Agentic AI and efficiency drive recent artificial intelligence developments
Recent AI developments in the cross-border payments space show how the technology is continuing to drive efficiency and enhance payments for customers, particularly in agentic AI – a form of AI where autonomous programs can execute processes without human involvement. Below, we explore some key moves in the space.
AI is moving beyond the realms of customer chatbots and into autonomous transactions made on behalf of customers. This week, Google announced it was launching Agents Payments Protocol, an open shared standard it has developed alongside major payments partners (including Mastercard, PayPal, Adyen and Coinbase) to enable secure transactions initiated by AI agents.
It follows earlier developments from Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, all of which have announced tools that let developers connect AI-powered shopping assistants to their networks, allowing AI to find, recommend and even purchase items on behalf of shoppers. For now, the main agentic AI developments are in ecommerce, with companies such as Stripe, eBay, Amazon and Alipay also making strides in this area, though this could also extend to B2B transactions and maintaining payments infrastructure.
Elsewhere, companies are embedding AI into their platforms to serve new and improved solutions to clients. Stripe has launched what it called the world’s first AI foundation model for payments, trained on tens of billions of transactions to detect fraud and “unlock additional performance improvements”. Back in February, the company attributed a big part of its recent $91bn valuation to AI investments that had increased revenue for customers and encouraged businesses to switch to Stripe.
In the money transfers space, companies are talking more about the technology and its benefits. Earlier this year, Western Union announced a partnership with tech provider HCLTech to transition to an AI-led platform operating model, helping Western Union improve its customer experience. Elsewhere, Remitly’s AI-powered virtual support assistant is improving the “efficiency and velocity” of delivery to customers, CEO Matt Oppenheimer told us in a recent interview.
Developments underscore that AI is changing how payments companies interact and engage with customers, but also making them much more efficient, with other CEOs confirming this to us. Rapyd’s Arik Shtilman told us that around 95% of the company’s compliance and risk ops work is performed by AI, which is also helping them to onboard clients significantly faster. Separately, Payoneer is driving productivity with the technology, as well as looking at ways it can predict how customers behave and what products and services to cross-sell them before they churn.
Having said this, there have been some cases in the wider payments industry showing a need for restraint. Klarna’s CEO told Reuters this month that the company has begun to “course correct” with a rehiring drive after significantly cutting its workforce to use AI in its marketing campaigns and customer support.
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