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A report from a little known firm called Tatrini Research sent shockwaves across multiple sectors this week, outlining scenarios in which AI agents remove all friction in the economy. Among the scenarios, AI agents seek to save users by eliminating transaction fees charged by payment processing firms like MasterCard and Visa. Let's get insight on how one executive is navigating potential risks from AI. Sephanie Feris joins us at the desk. She CEO of Fis, a fintech that helps banks, merchants,
and capital market firms process payments globally. Stephanie, so great to have you for It's been a very fun week for you two with everything.
That's going on.
And look, of course your revenues don't come from interchange fees directly, but of course a lot.
Of your customers grapple with this.
How were you thinking about the likelihood that this could be the future that the payments world and processing were and interchange fees completely gets disrupted by AI.
Well, it's a great question and it's certainly to hot topic of the day. Pulling way out I think if we think about FIS, we're the largest financial technology firm that serves financial services broadly, we see more money that goes across our entire money life cycle. We support like twelve percent of the world's economy uses our technology, so we have a great purview in terms of what's happening.
I think the other thing to note that's important as we tackle this question is why we're so excited about twenty twenty six and beyond and so optimistic And I'll bring it back to AI. But financial services in itself is growth on. We are really seeing a generational moment here.
So you think about the banking industry and where it sits today in terms of its ability to have less regulatory be able to grow organically or inorganically fifty billion dollars worth of M and A transactions last year, be able to innovate inside the financial services industry with crypto and tokenized deposits. So financial services as a set, which payments is part of that has a real growth on agenda. At the same time, there's a tectonic shift happening in technology,
which is AI. So you put those two things together and for me, it's a generational moment. So when I think about financial services including payments, you put those two trends together and it's pretty exciting, especially for FIS because we serve that industry now with respect to AI, which seems to be the topic of the day, and I
certainly also read the report. Look, I think what you're going to hear from many CEOs that we are eternal optimists, so we believe in technology, and as CEO of a technology company, we think innovations and technology like this are really good. We also have survived them over many, many decades, and so when you think about it from an FIS standpoint, we process transactions and run technology for systems of record. They're multi decade system and they're AI enablers. So we
don't see a world where we're disrupted by AI. We actually see a world where AI is a strategic accelerant. And I think that's what you're going to hear from a lot of us that run technology across the financial services industry. What you need to have AI capabilities is a fantastic data and data mote and data strategy, and that's what we have. We have more data at FIS than anyone in the financial services industry. We have over a billion cardholder accounts on file, we process seventy three
billion transactions. We see over nine hundred million bank accounts on file, and so when we are talking to our customers about AI, it's about how do we help them use their data?
How do we help them get to their data?
How do we help them build AI agents on top of that data. So for us, we see it as an accelerant.
I was thinking about it.
I was thinking about this when I read this a trainee piece. He obviously brings up crypto with his reference to Ether and Solana as maybe payment rail with less friction. And you've seen this before right in your career. You were at Fifth Third dealing with payment processing, then at PwC before. So AI is just another I mean maybe it's generational, right, but you've seen generational shifts with bitcoin in two thousand and nine and with the Internet in
the late nineties. So do you adopt those technologies and then use them to do a better job serving your clients or do you worry that they will put you out of business?
Yeah, well, we know absolutely have to adopt them right our job in terms of payment capabilities, and you're exactly right. Whether it's a check, acch WY or real time payments, crypto tookenized deposits. Our job as the technology provider is to make those capabilities available to everyone on our financial institutions. So we have to make sure that we innovate so
that they can provide those capabilities. If their clients wants to use Crypto, they need to be able to use Crypto, If they want to use Circle, if they want to use a tokenized.
Deposit, you have to have that capability.
The great news is we have all and the good news is we're not seeing any of the other things go away. It's an and to your point, right, it hasn't. We haven't seen ACH go away. We haven't seen branches go away. We haven't seen ATMs go away. It's an and, so for us, it's an and. Now when you think about a technology company ourselves, the thing that I'm most focused on as a CEO is making sure that I enable my entire fifty five thousand people to be not
only AI literate, but AI strength and strong. So we're investing four times in AI capabilities, both in terms of MATT like you talked about, to deliver to our our customers the products, but also to make sure that our technologists are the best in the industry in terms of how to use this technology.
