In Machines We Trust: What’s AI doing in your wallet?

Tech giants are moving into our wallets—bringing AI and big questions with them.

Our entire financial system is built on trust. We can exchange otherwise worthless paper bills for fresh groceries, or swipe a piece of plastic for new clothes. But this trust—typically in a central government-backed bank—is changing. As our financial lives are rapidly digitized, the resulting data turns into fodder for AI. Companies like Apple, Facebook and Google see it as an opportunity to disrupt the entire experience of how people think about and engage with their money. But will we as consumers really get more control over our finances? In this first of a series on automation and our wallets, we explore a digital revolution in how we pay for things.

We meet:

Umar Farooq, CEO of Onyx by J.P. Morgan Chase

Josh Woodward, Director of product management for Google Pay

Ed McLaughlin, President of operations and technology for MasterCard

Craig Vosburg, Chief product officer for MasterCard

Credits

This episode was produced by Anthony Green, with help from Jennifer Strong, Karen Hao, Will Douglas Heaven and Emma Cillekens. We’re edited by Michael Reilly. Special thanks to our events team for recording part of this episode at our AI conference, Emtech Digital.