adopting AI, including safeguarding proprietary information and maintaining regulatory compliance.

“Zscaler is redesigning the boundaries of enterprise security by advancing AI-driven innovations that address the complex challenges of today’s digital age,” said Adam Geller, Chief Product Officer, Zscaler. “With industry-first capabilities like AI-driven threat detection and automated segmentation, we empower organizations to adopt and scale AI responsibly and securely. These advancements not only neutralize emerging threats but accelerate collaboration and operational efficiency, allowing businesses to capitalize on the transformative power of AI with confidence and precision.”

Features

• AI-powered Data Security Classification: Zscaler’s newest AI-powered data security classification brings human-like intuition to identifying sensitive content, now including more than 200 categories, allowing advanced classifications that find new and unexpected sensitive data beyond traditional regex-based signature detection. As a result, organizations can get very granular data security posture assessment in a fraction of the time. 
• Enhanced Generative AI Protections with Expanded Prompt Visibility: Zscaler delivers greater visibility and control over GenAI applications, including Microsoft CoPilot, by enabling advanced prompt classification and inspection. Organizations can block prompts that violate policies and leverage existing DLP capabilities to safeguard sensitive data and ensure compliance across AI-powered workflows.
• AI-Powered Segmentation:?Enhancements include the first purpose-built user-to-application segmentation AI automation engine to now simplify app management, app grouping and segmentation workflows with user identity built in. This capability significantly accelerates the segmentation workflow to rapidly improve an organization’s security posture. 
• Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) Network Intelligence: Powered with AI, Network Operations can now instantly benchmark and visualize internet and regional ISP performance, correlating last-mile and intermediate ISP outages with multi-path flow analysis to optimize connections to Zscaler data centers and applications, ensuring greater reliability and improved performance. Additionally, network operations teams can also proactively detect, isolate, and analyze trends for disruptive ISP issues, such as packet loss impacting users, enabling faster remediation through rerouting, and cost savings via better ISP negotiations.

AI Model: PixelYatra: Bharat’s First Hindi-Trained AI Model for Cards, Banners & Regional Design

Appy Pie launched PixelYatra, Bharat’s first-of-its-kind AI model trained specifically in the Hindi language for generating cards, banners, posters, and social creatives. Built on Appy Pie’s flagship model, PixelForge, PixelYatra brings vernacular intelligence to generative AI—empowering users across Bharat to design compelling visuals using simple Hindi prompts.

“PixelYatra is built for Bharat,” said Abhinav Girdhar, CEO of Appy Pie. “It understands the language, the emotion, and the cultural nuance behind every prompt. Whether it’s a wedding invite, a Diwali card, or a local shop banner, PixelYatra enables anyone to create beautiful visuals in Hindi—instantly and effortlessly.”

Features

• PixelYatra has been trained on a diverse and inclusive dataset comprising Devanagari script input, context-rich Hindi phrases like shubh kamnayen (best wishes), bikree (sale), aamantran (invitation)
• Templates inspired by festivals, traditions, and regional use cases such as religious banners, political posters, and local business creatives
• This makes it especially powerful for Bharat’s smaller towns and rural areas, where local languages dominate digital expression.