Name: From Transactions to Workflows: The Next Era of Intelligent Commercial Payments
Uploaded: 2026-09-17T18:16:34.864Z
Duration: 54 min 20 s
Description: From Transactions to Workflows: The Next Era of Intelligent Commercial Payments

Transcript for "From Transactions to Workflows: The Next Era of Intelligent Commercial Payments": Thank you for joining today's Visa and Transcard webinar. Today's discussion is about how embedded payments, payment orchestration, data, and AI are changing the way businesses engage customers inside the workflows where financial decisions are made. We'll keep the discussion today to around thirty minutes and then move into a q and a towards the end. Now the central idea today is simple. The opportunity is shifting from share of wallet to value in the workflow. I'm really pleased to be joined today by Cher Keck, head of b to b fintech partnerships for North America at Visa, and Greg Blow, CEO of Transcard. With that, let's start with Cher's view on why all this really matters. Now, Cher, for years, the goal, of course, was to digitize payments. Today, we're hearing a lot more about embedded payments, orchestration, AI, agentic commerce. From your perspective, what's really changed in recent times? Thanks, Tom. And before we dive in, I just wanted to engage with everybody that's listening in today and want you to think about four questions as we go through our discussion today. First, just want you to think about if your best customer doubled their business tomorrow, would you capture twice the revenue or the same revenue that you have today? Meaning, let's start with growth. When your clients grow, do you grow with them? Many organizations focus on acquiring those new clients which are so valuable, but some of the largest opportunity exists with those existing relationships they already have. So as your clients expand, their needs become more complex, and organizations that can support that journey with their clients are often those that are best positioned to grow with them. The second question I'd ask you to think about or we would ask you to think about is how much untapped value exists within your current client base that you're leaving for somebody else to potentially capture? Every client interaction creates opportunities beyond that transaction itself, Yet many organizations only participate in a very small portion of the overall workflow. Whether it's data or automation, insights, integrated financial experiences, they're often valuable moments where additional value can be created. The question is, are you capturing that opportunity or is somebody else? The third question is, if a competitor embedded financial services directly into your client's work flow, how quickly could they displace you? Increasingly competitive advantage is not just about offering the best product, as I'm sure many of you have seen. It's about becoming part of how that client operates every day. When financial services are embedded directly into systems and workflows clients already use, those experiences become more convenient, more valuable, and often more difficult to replace. That's why workflow integration, which is what we're gonna talk about today, has become such an important strategic conversation. And finally, the last question is, how are AI and embedded finance changing the answer to all three of these questions? Really, they're accelerating the shift. Financial capabilities are moving closer to where decisions are made, while AI is helping organizations automate processes, surface insights, and make smarter decisions. So together, these are creating more intelligent workflows that extend well beyond the payment itself. So the opportunity is no longer just to move money. It's to create value before, during, and after the transaction. But to go back to Tom's original question, which is we're hearing more about embedded payments and orchestration, AI, and Agenca Commerce. What has changed? From our perspective, the biggest change is that payment is no longer an isolated event at the end of process. Clients increasingly expect financial capabilities to appear in the tools and experiences they're already using. They do not want fragmented payment portals, separate reconciliation processes, or even disconnected experiences. They want that payment, that data, and that surrounding decision to come together inside the business workflow. So for many of you on this call, the strategic question is no longer how do we capture more payment volume, although we all do talk about that. It's how do we become part of that workflow where customers or clients make those financial decisions. Those workflows, as mentioned previously, include approving those invoice invoices and deciding when and how to pay, collecting those funds during reconciliation activity, managing liquidity, and interacting with suppliers and customers and while these clients are making those working capital decisions. At Visa, we see this as being part of a larger transformation across all of commercial and money movement. Businesses want more payment choices, better visibility, more intelligence, and less operational fragmentation. Sometimes you'll hear many of us call it one stop shopping. The organizations that deliver those capabilities and if they can deliver those capabilities in totality inside that customer workflow, they will deepen those relationships and they will enable all of you and all of us to better be better advisors for our clients. And we are enabling or helping them manage the broader business experience for their clients rather than providing only network support. This is why the concept of value in the workflow is so important. If your client grows, changes suppliers, expands internationally, or even wants to add a new business line or a market segment, The question is whether your relationship can grow with them. The companies that sit closest to the workflow, we would argue, are positioned to grow as their clients grow. Great. Fantastic