Global payments giant Visa has increased its commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) in commerce and settlements by setting up a new fund to invest in generative AI ventures.
Indeed, Visa on 2 October announced a new $100 million generative AI initiative to invest in companies focused on developing generative AI technologies and applications related to commerce and payments.
The investment will be put together by Visa's global corporate investment arm, Visa Ventures, which has been working to support innovation in payments and commerce since 2007.
Generative AI is a type of AI technology that can produce different types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. Major AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard demonstrate the capabilities of generative AI to understand and produce human-like texts. According to Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer, generative AI has a promising future in finance. He said:
"While so far much of generative AI has focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only change the way we live and work, but also change commerce in a meaningful way in ways we need to understand."
Visa's recent move into generative AI comes after considerable efforts to apply AI technology in the company's ecosystem. Indeed, Visa claims it was one of the first companies in the world to use AI in payments in 1993, deploying AI technology for risk and fraud management. By 2022, Visa's real-time fraud monitoring for payments, Visa Advanced Authorisation, reportedly helped prevent an estimated $27 billion in fraud.
In 2021, Visa also introduced VisaNet +AI, a suite of AI-based services aimed at resolving delays and confusion in managing account balances and other day-to-day settlement issues for financial institutions.
Some of the tools in the VisaNet +AI suite include Smarter Stand-In Processing, which aims to improve the payment experience during failures by mirroring issuer consent decisions. Other such products include Smarter Posting, which helps speed up the payment experience for consumers and reduce confusion caused by booking delays.
In addition to active investments in AI, Visa is also optimistic about using cryptocurrency technology in payments. In April 2021, Visa shared plans for a new crypto product designed to drive widespread adoption of public blockchain networks and stablecoin payments.
