Square

Square shows up in both notes as Block's merchant-facing surface, the place where decisions taken elsewhere become visible to shopkeepers. Payments Dive reported on 6 August 2026 that Block had deployed several AI tools to its customers without settling on how to bill them. Jack Dorsey told analysts the company was in "a fortunate position where we can experiment with a number of models", and the consultation runs through Square merchants, who are being asked what they need. Managerbot, the agent pointed at them, handles automated marketing and margin analysis. No dollar of AI has yet been invoiced to customers.

The same brief records Square entering Google Maps with a conversational experience for discovering a restaurant and placing an order by asking questions, described as the "first step of a broader partnership" with Google. What the rest of that partnership contains is not stated.

The second appearance is rhetorical. An unsigned post on Block's corporate blog, published 18 August 2026, announces the opening of Berd's source code and places its design thesis, giving agents distinct visual identities, in the lineage of Square and Cash App: bringing design to a category that had none. Square works there as precedent, an argument that Block has done this before.

So Square carries Block's AI to merchants and, within the same fortnight, serves as the historical proof cited when Block defends a design bet. The price of the first is still undecided.