introduction, Cheryl. I think that really helps paint a picture for the the rest of our conversation. But how then should leaders, just as a starting point, think differently about creating value in the workflow compared with focusing only on share of wallet? Yeah. I think it's a great question, Tom. You know, share of wallet, it's still relevant, and we're all going to talk about that. We wanna capture that. But it's often the outcome, and I think what gets lost is really that opportunity to create that value inside that workflow by helping a client as they're making informed decisions in terms of about timing or payment method, liquidity, data, and even their counterparties. So if you are a provider and you're only involved at that point of transaction, that relationship can be very narrow and therefore could be displaced. However, if you as you're a provider, you're part of that workflow where those decisions or those types of financial decisions occur, then you can actually influence a broader set of client needs, how to pay, when to pay, how to collect, reconciliation, and how to improve that financial outcome for the business. This is the shift from payments as a separate transaction to payments as part of, like, this broader business experience where those financial decisions are made in context. Let's explore then the the the sort of ongoing evolution. I think it's fair to say embedded payments, payment orchestration, and and, of course, AI. Greg, I wanna get the the the Transcard perspective here. How is the market moving them from embedded payments towards payment orchestration? What does orchestration actually make possible as well? Yeah. Thanks, Tom. So embedded payments is really the first step. So whether it's embedding a a button inside a checkout experience or all the way into ERP, where a payment can be initiated. But that's really one part of of the equation. A payment is really part of a broader business transaction, and that transaction includes moving money. It also includes data, documents, workflow, decisions along the whole process from end to end. And it's that end to end process with those elements basically that create embedded orchestration. So orchestration typically has been talked a lot about on the acquiring side. A lot of it has to do with routing. But when we talk about orchestration, we're thinking about the total end to end business process where it originates in one company. If you think about a b to b payment, it's actually terminating in another company. So there's a lot of, information and and, decisions that go along the way in addition to the payment. And there's a lot of systems to keep up to date throughout that whole process. So that is truly end to end orchestration. So the progression really goes from embedded payments, which has been prevalent, and and to continue to enhance existing systems to have embedded payments, but it moves to payment orchestration. When we move to payment orchestration, we start getting a lot more context about what's going on, and that's when we can start layering in components of AI. AI requires context so that it can bring value to the table, which brings workflow intelligence. And that ultimately drives us into helping businesses make better decisions, and then ultimately, they have better business outcomes. So it's that whole context end to end, and they are building blocks, embedded finance embedded payments, I'm sorry, was was the, the initial building block that it started on. But the ultimate goal is basically to get to workflow intelligence. Could you maybe make that even more more tangible, Greg, with maybe a practical example for our audience? Sure. Yeah. We we do a lot of work in the freight logistics space. And, if you think about a transaction where you have a a freight forward forwarder wanting to book cargo movements with a carrier, that transaction starts with a decision on that booking itself. And a lot lot of times that involves a decision around what the payment may be. Do I wanna do that on business terms or do I do I wanna prepay for this payment? But when the booking is made, the the carrier then, transports the goods and payment hasn't been made, but the freight forwarder wants to get access to those goods. So some form of guarantee or some form of payment has to be made for those goods to be released, but the final invoice has not been been basically established back to make final payment for that. So it creates a a bit of a a an issue there, a business issue. So so orchestrating across that and being able to provide those guarantees, and then subsequently once the freight's released where now the freight forwarder can go all to the ultimate delivery destination and collect fees basically for the services they provide alongside while the invoice is getting finalized and submitted and then having all of the financials settle, with added complexity that sometimes the invoice changes from the original invoice because of accessorial charges or just changes that happen during shipping. All of that has to be synchronized. And that's where a key part of you think about orchestration, having just an embedded button to say pay really doesn't address the need for payment along this whole complex cycle. So those are, that's a a just a very solid example of many. As we look into businesses, you know, whatever industry they're in, there are complexities. There's complex payments like this that exist in every business. And and so bringing the orchestration, moving the data, moving the you know, having the decisions in the gates alongside along with the payment becomes very critical to kind of help our business based address the issues that they're trying to solve. And you've touched on it already there, Greg, of course, but what where exactly does AI fit into that model? Yeah. So AI is is interesting because AI, has a lot of uses with technology. But one of the key things with AI is it really has to to gain knowledge and intelligence from