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Artificial-intelligence technology, on which a number of payments applications have begun to rely over the past year or so, just keeps getting hotter. Nearly 700 funding deals for AI startups were concluded in 2016, up 33% from 2015, according to a report released this week by CBInsights, a New York City-based research firm. The dollars involved in those deals totaled $4.87 billion, a 30% increase from the previous year. Indeed, AI funding deals have marched steadily upward since 2012, according to the data. That year saw 150 deals worth $559 million.
Nor have things slowed down in 2017. The first quarter was the busiest period yet for funding AI startups, with 245 deals worth $1.73 billion.
AI in payments includes applications such as chatbots on messenger apps that can understand commands to pay bills or other persons, though such apps have provoked security questions.
Also, companies like Apple Inc., with its Siri app, and Amazon.com Inc., with its Alexa service, have developed voice-controlled applications that can perform a range of functions, including payments.
Royal Bank of Canada, for example, this week introduced a service that lets customers pay bills on iPhones and iPads using Siri. When customers give a voice command, Siri confirms the recipient is on the user’s payee list, allowing the RBC mobile app to debit the user’s account. The user is authenticated by TouchID. The bank had earlier launched a money-transfer capability based on Siri.
“We’re one of the leading voices on artificial intelligence in Canada, and our integration of Siri into bill payments and [person-to-person] transfers are an example of how our clients are already benefitting from these advancements in AI,” said Sean Amato-Gauci, executive vice president for cards, payments, and banking at RBC, in a statement.
In two sectors important to payments, AI start-up funding is growing fast. In IoT, or the Internet of Things, where objects from clothing to refrigerators are being rigged to perform payments, startup funding hit $423 million last year, double the level in 2015. In commerce, funding reached $345 million, more than twice the $170 million seen in 2015.
