GreyRhino newsletter Edition August 2026
Prime Story
Energy Pulse: Brazil’s Battery Boom Beyond the Auction
Here's the main takeaway:
Brazil’s long-awaited battery storage revolution is officially kicking off in 2026. While the April public tender marked a massive regulatory milestone, private B2B adoption—driven by falling CAPEX and local grid instability—is quietly driving the real market volume today.
The Regulatory Watershed: April 2026 Tender
The federal government’s planned battery auction in April represents a critical turning point for the National Interconnected System (SIN). Designed to smooth out peak consumption hours when solar generation drops off, the tender establishes a formal framework for utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).
Tender Guidelines at a Glance
Contract Structure: 10-year contracts with a power supply start date set for August 1, 2028.
Performance Specs: Systems must supply maximum capacity for 4 consecutive hours and fully recharge within 6 hours.
Market Sentiment: Final regulatory definitions from Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) are pending, but project developers are already spending hundreds of thousands of reais on site prep, backed by strong interest from financial institutions.
The Real Growth Engine: B2B Behind-the-Meter
Public auctions make headlines, but the Brazilian Association of Energy Storage Solutions (Absae) emphasizes that the battery market is fundamentally a business-to-business (B2B) ecosystem. Rapid drops in equipment CAPEX over the past two years have made storage financially viable in sectors that couldn't justify it in 2024.
Commercial & Industrial (C&I): Behind-the-meter systems used for peak shaving, demand management, and backup power.
Agribusiness Microgrids: Off-grid hybrid setups combining solar generation, BESS, and existing diesel generators to overcome grid gaps in remote locations.
Distributed Generation & Residential: On-site systems integrated with rooftop solar, home automation, and EV charging infrastructure.
Corporate Realities: Weg & Off-Grid Autonomy
Brazilian multinational Weg isn't waiting around for Aneel's final auction rules. Recognizing that power reliability is a pressing operational pain point for Brazilian businesses, Weg is aggressively deploying private BESS solutions to build a proven track record ahead of the tender.
"In the US, grid independence is largely driven by data centers. In Brazil, it's propelled by an unstable grid and off-grid agribusiness needs."
Concrete proofs of concept are already going live. Last year, the federal government awarded its first hybrid project for isolated grid areas in Jacareacanga, Pará—a deployment pairing 30 MW of battery storage with 18 MW of solar generation.
generated by OneBizTutor®, iMB.Solutions Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 4th, 2026
Despite remaining regulatory details, BESS has transitioned from an experimental technology to an essential pillar of Brazil's energy transition strategy.
Disclaimer
For many years, we have consistently undertaken project assignments in the Brazilian energy market. Since 2025, we have been working on a greenfield project for a European company specializing in energy infrastructure, engineering, and control technology.
The LatAm Story
Brazil – a Global Benchmark for Payment Systems
Here's the takeaway:
Brazil is no longer just adapting to global fintech trends—it's actively inventing them.
Driven by the explosive scale of Pix—boasting 172 million individual users—and a consumer base uniquely eager to test new digital tools, the country has turned into the primary global sandbox for major payment networks. Both Visa and Mastercard have selected Brazil as their regional hub to pilot cutting-edge products before rolling them out globally.
Beyond the Card: Visa Conecta and Pix Integration
Visa launched Visa Conecta as a standalone initiative to build digital payment solutions tailored directly to Brazil's evolving ecosystem. Initially focused on Pix-related features such as biometrics and contactless instant payments, the venture marks a broader strategic pivot beyond traditional credit and debit cards.
As local regulatory frameworks mature, Visa Conecta is expanding into Pix Automático (recurring payments), Pix Inteligente (smart routing), stablecoin integration, and foreign exchange services. Global industry partners routinely study Brazil’s Open Finance architecture and Pix integration to stay ahead of trends heading for their home markets. Two main drivers explain this dynamic: a forward-thinking Central Bank and a consumer base quick to adopt frictionless tech.
Agentic Payments and Passwordless Checkout
Mastercard has similarly treated Brazil as its key innovation laboratory, debuting four major global solutions in the country first. These include Passkey, which eliminates passwords and one-time codes during online checkouts.
The company's primary focus now centers on agentic commerce via its Agent Pay framework. Under this model, artificial intelligence agents manage the complete purchase journey—from product recommendations down to final checkout—executing transactions via voice commands. Early testing launched in late 2025 with retail giant Magazine Luiza through its AI virtual assistant, "Lu".
generated by OneBizTutor®, iMB.Solutions Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 4th, 2026
AI Fraud Prevention and the $20 Billion Opportunity
Security innovations are scaling alongside user-facing features. Visa leveraged Brazil’s high-volume Pix environment to test Protect, an AI-driven anti-fraud engine. Implemented across partners accounting for over 20% of all Pix transactions, the tool was highlighted by Visa's global leadership as a prime benchmark for real-time risk modeling.
