PayPal is looking towards the future, despite its falling stock and looming layoffs. In its first-quarter earnings call, CEO Enrique Lores told investors that PayPal needs to “recommit to the fundamentals,” which included “becoming a technology company again.” There was no need to read between the lines — PayPal was pitching an AI-powered turnaround. Lores explicitly said so, telling analysts on this week’s call that leading companies find ways to differentiate themselves by innovating, and that now is the time for PayPal to take action. This includes modernizing its tech platform, moving faster to become “cloud-native,” and “aggressively adopting AI in our development processes,” Lores said. The latter would increase developer productivity and shorten time to market, he added. It’s a startling admission from PayPal that it has yet to fully embrace AI in-house, when AI-assisted coding is one of the breakout areas where the technology has truly excelled.…