Visa has emerged as the clear leader in the artificial intelligence race within the global payments industry, according to a new index from analytics firm Evident. The ranking, which evaluates 12 major payments companies on criteria like talent, innovation, and leadership, places Visa at the top, followed by Mastercard and PayPal. Notably, fintech giants Stripe and Block rank fifth and sixth, demonstrating that newer players have rapidly built significant AI capabilities. The report highlights that the top three companies—Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal—are responsible for more than half of the nearly 100 AI use cases documented over the past two years, with a strong focus on fraud detection and cybersecurity.
A critical finding of the index is a widespread lack of transparency regarding the return on investment (ROI) from AI initiatives. Unlike the banking sector, where 10 of the 50 institutions tracked by Evident disclose AI ROI figures, none of the 12 payments companies have published achieved or projected returns across their entire AI portfolio. Evident’s leadership notes this absence is becoming „increasingly conspicuous” and warns that the market will eventually demand clearer evidence of value to justify the substantial investments being made.
Talent acquisition is a primary driver of the rankings, with payments firms aggressively staffing up. The industry employs 30% more AI-focused workers than other financial institutions, despite having smaller overall workforces. Among the ranked companies, an average of 6.5% of employees are dedicated to AI—the highest concentration Evident has found across the sectors it tracks. PayPal leads in sheer numbers, accounting for 18% of the AI talent in the index with over 4,000 AI workers, while Stripe and Block also stand out, with AI specialists making up more than 10% of their respective staffs.
Looking ahead, the competitive landscape is set to evolve from using AI as a defensive tool for fraud prevention to leveraging it for strategic advantage through „agentic” AI capabilities—a trend hinted at by several top firms. The index concludes that the companies which moved fastest on AI are now the furthest advanced, and the next major competitive milestone may be financial transparency: the first firm to publish comprehensive AI ROI measures will establish itself as a new kind of first-mover. The full ranking is as follows: 1. Visa, 2. Mastercard, 3. PayPal, 4. American Express, 5. Stripe, 6. Block, 7. Fiserv, 8. Global Payments, 9. Adyen, 10. FIS, 11. Nuvei, 12. ACI Worldwide.
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Forrás: https://www.businessinsider.com/evident-ai-ranking-payments-index-visa-mastercard-paypal-2026-2.