the context of what's going on. So historically, you look at a payment transaction, By the time you have record of that, it's it's backwards looking. It is history. It's what's happened in the past. And there's certainly a lot you can do with AI. Just look for trends or look for situations that you can address going forward. But AI in its present state is much more than that because having context around what's going on, you know, what are balances, what is the liquidity situation, all these other bits of information that are available during this whole workflow process feed into AI, and then AI has context where it can now help make recommendations for for what to do next or what the outcomes could be. Now one of the things that that is important with AI, and and it certainly has been getting a lot of publicity lady lately, is how how do you manage AI in this in this situation? You know, do you just let it loose and and we've seen and heard of issues. there, or or do you treat it with a a a board governance stance? The way I look at the the AI from that perspective is, you know, businesses have been dealing with, you know, fraud, from different perspectives outside of technology for quite some time. Businesses have implemented policies and procedures. They have governance. They have they have responsibilities and and division of duties. All those things are really to help a business from having issues with fraud, whether it's, you know, originating internally or externally. When you look at AI, AI, you don't really program, you train AI. So you need to think about when you train AI, what are the policies and how do you train the AI on your internal policies just like employees are trained and and also held accountable to use. So we have to look at AI differently in this whole process than we typically have looked at technology in the past. And it it is very important that as we look at AI implementations that they're addressing the policies, they're following the procedures, they're also monitored, and they're also held accountable and audited on a regular basis. So they become part of the process. They don't become the process, and they certainly can help in in recommendations for decisions along the way. Great stuff. I I wanna focus a little a little more, if possible, on the value creation piece and, really, the creation of value in in the workflow. Cher, what do what does it mean from your perspective to say that, really, the workflow is becoming the real competitive battleground? Yeah. I think from my perspective, it means the workflow is where, as I mentioned earlier, the decisions are happening. And they're happening, and they're becoming more strategic. Clients really are not wanting to manage separate experiences, for every payment method, for every time they go to a bank, or they work with a financial service provider, or just do business in general. They want those capabilities to appear in the software or the workflows that they already use, and I think that's again, goes back to that one stop shopping I mentioned earlier. So if a business is approving an invoice or they're managing liquidity or doing a payment method, reconciling something for a client. All of those moments are where value can be created, and so I challenge everybody to think of that and get that into their head. If payments are disconnected from those workflows, so if they're thought of as being bifurcated, a client can really experience friction. So if you're working with clients and you can embed or orchestrate or do something inside that workflow, the client will then see that this is a simple and efficient, you know, system or way to work with yourself, and that will become more valuable. And so if you are a financial institution, a platform, raises the strategic question. I seem to like a lot of questions, but where can we remove some of that friction in that workflow is my challenge to you all to think about, and how can you drive more value as a result? Greg, over to you. How do you see that actually showing up in in client conversations? Yeah. Like, a client we see I see two things. One, clients looking internally into their organization. There's a lot of disconnected systems. I mean, AP separated from AR, disbursements, treasury, the bank connectivity, all those become systems, with a lot of times, pass offs, you know, with batch files. That creates a lot of headaches for businesses, and also it creates a lot of issues for visibility on what's actually actually going on. So the the conversations, you know, first really focus around, providing visibility and connectivity through all of that, parts of the organization as a business transaction flows through. So that becomes critical and it it definitely drives part of, a key piece of orchestration and delivering value to a business. But it doesn't stop there. Customers are also asking us about what about the experience for the customer and and, their counterparty, their vendor, their supplier. Those are also very important because there's disconnects that happen there. And, a lot of times, you know, it's easy to think about, well, I've I've sent something. I've I've sent them an email or I sent them payment. They have all the information. I've sent them an EEI file. But that's not necessarily a great customer experience because all of those just create more work on the other side. And if if you really start thinking about a broad orchestration across the initiation party and the receiving party, and being able to seamlessly transmit information alongside the payment as well as workflow enablement. A true end to end experience, you know, starts, say, in a ERP or some system of record and it ends in another system of record. And having transparency, so somebody's not waiting to reconcile a a file, is is super critical, and that's what creates a good experience on the on the counterparty for a a a business also. So, you know, once again, it's not just about, you know, the transaction itself. It's