I will discuss theory predictions for exclusive b->s ll decays within the SM and beyond, with emphasis on the hadronic matrix elements. There are two categories of these matrix elements: local form factors, and nonlocal contributions arising from e.g. four-quark operators. I will report the status and report recent progress from QCD-based methods on the non-local hadronic matrix elements arising from intermediate charm states. A particular focus will be a recent derivation of a dispersive bound on the non-local matrix element as discussed in arXiv:2011.09813.