Artificial Intelligence and payments, the future of retail according to Adyen

Gabriele Bellezze, Country Manager Italy of Adyen, discusses in this interview the great transformations of the digital payments and retail sector, starting from the new market dynamics and the impact of artificial intelligence. Technological evolution requires players in the sector to constantly rethink infrastructures to guarantee rapid, secure and perfectly integrated transactions, keeping the relationship between merchant and consumer at the centre. The discussion delves in particular into the delicate balance between automation and security, highlighting how the ability to track and understand purchasing intentions has become the real differentiator for the success of companies in today’s digital landscape.

Gabriele Bellezze, Country Manager Italy of Adyen

How has Adyen distinguished itself in the payments market thanks to its proprietary technology and what are the recent strategic innovations to support merchants in the upper funnel and in the era of artificial intelligence?

“Adyen has distinguished itself in the world of payments because it has built an entirely proprietary technology stack. When we talk about core payments we have an end-to-end infrastructure in which we control the gateway, which is the moment where we collect the payment, up to all the steps that this data must satisfy to have a clean and fast transaction, such as the risk engine. We have made two acquisitions in the last two or three months, an absolute novelty for us, moving towards the top of the funnel. As regards revenue optimization, we have acquired Talon.One, a loyalty engine that combines our shopper recognition and payment capabilities with the loyalty engine’s ability to make real-time decisions at the moment of the card. We also acquired Orb, a billing platform designed for AI, because we imagine a world in which agent-driven e-commerce will lead to billing and invoicing needs that are much more complex than today. With these two tools we want to expand the payment capabilities to provide concrete answers to our merchants, helping them not only to optimize payments but also to manage them. the upper funnel, focusing on our roadmap to meet their needs.”

Your report shows that 43% of Italian consumers say they are ready to delegate the entire purchasing process to artificial intelligence. What do you believe is the most complex technological challenge Adyen faces in ensuring the final transaction remains secure, transparent and frictionless for the user?

“The payment itself, from a technical point of view, is very simple, similar to many tokenized transactions that we already see today. The real challenge, especially when talking about e-commerce agents, is ensuring that that token truly reflects the intent of the consumer. Three main elements must be verified: who is purchasing, on behalf of who is doing so, and within what authorized spending budget limits. This requires an infrastructure capable of managing identities, permissions, context and risk in real time. Knowing the digital footprint and the mandate given to the agent allows you to make the transaction smooth and secure. Friction must be minimal because the agent is hyper-rational: where he sees a gap he stops and moves on to a competitor. Merchants will have to welcome e-commerce agents without treating them as a threat, and the system will reward those who know how to manage these flows by verifying that they are legitimate and that there is a legitimate human behind them and not a fraudster.”

Also in the report, 37% of retailers fear losing the direct relationship with the customer by delegating purchasing to independent agents. Ultimately, though, your system’s focus is always on the ultimate customer who delegated the agent, correct?

“Correct, with some caveats. The effort of merchants has always been to build sales channels and unified commerce technology stacks so as not to lose the relationship with the consumer, whether online or in store, thus building loyalty. With the arrival of the e-commerce agent, the biggest risk is disintermediation: the checkout no longer takes place on the merchant’s online platform, but within tools such as ChatGPT or Claude. This may cause the data to not be directly reconcilable with the vendor’s CRM systems. As a payments player we move to operate as a transactional layer capable of always reconciling the identity of the shopper on behalf of the merchant. Operating on a global scale with coverage between 96% and 98% of transactions, we know who gave the mandate to that transaction and we can return the information to the merchant by integrating it into their CRM tools. The acquisition of Talo One serves precisely to pass that identity within the merchant’s loyalty systems, preserving the relationship with the shopper regardless of the channel used.”

Risk and reimbursement management emerges strongly among consumers’ priorities, with 38% indicating this as an essential condition for trusting an AI personal shopper. Is there already an architectural vision for how AI can manage these operations without turning into a logistical nightmare for the retailer?

