Despite Concerns Over Fraudulent Use by AI, Encouraging Signs Point to Its Beneficial Role
Despite concerns about bad actors using artificial intelligence to perpetrate fraud, there are encouraging signs that AI is helping organizations combat it.
According to an FIS survey of business and tech leaders, 78% of respondents stated that AI has improved their company’s fraud detection and risk management strategies. Nearly half indicated that as a result, their organization intends to increase investment in AI over the next two years.
Perhaps more significantly, many companies are entrusting AI with complex tasks. About 56% of respondents reported that their organizations are either scaling or fully implementing AI to support financial processes.
Firdaus Bhathena, Chief Technology Officer at FIS, opined that this trend signifies a shift from acknowledging the value of AI to embedding it into the daily operations of businesses.
The Agentic Boom
The largest financial services firms have made substantial progress in integrating AI, evident through the recent surge in agentic commerce.
Mastercard and Visa introduced new platforms that transform AI agents into autonomous shopping bots capable of searching for items and making payments with minimal customer interaction.
Additionally, PayPal has embedded payment functionalities directly within Perplexity’s chat interface, allowing users to purchase products or services directly after interacting with an AI agent.
Removing the Barriers
Amid these advancements, fraud remains a persistent threat. Criminals possess a greater understanding of the technology and can deploy it across various use cases without being hindered by regulations that typically restrict businesses.
The FIS report highlighted several obstacles to wider AI adoption. Among the primary concerns for business leaders was the high cost of implementing and maintaining AI systems. The next most cited challenges involved a lack of in-house expertise and difficulties integrating new technology with existing infrastructure.
Until these issues are resolved, bad actors will continue to have an advantage.