about the whole business process we're trying to solve. And it's about, you know, transparency, efficiency, but it's also adding intelligence along the way because now information's flowing a lot more fluidly and together. Greg, thank you. I I wanna stay with you on this one if it's okay as we as we pivot back really to to AI and AI's ability really to to change the value of of payment data. Can you give us any practical views on on on how that happens? Yeah. I I think the easiest thing you know, anecdotally, I'd I'd is is I watch people start engaging with AI, you know, usually, it's they're they're they're used to using a search engine. They go into AI, the first thing they do is ask something that they would ask a search engine. And they get this beautiful curated information back, and it's like, wow, that was pretty cool. That that's gonna save me a lot of time and, you know, hopefully, you trust the response, maybe ask it questions, etcetera. But but soon you start realizing there's other uses of AI. And AI certainly can be used in in situations of automation or broader planning. Individually, you think about planning a trip and and all of a sudden you get access to more information and you can do a lot more. That typically would have taken multiple steps, a lot of time, maybe even some phone calls. But that's not really where the big, you know, add in of AI, you know, comes. AI really starts to to surface as very valuable when you can start leaning on AI for recommendations. You know, what what about all this information and giving it feeding it more information about a situation and getting recommendations back and conversing back and forth with it. And that's that's really the ultimate goal where you wanna get with AI. So what what how does that relate to payments? I mean, if you think about it, AI can be used in all context, you know, all three of those situations. It can be used simply to ask some basic questions, what went on here. So now I'm digging up information, you know, a lot faster putting some context or maybe getting some reports look a little bit differently, help explain the situation. Can certainly use it for automation, trying to take task and basically make them efficient, especially when when, traditional technology has been difficult to implement, where you've got decisioning along the way, where you've got recommendation gates that have to pass. But, ultimately, when when payment, you know, information and that business transactions happening and you've got the attachments and the workflow and all this other context, visibility into bank accounts, all the information there, then AI can really start adding a lot of value because AI can now come back with pure recommendations, with what it's seeing that can be put into the mix basically for a final decision. So so it really becomes a a tool, but it's more than a tool because it becomes a a critical piece of information and knowledge and intelligence that feed into the bigger picture. And, Cher, what would be your executive takeaway when it comes to AI? Yes. Well, I think Greg probably stole words that, right out of my mouth, but I think we would agree that to the point he made, AI should be viewed, as supporting decisions versus just, you know, again, you ask questions and maybe it pops out an answer or says something a little bit more eloquently than you may. So the goal is really not just to automate more activity. It's really to help those businesses, like many of you are listening today, make more informed decisions, during and after the payment. That's why it's so important because businesses are trying to improve the outcomes. And I think when you're thinking about AI, it can play that important role. But it's only if that underlying workflow data is connected and structured and useful. That's why we really are you're talking about the embedded payments. Like, if the embedded payments orchestration and data intelligence are closely linked, AI can help make better informed decisions in conjunction with you all. Greg, when we talk about this sort of broader orchestration architecture, can you shed some light on on how the TransGuard approach really illustrates this in practice? Sure. We we if if you we we take a broad view, just like we've been talking about all the way from the initiation to the receipt. So that includes, you know, in in a in a simple term, say, an ERP or system of record, a bank initiating payment, the ability to communicate with the counterparty, an ERP on the other side, a bank on the other side. So all those elements basically become points of integration that you you know, today, a lot of those pass offs are via batch file for involve reconciliation. But the ability to orchestrate across those really drives the need to be connected into those. So so the way we look at it is broadly, we drive the ability to, ultimately connect, into all those systems so that we can kind of bring end to end workflow and keep keep the whole process going from end to end as fluid as as as possible. That that's really from a architectural standpoint where we look orchestration across the existing systems, the investments customers have made and their bank relationships, and their other systems that they use to manage the business. How then does that connect to, importantly, to to working capital? So working capital is is a a key element. So no longer is the the embedded payment just about making a payment or making a transaction, but we've broadened it down to orchestration. Part of orchestration is making better business decisions. And better business decisions may in in involve basically liquidity decisions. So whether that decision is is at the time of payment or whether it's in the cargo instance at the time of booking, It's important to be there when those decisions are made. And then so it does become a key element that flows through this whole end to end process. And, Cher, back over to you. Why do you feel this this architecture is so relevant