AI has moved from breakthrough to market shock in weeks. A handful of striking LLM demonstrations, including auto‑built workflows and instant CRM modules, sent investors scrambling to redraw the software landscape. But one misconception dominated the reaction: the assumption that all software faces the same existential threat.
It doesn’t.
Workflow applications may be exposed to rapid automation, but mission‑critical payments infrastructure operates under entirely different “physics”. These systems are strengthened, not replaced, by AI. As AI becomes a force multiplier, payments engines are becoming faster, smarter and more resilient than ever. Understanding that difference will define the next decade of winners.
The Week the Market Forgot the Difference
Recent headlines suggested that if LLMs can assemble functional modules in minutes, then all software is now at risk. But that conclusion was incomplete. Workflow systems, built on predictable handoffs and repeatable tasks, are indeed highly susceptible to LLM acceleration and replacement. The systems that move money, however, run in an environment where ambiguity is a liability.
Authorization engines, settlement networks and compliance frameworks depend on deterministic logic, strict auditability, uptime guarantees and regulatory scrutiny. AI may reshape parts of the software landscape, but it is reinforcing – not erasing – the need for resilient payments infrastructure.
AI is not a universal solvent, it accelerates some categories and fortifies others
Three misconceptions drove recent market overreactions:
- Exposure to AI is not uniform
LLMs excel at transforming unstructured inputs into structured outputs, putting workflow-heavy applications directly in their path. Deterministic systems, by contrast, require rules-based outcomes, explainable logic and provable results, attributes incompatible with probabilistic inference at their core. LLMs have only marginal impact in this category. - Second, the assumption that ‘data is data’ oversimplifies reality
Proprietary datasets can be copied; network-level insight cannot. Payments networks spanning issuers, acquirers, merchants and financial institutions generate dynamic, real‑time context that compounds value with scale. - Payments processors are not just software vendors
Processing is an operational discipline: improving authorization rates, ensuring settlement accuracy, maintaining scheme compliance and resolving disputes. AI can optimize these functions, but it cannot replace the infrastructure that enables them.
Where AI Compresses and Where It Builds
A simple rule explains the divergence:
When software exists to orchestrate workflows, AI compresses it. When it exists to enforce trust at scale, AI augments it.
Payments infrastructure benefits disproportionately from AI. Machine learning improves prediction and prioritization, agentic systems speed exception handling, and intelligent automation reduces latency and error rates. Yet the core remains deterministic, governed and auditable.
The Moats That Still Matter
Four advantages will separate resilient players from vulnerable ones:
- Mission‑critical infrastructure built on determinism, resilience, compliance, and trust
- Deep domain expertise, decades of scheme rules, regulations, compliance, and risk thresholds cannot be ‘retrained’ overnight
- Network‑based data access. dynamic, real‑time insights that strengthen with each additional node.
- Deterministic architecture. predictable, provable logic augmented (not replaced) by AI models
Proof, Not Promises
AI is already improving outcomes at ACI. Wire repair automation now reduces a process that previously took up to 40 minutes to under two minutes. Transaction enhancement resolves issues before processing, increasing straight‑through processing and reducing failures. Fraud decisioning is more adaptive, catching more fraud with fewer false positives while maintaining explainability.
Inside ACI, AI development squads accelerate engineering velocity; drafting tests, refining code and generating documentation under human oversight. The result: more output, higher quality, faster execution.
The Road Ahead
History shows that technology evolves industries; it doesn’t erase them. Payments will follow the same path: more productivity, better decisions and safer flows, anchored in infrastructure that must remain deterministic, reliable and trusted.
Software isn’t dying. It’s compounding. AI isn’t replacing the systems that move money; it’s empowering the resilient, intelligent infrastructure the world depends on.
