The European angle, stated plainly
This story is mostly American. The verified material covers a US-listed broker, US regulators and a San Francisco startup. It contains no EU regulation, no European company financials and no EU policy document. We do not stretch it to fit. One European-relevant item is in the record: LSEG agreed on October 22, 2026 to acquire Octus, a provider of credit intelligence, data and workflows, for cash from funds advised by Permira and from Octus management, including founder Kent Collier.1 The dossier does not give a price, and we will not guess one. It does say the deal changes LSEG's presence in credit.1
The rest of this piece covers what the record does support: where the money is going, and what a checked set of numbers says about one of the companies building the retail end of this trend.
Why identity comes first
On September 22, 2026, Baselayer raised a $35 million Series A led by M13. Picus Capital, Torch Capital, Afore Capital and Matt Thompson of Socure took part.2 It also launched an Agentic Identity Suite, extending its identity network from businesses to the AI agents that transact for them.2 Crunchbase News describes Baselayer as a San Francisco startup that helps financial institutions verify businesses and assess fraud risk.3
The pitch rests on a trust problem. Baselayer's Jonathan Awad put it this way: "Agents spin up and they spin down. How can you trust this random one-task agent?"3 He also warned that unless agents can show they act for legitimate people or businesses, "agents will just get blocked everywhere".3 For a European reader the practical point is that a payment made by software still needs a verifiable person or company behind it. That question will matter wherever such payments are regulated. Our record does not say how EU rules treat it.
Awad also described how slow this market is to enter. Relationships with financial institutions typically take 12 to 18 months to establish, and large merchant partnerships can take up to 24 months.3 He said Baselayer has "essentially streamlined 10 years' worth of selling into two years".3 That is a founder's description of his own company, not an independently checked result.
The retail end: Robinhood, with checked numbers
At its September 29, 2026 HOOD Summit, Robinhood announced a long list of products. They included Robinhood Social, Robinhood Agent, perpetuals, 24/7 trading, earnings predictions and 10X crypto leverage.4 The next day Cboe said it plans to launch binary contracts tied to company-specific KPIs, with products tied to 23 companies expected in October 2026, subject to regulatory approval. It said Robinhood will be the first retail broker to offer them.5 Cboe will charge no fees on these contracts through the end of 2026, subject to regulatory review, and Robinhood will also offer them fee-free through year-end.4
Cboe's Steve Quirk said: "Earnings contracts give retail investors another tool to inform their strategies and offer an even more precise way to trade on anticipated company KPIs."5 Zero fees are a launch offer, not a permanent business model, and the record says the fee waiver itself is subject to regulatory review.4
Can the company afford the push? Its SEC-filed figures, checked against source, show a business that has changed a lot in two years:
- Revenue rose from $1.865 billion in FY2023 to $2.951 billion in FY2024 and $4.473 billion in FY2025.6 That is about 2.4 times the FY2023 figure.
- Net income swung from a loss of $541 million in FY2023 to a profit of $1.411 billion in FY2024 and $1.883 billion in FY2025.6
- Earnings per share went from a loss of $0.61 to a gain of $1.56, then $2.05.6
- Research and development spending was almost flat: $349 million, $323 million and $355 million.6 Revenue grew far faster than this line.
- Stockholders' equity rose from $6.696 billion in FY2023 to $7.972 billion in FY2024.6
Cash flow is less smooth. Operating cash flow was $1.181 billion in FY2023, then negative $157 million in FY2024, then $1.638 billion in FY2025.6 Reported profit and cash generated did not move together every year.
The cash balance itself has not grown with profits. It was $4.835 billion at the end of FY2023, $4.332 billion at FY2024 and $4.261 billion at FY2025.6 Quarterly figures show a recovery since: $5.012 billion in Q1 2026 and $5.362 billion in Q2 2026.6 That is still below the $5.829 billion recorded in Q2 2023.6 Cash is a snapshot of a very large balance sheet, so it can move for many reasons, and the dossier does not say why it did. Robinhood is regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and Kalshi, which competes in prediction markets, by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.7
Where the sources disagree
For Robinhood's cash at September 30, 2025, one record reports $4.331 billion and another $4.3 billion, a gap of roughly $31 million.6 This looks like rounding, but the dossier does not say so. We use the SEC-filed, fidelity-checked $4.331 billion.6
Source reliability also differs. The Cboe-Robinhood announcement came through NewsEOD, whose claims held up 53% of the time across 6,376 checked.5 The Crunchbase News pieces held up 49% of the time across 41 checked.3 Neither is high. The Crunchbase sample is small, so treat that figure with caution. Funding amounts and investor quotes from these articles are reported, not verified against a filing.
The sceptic in the room
Norwest's Sean Jacobsohn is not selling the full-automation story. "You don't want AI doing calculations because it is not good at math," he said, adding that when precision is needed, "you can't rely on AI for that".8 He sees room in enterprise software, with limits: "I think it would be very hard to disrupt the core products of Workday, ADP, SAP, UKG and Dayforce. But it's easier to disrupt some of their secondary products."8 He also sees "a potential opportunity to disrupt NetSuite and Sage", with disruption coming first at the smaller end of the market.8 His reason is that CFOs buying their own software face one less layer of approval, so replacing it is a little easier.8 Whatever else you take from this, note that SAP and Sage appear in his examples, though our record gives no European context for either.
His own method is worth knowing. Before investing he goes on sales calls with the CEO to see how good they are at selling.8 He also keeps a "Failure Museum" of more than 1,500 items from failed companies and products.8
What to watch
- Whether Cboe's KPI contracts launch in October as planned, and whether the fee waiver survives regulatory review.45
- Whether Robinhood's cash balance keeps recovering from the $5.362 billion reported for Q2 2026.6
- How Octus is folded into LSEG's credit business. The terms were not disclosed in our record.1
- Any EU or national regulator statement on how AI agents prove they act for a real person or company. Our record contains none, so we are not predicting one.
Via News's analysis of the data suggests the evidence is stronger on money flowing in than on the products working. The checked numbers show a profitable broker. The agent-identity claims rest on founder statements and reported funding rounds.