to the to the broader payments ecosystem? Yeah. Well, I think it's where we see the market going. Right? As we are talking earlier, you know, here at Visa, we bring the network scale and trust and, you know, credentials, obviously, the ecosystem reach. But partners such as Transcard can bring that ERP, the connectivity, configurable workflows. They help orchestrate or they have the orchestration, and then they help that working capital, you know, context or provide that for clients. So these complementary capabilities from our lens help organizations really offer those payment choices without creating that complexity for customers or clients, again, simplifying the entire process. So if you think about Transcard, their their example, it it's very useful because it shows how embedded workflows can connect in this broader orchestration model. It reinforces, you know, the key strategic point that organizations do not need to build every capability themselves. But the more important question is what financial capabilities need to be embedded into that experience and how those capabilities can be orchestrated behind the scene. So I think it's important to think about that. The partnership mindset is very important, and it will be more increasingly important as we have more financial services and organizations that become more connected and more embedded. And we see that there's more data driven outcomes that are requested by our clients. Fantastic. Now we're really getting through a lot here, guys, but I just wanna ask you, before we get to our q and a in a in a few minutes' time. I'd like to ask you both for maybe three key questions that you feel senior leaders should really be taking away from from this discussion. Cheryl, we'll we'll start with you if you don't mind. Sure. I think there's a couple of additional questions outside of what we challenge everybody to think of when we started the conversation. First, you know, where does the financial workflow leave our platform today? Every client has to leave the experience to either initiate a payment, do some reconciliation, maybe obtain financing, or interact with another financial provider. Therefore, their experience can become fragmented and value could be lost. So I'm not trying to get everybody paranoid, but think about who your clients also connect with. Second, could you orchestrate rather than build yourselves? Meaning, the opportunity is not necessarily to become a bank or a payment company for everybody listening today, but it's to determine which capabilities should be embedded into your client experience and which partners do you need to help orchestrate things behind the scenes. And the last question is, what becomes possible when we combine the workflow data with AI to some of the things that Greg was importantly sharing earlier? Long term differentiation may not come from moving the payment faster. It may come though from helping your clients make a more informed decision before the payment is even sent. And, Greg, over to you. To me, the key is, you know, really starting with the workflow, not focusing on the product. So if you look at the workflow and look at a business, asking questions like where where is the friction coming on? Where where are the, you know, internal trade offs and pass offs happening that create friction? Where are the disconnects in those pass offs? Where is is data being lost? Or where is data not staying fresh? You know, and then also what what are the because of this freshness or even lack of context along the way because all the information didn't flow with it, What decisions are being made that are missing a holistic view of of of situation where they can make better decisions if they had it? So those are key things. And and it's really about, you know, driving, looking at the workflow, and making it more valuable to the to the customer and bringing value along the way. Great stuff. And just finally, I wanna, you know, cast our eyes forward a little bit, cast our minds forward. Cher, how do you see, first of all, the future of embedded finance? What would your what would your assessment be? Well, I think, as we've mentioned earlier, that we see really the market moving beyond embedded finance as a standalone, really to a more connected, intelligent, you know, commercial payments experience overall. I think account to account rails, broader bank connectivity, expectations for these payment choices, whether you're the buyer or the seller, I think those multi rail, orchestrations, and financial capabilities, all of those being embedded in vertical and enterprise software are all gonna be part of that evolution, and we're already there, news flash. So I think we're just gonna even see further acceleration. Well, at the same time, though, things like data, reconciliation, transaction, context, they're all gonna become more and more important. AI, as we've mentioned, is moving from experimentation to just doing practical decision support. So payments are gonna become more deeply embedded into software and our what we see in the regulation environment, security, governance, and expectations will continue to matter, especially as we get younger generations coming into positions of power. So for leaders, I think it's important for all of us to look at this opportunity and prepare for this world where we see clients that are going to have these expectations on financial capabilities. We would need them to be all of these experiences connected and intelligent inside these workflows where these decisions are made. And, again, to reinforce, it includes not just payments, but data and AI, orchestration, security, governments. All of these things will help support better business outcomes. Fantastic. And, Greg, some some closing thoughts from you as we as we look ahead. Ditto to to share his thoughts. I mean, I think that that's spot on. I mean, the first generation was about embedded payments, about putting financial capability in software and ERPs