Splitit CEO: Payment Firms Must Build 'Agent-Ready' Infrastructure to Survive AI Shift
Nandan Sheth warns that traditional payment flows create friction that will cause AI agents to fail during checkout.
The fintech industry is facing a structural crossroads as AI evolves from simple chatbots to autonomous agents capable of executing commerce. Splitit CEO Nandan Sheth argues that payment firms must fundamentally rethink their operational models to become "agent-ready," rather than simply layering AI tools onto legacy systems.
According to Sheth, the primary obstacle to AI-driven commerce is the persistence of traditional payment flows. Many current systems, including standard Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) models, rely heavily on human intervention, such as requiring a user to manually fill out credit applications during the checkout process. Sheth notes that these human-in-the-loop requirements cause AI agents to fail when attempting to complete transactions autonomously.
The Shift to Agentic Commerce
Most current AI adoption in fintech has been superficial, focusing on basic automation and customer service interfaces. However, the industry is moving toward a model of "agentic commerce," where AI agents handle the entire purchasing journey on behalf of the consumer. For this to work, the underlying financial plumbing must be capable of processing transactions without requiring a human to intervene at the point of sale.
To solve this, Sheth advocates for a structural shift toward card-linked installments. By utilizing existing card infrastructure, payment providers can remove the friction of separate applications and manual approvals, ensuring that an AI agent can finalize a transaction seamlessly. This approach transforms the payment process from a manual hurdle into a background utility.
The Risk of Technical Debt
This transition is critical because firms that merely integrate AI tools into old architectures risk hitting a "technical debt" ceiling. Without a foundation built for autonomy, companies will remain limited to superficial AI tasks. The consequence is a failure to achieve true intelligent financial orchestration, leaving them unable to compete in a market where speed and autonomy are the primary drivers of user experience.
What's Next for Fintech
As the industry moves toward this agent-ready enterprise model, the focus will likely shift from user-facing AI interfaces to back-end API efficiency and autonomous verification. The key metric for success will no longer be how well a chatbot interacts with a human, but how effectively a payment system can interact with another machine. Whether the broader payment ecosystem will pivot quickly enough to support this autonomous shift remains to be seen.