Amazon Eyes $7B Decart Deal, Lowe's Starts Black Friday in October & Tm:rw Goes Live on TikTok Shop

[upbeat music] Hello, everyone. This is Omnitalk Retail. I'm Chris Walton, and you are listening to the Retail Daily Minute, your quickest, fastest breakdown of all the day's top retail news. Today's podcast is brought to you once again with the help and support of Zenline AI, because you have likely heard about AI agents a thousand times this year, but are also probably wondering what they can do for you as a retailer. So visit tryzenline.ai to book a call and see how agents can bring you more margin. Today is October 13th, 2026, and this morning we've got news on Bose kicking off Black Friday in October and a Times Square store that's turned itself into one big TikTok shop live stream. But we begin today with Amazon, which is reportedly in talks to buy Israeli AI startup Descartes for roughly $7 billion. That's billion with a B. That is according to the Wall Street Journal. And I want to stress the word reportedly because neither Amazon nor Descartes has commented publicly so far. Descartes was founded only in 2023 by three engineers in Tel Aviv. Its core business is software that helps developers move AI workloads across different types of chips and get more output from the hardware running them. It also builds real-time video tools and AI-generated interactive worlds, including a Minecraft-style game called Oasis. And here's an interesting wrinkle. Anthropic, which Amazon has backed with $8 billion of its own, reportedly had its own $6 billion deal for Descartes fall apart before Amazon stepped in. So why would Amazon pay up? Follow the chips, my friends. Follow the chips. AWS reportedly gave Descartes early access to its Trainium3 chips. Amazon's AI infrastructure pitch depends on convincing customers they don't have to run everything on NVIDIA, and software that makes it easier to move between chips makes Amazon's own chips an easier sell. That fits a clear pattern. The expanded OpenAI partnership, the Meta deal for Graviton chips, and the covariant licensing deal for warehouse robotics. For retailers, the takeaway is simpler. The AI arms race is increasingly being fought at the infrastructure layer. The companies that own the chips, the cloud, and the software in between are going to set the price everyone else pays.

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[upbeat music] All right, we are back, and our next story comes from the home improvement aisle. According to its own press release, Lowe's is kicking off Black Friday deals on October 29th. Yes, you heard that right, October 29th. Rewards members get extra perks, including access to Black Friday doorbusters one day before the public on November 27th. Lowe's is also adding a 12 Days of Deals event and December deal drops running from December 3rd through Christmas Eve. And it's pitching its AI assistant, Mylow, as a holiday helper for planning decor and hosting checklists. Stretching