AI in Payments: Hype vs. Reality

In this episode of Real Talk Payments, host Kapil Mokhat sits down with Klas Back (CEO, Pagos) and Albert Drouart (CPO, Pagos) to cut through the hype and separate the signal from noise in the AI and payments conversation.They dig into what is actually changing for modern merchants. Payments stacks are getting more complex with more markets, more payment methods, and more vendors. At the same time, payments teams are being asked to do more with fewer people, often without the visibility needed to spot leakage, rising costs, or declining acceptance until it is too late.A central theme is that AI only matters if the underlying payments data is trustworthy. Klas and Albert explain why the industry is moving toward verified data that is clean, normalized, and timely so teams can shift from slow, manual investigation to faster answers and better decisions.From there, the conversation turns to what the future looks like in practice. Think proactive monitoring, smarter alerts, and higher quality signals that can drive better routing, retries, vendor performance conversations, and benchmarking beyond your own four walls. The goal is to help teams focus on the issues that truly move the needle, not the small distractions that eat up time.They also keep it real about what is overhyped today, including some of the noise around agentic payments, while still acknowledging what is coming and why getting the fundamentals right matters more than ever.