For legacy payment networks, these moves represent a crucial diversification strategy. As traditional card models face margin pressure, expanding into value-added services—such as AI commerce protocols, biometric authentication, and cross-rail security—opens up an estimated $20 billion revenue opportunity worldwide.
Disclaimer
For several years, we have been actively engaged in projects with Brazilian retailers and shops, helping to define or transform their business models toward digital approaches. The conditions described in this article reflect the current situation and the experiences we have encountered in these projects. The landscape is highly volatile and can shift rapidly due to technical and geopolitical factors.
Market Monocle: Oversupply, Leverage, and the TotalPass Engine in Brazil's Gym Market
Here's the main takeaway:
Brazil's fitness sector is entering a period of consolidation as oversupply and high leverage squeeze weaker operators. However, industry leader SmartFit is turning market friction into a high-margin growth flywheel through its corporate aggregator platform, TotalPass.
The Oversupply Squeeze: Debt and Platform Competition
A rapid surge in fitness participation, regional expansion, and aggregator adoption led to rapid growth across Brazil. That expansion is now creating market friction:
High Debt Burden: Fast growth attracted highly leveraged operators with fragile capital structures who are struggling in today's more competitive environment.
Democratized Access: Opening gyms in previously underserved regions alongside aggregator platforms expanded the total addressable market at lower price points.
Better Payouts for Gyms: Intense competition among aggregator platforms—boosted by TotalPass—has prevented a drop in aggregator pricing and improved payout terms for partner gyms.
SmartFit & TotalPass: Insulation Through Diversification
SmartFit remains largely insulated from local market downturns due to its geographic footprint across Latin America and its dual-track business model. In fact, tighter market conditions for independent gyms often drive more partners into the TotalPass network to secure user volume.
Operational Momentum Highlight
Net Revenue: Reached R$ 2.1 billion (up 25% year-over-year), driven by customer growth, network expansion, and higher average ticket prices.
Direct B2C Customer Base: Ended the quarter with 5.6 million members across owned gyms (up 6% YoY, excluding TotalPass), plus a 13% increase in digital subscribers.
Partner Network: Surpassed 34,000 partner gyms in Brazil.
TotalPass: The Asset-Light Growth Lever
While higher aggregator penetration raises short-term investor questions around average ticket sizes and gym-level margins, TotalPass has established itself as an asset-light profit engine for SmartFit.
generated by OneBizTutor®, iMB.Solutions Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 4th, 2026
SmartFit continues to pay higher payouts to partner gyms than competitors, supported by lower operating costs and a lean corporate structure. Rather than cannibalizing direct retail subscriptions, TotalPass provides an asset-light corporate distribution channel that dilutes corporate overhead while expanding SmartFit's overall market share.
Disclaimer
Over the past few years, we have repeatedly supported fitness chains through project-based engagements aimed at better aligning internal processes and structures with customer requirements and strengthening their cost structures. The situation described in this newsletter article reflects the current state of an ongoing project. The conditions outlined here cannot be applied to other cases and are subject to significant change due to dynamic market developments.
Generative AI Tools in Project Missions
Step into the AI Arsenal: the cutting-edge generative tools we deploy in client projects, internal operations, and partner collaborations—tested, trusted, and ready for battle.
Innovation Briefing: Is Affint.ai the Game-Changer we needed for project execution?
Here's our take: Affint.ai isn't just another flashy LLM wrapper—it is a purpose-built AI Office Suite designed to solve the single biggest tax on management consulting and IT solutions: data fragmentation. By stitching together 200+ business tools into a unified, agent-driven workspace, Affint allows teams to generate client-ready deliverables in minutes instead of days.
For iMB.Solutions, it offers a direct pathway to reclaiming billable hours and accelerating project delivery, provided we navigate its pricing structure and data privacy boundaries strategically.
click on image above and access Affint webpage
What is Affint?
Affint positions itself as an automated replacement for traditional office suites like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. Instead of forcing team members to manually copy-paste data between CRMs, cloud drives, project trackers, and slide decks, Affint acts as a central neural network across your enterprise tech stack.
Powered by collaborative multi-agent workflows, Affint connects directly to business software (supporting 200+ tools and 3,000+ integrations) to pull live data, execute complex research, and autonomously generate formatted spreadsheets, strategic documents, and branded slide decks.
The Audit: Pros vs. Cons
created by iMB.Solutions Ltda., Jul. 28, 2026, 03:57 PM, São Paulo, Brazil
Operationalizing Affint for iMB.Solutions Project Missions
To maximize return on investment across client missions, iMB.Solutions can deploy Affint across four high-leverage workflows:
Automated Client Reporting & Status Decks
Instead of consultants spending Friday afternoons aggregating metrics from client systems, Affint’s Workflow Studio can run on scheduled triggers. The platform pulls live project KPIs, populates them into iMB’s branded presentation templates, and outputs executive-ready status decks automatically.
