Why AI Fortune Favors the Brave

As payments innovation continues to develop, companies willing to take calculated risks and adopt an experimental mindset may be the ones leading the charge.

Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to artificial intelligence.

“This is an unprecedented time in history,” WEX Chief Digital Officer Karen Stroup told PYMNTS during a discussion for the What’s Next in Payments Series “The Rise of Digital Labor: Exploring Agentic AI in Banking and FinTech.” “The technology is evolving every six months. In general, organizations change on five- or six-year cycles. And so, the technology is outpacing us.”

While AI has been evolving for decades, the latest development — agentic AI — looks poised to shape the future of payments and financial services in new ways.

“For me, the way that I think about [agentic AI] simply is: It’s going beyond automation and taking it to the next step,” Stroup said. “There are two things that are key in agentic AI solutions. The first is the ability to reason and decision. That means that it can take in new information, it can learn, it can adapt, and most importantly, it can make a decision. And the second is it can take action.”

These capabilities are what make agentic AI “game changing,” she said.

As agentic AI solutions continue to evolve, Stroup said she envisions even further breakthroughs in efficiency and innovation. The rapid technological advancement is reminiscent of the early days of the internet — an era marked by curiosity, experimentation and opportunity.

For its part, WEX, a leader in financial technology solutions, has approached agentic AI through careful experimentation. Stroup described the company’s strategy as starting with strong data governance policies before diving into testing new technologies, and then iterating while experimenting.

“Before we started experimenting, before we really started getting any traction, we partnered with our legal team, our risk and compliance team, and external third parties and said, ‘Hey, what would make this safe from a compliance perspective?’ Because we’re the stewards of our customers’ data, we take that really, really seriously,” Stroup said.

WEX’s experimental approach includes exploring agentic AI in various domains, such as compliance and customer service. One example Stroup highlighted was the automation of payment processes for suppliers — a friction point previously managed by scripts.

“We said, ‘Well, this is a really manual process, but we know that there’s a good payoff,’” she recalled. “We’re using AI to go in there, one, to onboard new suppliers quickly, which is great for everyone involved. And two, to use AI to do the routing instead of an older RPA process.”

Still, implementing new technologies is not without cost, and businesses must weigh the benefits against the investment required. This is another area where experimentation can shine.

“I think about it in terms of cost-benefit,” she said. “If you’re going to experiment with agentic AI or any type of AI solutions, you want to focus on two things. One is the areas where you’re most likely to have success. And two, is there going to be a good return on that investment?”

Trust, too, remains a foundational concern when deploying agentic AI in financial services. WEX’s strategy involves starting small, testing in controlled environments, and continually verifying AI models against known benchmarks.

“Trust is earned through transparency, traceability, explainability and through real-world validation,” Stroup said.

“If you look at the assumptions, then you can trust the output,” she added. “And I think the same is true in building confidence in AI.”

Read also: WEX Sees Embedded Experiences Impacting Supply Chains

Stroup said she is excited about the potential of agentic AI to transform how WEX and other companies approach problem-solving. The technology is not just about automating processes but about empowering teams to work smarter and more effectively.

“WEX’s long history in deeply understanding our customers’ problems and payments — and the expertise and everything around payments — enables us to experiment quickly,” she said. “We can say, ‘Hey, what if we X, Y and Z?’ And then you can create an experiment designed for that.”

For WEX, embracing an experimental mindset to AI innovation is paying off. The company’s innovative AI-driven solution for automating supplier payments has not only improved customer experience but also boosted revenue.

“What is incredibly exciting to me and to WEX right now is we have new opportunities to solve problems in new ways,” Stroup said. “And the best way we’re going to unlock that is by experimenting and learning through safe, secure, but frequent iterations to see what’s possible.”

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