It's like putting a computer on your desk.
I talk to them all the time about well most of them don't even remember, but remember when you had a desk and you did paperwork, and then the next day you had a desk and you had a computer. No one taught you how to use it. You powered it on and figured it out. And so that's how we're thinking about it. We're making a lot of investment in our colleagues to make sure that we keep them upskilled and that they can actually be cutting front end As a technology how.
Are you thinking about that growth of your talent, Because there's one theory you added more AI, less people, and the other one, which maybe is more interesting. If AI can do more and can produce more code, you need more people to oversee that code.
How are you thinking.
About things like headcount as you add technology to what people are already doing at FIS.
Yeah, it's a great question. We get it all the time.
For me, it's most important as a technology company CEO. I need everyone in my company to be using the most cutting edge technology, whether we're using it to deliver for our products or we're using it internally for ourselves. I put it in every single person's hands. Everybody has digital capabilities and digital agent capabilities. Now the challenge it and then we give a lot of learning, but you have to have.
A natural curiosity to want to do it.
I talk a lot about my dad who lost his job in the nineties and didn't have a didn't know how to.
Work on a computer.
I came into my care in the nineties and I had a computer. I never knew how to not work with a computer. He never knew how to work with a computer. So that's really where we are in terms of AI. You have to need, you have to want to learn how to do it. And it's my job as a CEO to make sure that I put the tools in your hands and I encourage you to do it, and then it's really up to you to make sure that you embrace it.
One of the things you need at FIS is obviously for consumers to keep powering this economy for sure, right and you know, never count the American consumer out is something that I've been hearing for twenty five years but the alarm, part of the alarm that the treaty piece raised is that the white collar jobs are the ones that are going to be lost now they're the ones that power the bulk of the spending. How much do you worry about that? You've got to think about it.
It's so big picture and it's so kind of nebulous, but it would be a concern, right if if the top ten percent were reduced in terms of workforce.
Yes, and no. So you're absolutely right. So first of all, I agree with you. I never count count the US consumer out, and in fact, because of the large data that we see, not only are financial services and banks booming globally, but the consumer continues to remain healthy. I think you just talked about that on your previous piece. We're not seeing signs that a consumer is under stress or duress. So that's good, and I do think I agree that you sell me that.
Bears repeating because you have a great viewpoint to judge this. You're not seeing signs that the consumer is under stress.
No, we're not.
The consumer remains healthy, banks remain healthy, financial services remains healthy, and is growth on. I think that's really and that is true globally. I think that's really important to reinforce and it's also why we as fis serving that that sector, feel so good about what's going to happen for our company. But also I think it's important to know we aren't
seeing any signs of that yet. So in terms of then how to think about the you know, worker like frankly like myself that are older and need to adopt new technologies're not older. Oh, thank you, thank you so much. Look, I think it's this is my point where I tell the story about my dad, and I talk by the way everybody tell everybody.
It's a great ending. He retired.
He couldn't figure out how to do save or save as on the computer, but my mom could and he was very happy.
So it's a happy story.
But I do think it's a incumbent, and I talk to my teams about it a lot. I'm not worried about the younger workers. My daughter's about to graduate and come into the workforce.
She needs to get a job.
She will know how to use AI, just like I figured out how to use a computer. It's really incommon upon me, as the CEO of the technology company to put that in everybody's hands.
Do I worry about it? I yes and no.
But we need to make sure that we're giving everybody an equal opportunity to get after it. The Citron research story, as I told you about it before we came on, it was super depressing. And then I woke up the next morning and I was, you know, again going back to my optimistic point as a CEO markets two. Yeah, it's too much to take, and so I think we're all.
Going to be just fine. Stephanie. This has been so amazing. We could have you on for another hour.
I also think, by the way, part of this conversation is why it's important that like schools are teaching AI and they're not resisting against it.
Stephanie, please please come back again. This is so wonderful.
Are you actually from the great state of Ohio?
I am all right. That's that's why.
Oh wow, we're God.
You and I have a connection there, don't we.
In that I used to go to parties at Miami.
Exactly, and miamis oh I have basketball. I have to mention out. Great job, go red HAWX. I love this, Stephanie, Thank you so much. Again. That's Stephanie Ferris. The CEO of FIS,