Rapid Proposal & Pitch Generation
When bidding on new project missions, Affint can parse raw client briefs alongside iMB’s internal repository of past case studies, team CVs, and methodology frameworks to draft tailor-made pitch decks and scope-of-work documents in minutes.
Client Onboarding & Data Synthesis
When consultants enter messy client environments with information scattered across legacy drives, Affint can ingest those disjointed datasets and instantly output structured onboarding roadmaps, risk logs, and technical summaries on day one.
Multi-Agent Administrative Offloading
By connecting calendars, transcript tools, and project management apps, Affint agents can autonomously summarize stakeholder calls, update project spreadsheets, and draft client follow-up emails immediately after meetings wrap up.
The Playbook: How iMB.Solutions Should Deploy
To balance operational speed with risk mitigation, iMB.Solutions should avoid an immediate blanket enterprise rollout in favor of a staged deployment:
Phase 1 (Internal Pilot): Onboard a single mission team on the Basic plan ($20/month) using non-sensitive internal data to test output quality and workflow building speeds.
Phase 2 (ROI Analysis): Measure the billable hours saved on manual report creation against the team's credit consumption rate.
Phase 3 (Enterprise Onboarding): Before exposing client-confidential data or enterprise client stacks, transition to Affint's Enterprise plan to secure private hosting, custom AI models, and dedicated compliance SLAs.
Here is our final verdict on Affint.ai:
Affint.ai is a high-yield force multiplier for consulting and project management teams, provided it is deployed as an automated execution layer rather than a replacement for strategic oversight.
For us, the platform effectively solves the "data-aggregation tax"—eliminating the dozens of billable hours interim managers and consultants lose every month manually extracting metrics from Jira, Salesforce, and cloud drives into client presentations.
generated by OneBizTutor®, iMB.Solutions Ltda., Jul. 29, 2026, 12:58PM, São Paulo, Brazil
The Verdict Breakdown
Where Affint.ai Wins
Unrivaled Delivery Speed: The ability to connect 20+ internal tools in under five minutes and generate executive-ready, brand-compliant decks and sheets in real time provides an immediate competitive advantage during client missions and proposal pushes.
Autonomous Multi-Agent Workflows: Unlike basic chat interfaces, Affint’s scheduled triggers allow AI agents to handle routine administrative loops (post-meeting summaries, weekly KPI tracking, client follow-ups) completely hands-free.
Contextual Data Synthesis: By ingesting disjointed datasets across fragmented drives, Affint dramatically reduces client onboarding time from weeks to days.
Where Caution Is Required
Credit Economics: The platform’s credit-consumption model requires strict usage monitoring. High-volume deck generation and deep research tasks can rapidly exhaust basic tier quotas (~55 credits per slide deck).
Governance and Data Boundaries: Giving multi-agent systems broad API access across an entire corporate tech stack introduces compliance risks. Client-confidential data must not enter public or non-enterprise environments without strict data-protection SLAs.
Formatting Limitations on Complex Models: While standard slides and sheets export cleanly, complex custom financial models and nuanced client formatting still require a final human QA pass.
Final Recommendation
Adopt Affint.ai, but do it in a phased rollout.
Immediate Action: Onboard a single project team on the Basic tier ($20/month) to run a 14-day internal trial focused strictly on non-sensitive workflows (e.g., internal status reports and proposal drafting).
Scale Condition: If the trial yields measurable time savings on manual documentation, upgrade to an Enterprise plan before connecting live client stacks to secure private data hosting, custom compliance SLAs, and dedicated credit pools.
generated by OneBizTutor®, iMB.Solutions Ltda., Jul. 29, 2026, 1:49PM, São Paulo, Brazil
Disclaimer
In preparing this newsletter/blog/audio blog/podcast/video, we used the following AI-based tools: OneBizTutor®, our agentic AI platform applied within our project missions. Google Gemini Notebook Pro, to review and scan source materials and support the identification of relevant literature. Grammarly Pro, for language and grammar correction, and stylistic guidance on sentence clarity. Claude (Sonnet 4.5), Anthropic, for brainstorming ideas, formulating clear phrasing concepts we had already developed, structuring sections and arguments, and iterative editing support during the drafting and revision process. None of these generated the content of this newsletter and/or blog. The research question, the design and conduct of project missions and relevant market research for clients, the data collection, the analysis, and the interpretation of findings are our own independent work. Where AI tools were used for language or formulation support, the underlying ideas and arguments originated from us. All AI-assisted text was critically reviewed, verified, and edited before inclusion.—iMB.Solutions Ltda., São Paulo, Brazil (2026)
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