“It is an exercise and a system responsibility. The ecosystem is sitting down with schemes, PSPs like us (Payment Service Providers), banks and regulators to define clear protocols on the responsibilities and rights of merchants and shoppers. For us it is essential to maintain very high traceability, ensuring safety and minimizing errors, model hallucinations or incorrect prompts. Recognizing the identity and behavioral history of the consumer allows us to provide elements of certainty to the merchant. Furthermore, technology must clearly define responsibilities in the event of disputes, establishing through new regulatory infrastructures who takes responsibility (liability shift), exactly as happens today for the use of cards and PINs.

Adyen has stood out in the world of payments because it has built an entirely proprietary technology stack. When we talk about core payments we have an end-to-end infrastructure where we control the gateway, which is the moment we collect the payment, up to all the steps that this data must satisfy to have a clean and fast transaction, such as the risk engine.

We’ve made two acquisitions in the last two or three months, a first for us, moving up the funnel. Regarding revenue optimization, we have acquired Talo One, a loyalty engine that combines our shopper recognition and payment capabilities with the loyalty engine’s ability to make real-time decisions at the moment of the card. We also acquired Orb, an AI-enabled billing platform, as we envision a world where agent-driven e-commerce leads to much more complex billing and invoicing needs than today. With these two tools we want to expand payment capabilities to provide concrete answers to our merchants, helping them not only to optimize payments but also to manage the upper funnel, focusing on our roadmap to respond to their needs.”

Is your role then also to define new accountability protocols and ensure that they protect both sellers and consumers in the event of erroneous transactions made by machines?

“Basically yes, operating on different levels. We have an acceptance role towards the merchant, integrating with the AI ​​platforms of Anthropic or others to relieve the seller of the cost of connecting directly to each new sales channel. Furthermore, we manage a transaction that moves with new dynamics, offering technology that allows everyone to operate with visibility and security. When technology reconciles identity and responsibility, the merchant trusts us with peace of mind.”

Considering that 41% of Italian retailers consider the e-commerce agent a strategic priority for next year, which product sectors will adopt this technology first and which will remain more linked to a human-centric experience?

“The first to embrace this opportunity will be the product categories of recurring and low-risk purchases, with as few nuances as possible and highly rational, such as personal care products or repetitive consumer goods. Another rapidly adopting field will be highly digitalised sectors, such as Online Travel Agencies, where search efficiency and the definition of clear parameters facilitate automation. In a subsequent phase we will instead place the sectors with a high experiential component, such as luxury, where the consumer seeks the so-called selling ceremony, physical contact with the product and a strong emotional component that requires a human-centric experience.”

Given that 48% of consumers are not yet ready to delegate for fear of losing control, how important is it in payment design to maintain a threshold of human intervention, the Human-in-the-loop, compared to total automation?

“At this stage it is essential to build trust and test the model. We foresee an evolution in three phases: the first is Human-in-the-loop, in which the user converses with an LLM, evaluates the options and manually presses the button to start the transaction. The second phase will see the autonomous agent operate according to defined limits, with a final confirmation from the user. The third phase will be machine-to-machine purchasing, an advanced maturation in which agents will negotiate directly with each other at very high speeds, opening up revolutions in B2B relationships or in products with high price sensitivity. As the technology proves to work with little risk, delegation will increase, following a path similar to that experienced in the early days of e-commerce with Amazon.”

When the digital entity acts on behalf of the user, we will be faced with the problem of data security. How will the approach to fraud protection change when the end user no longer authorizes the payment directly?

“Fraud protection will need to move from a model centered only on the checkout point to one based on the context of the entire transaction. It is no longer enough to verify the card or payment method, but it is necessary to ensure that the agent’s behavior is consistent with the customer’s profile, with the authorized limits and with the history of interactions. Players who are able to track the digital identity of the shopper and understand their purchasing behavior beyond the single touchpoint will make the difference, offering merchants the tools necessary to operate safely. As regards the recognition of the digital agent, on the one hand we will respond to standardized protocols with clear and evident mandates, on the other we will use advanced technologies capable of going beyond the basic rules to interpret the behavioral pattern of the person who generated the mandate, thus offering total protection to the merchant who must authorize the shipment.”