and sys you know, wherever the origination decision's happening. But the next generation is about orchestrating, and it's orchestrating across the financial workflow. It's connecting software, connecting banks, networks, rails. It's connecting across trading partners, buyer to supplier, etcetera, and it's leveraging AI through that whole process. So connectivity of all of that, that ecosystem is certainly very, very important to make that happen. But the goal and that we we cannot forget, really, is to help businesses become more effective, efficient, make better business decisions, and serve their customers better. Fantastic. Great stuff, guys. Thank you so much. We are gonna move on now to our q and a. I'll start with a a couple of questions, and then we will, of course, take some audience submissions as they come in. I I wanna start with and I'll come back to you, Cher, given given Greg, spoke last. I hope that's okay. How do you feel leaders should really think about the difference between embedded payments and payment orchestration? Well, I think that if you start with orchestration, it provides, as we mentioned earlier, flexibility to any of these organizations. It helps them it helps their clients think about payment choices without creating fragmentation that we see overall that occurs today. This will become increasingly important, though, as more payment methods, rails, markets, and other client preferences come into play. So I would just challenge everybody to think about that orchestration layer and where you're going to play in that and what partners you may bring to the table to help support you. And, Greg, your take on that? Yeah. I I you know, embedded payments was the it it it was the starting point. So, you you need to think differently because it's broader than that. So it's like, how do you expand beyond just the payment itself and think about the transaction as a whole, and then be able to orchestrate across that. And and that will inevitably leave you lead lead lead you basically to needing the interconnectivity between the systems, the visibility of the data, setting up gating criteria to make decisions along the way. It's more than pressing a button to say send. It it it's literally as it's processed, and and it's it's the connectivity that happens within an organization or across organizations. So embedded payments is a piece of it. Orchestration is the broad end to end view of it. Great. Fantastic. I'll I'll stay with you, Greg, on this one if that's okay. If a company really wants to create more more value in the workflow as as as many do, where really should that process start? I I would I would contend that you probably could go into most companies, if not all companies, and find places where there are pass offs happening between systems. A lot of times, those are batch process. Every time the batch file is is sent somewhere, there's extra work that got created. There's visibility that was lost. Now you have to reconcile that data to make sure it got applied properly. The visibility is not there because something had to happen and maybe something errored out. So so where do you start? You you look at all these disjointed places, these pass off places where the friction's being being, you know, created as well as looking at the decisioning process and where is visibility lacking. If you look at those key areas, that those are all great places to start. They're they're they a lot of times create the challenges for businesses. Sometimes they they certainly have have impacts negative impacts for businesses. So if you can solve for these things, they can be a very good benefit to a business and really help its outcomes. And, Shay, anything to add there from the from the Visa perspective? Yeah. I think Greg covered most of it, but I agree that I I think often we always focus on the product and think that's where there's friction or that's what's causing the issue. It may not be the product. It's often the entire workflow around around the product. It's those handoffs that Greg was mentioning. I think if we pay attention to anytime there is a transition or something in the workflow that could go awry or astray, think about then what financial capabilities or what you may be able to do to make that workflow easier, smarter, simpler. And whether you do that yourself or what we were talking about earlier, if you find some partners to help you solve some of those issues, I think that's where the value can be derived if you're thinking about it. Greg, I wonder as well. Can you can you maybe shed some light on some practical AI use cases around payment workflows? Yeah. You know, one way to to to look for opportunities with AI is to look inside of organization today. And when, a current, like, say, AP Clark is looking and trying to make a decision or or or research something, and they're spending time having to go look across multiple places just to gather information, and then process it and come up with a recommendation, those become great places for AI. Because AI, given the visibility and the context around what's going on, can can can go gather that information a lot quicker and also present a recommendation to you, as an individual. It doesn't stop the individual from part of it, but it what it does help is the individual from spending the time to get to the point of a decision. So it empowers people, and and and it certainly is a great place that AI can play, and and a valuable place. Coming over to you, Shaikh. Yeah. I think exactly what we were talking about earlier when when, you know, we were addressing AI. We're talking about really it should be viewed as intelligence and helping you make informed decisions. I think, you know, sometimes when we talk about AI, we just talk about it. Oh, it's not just automation for the purpose of having automation. I think, you know, if we actually value our businesses, look for AI to help them make more informed decisions and leverage it the right way. It can be a very powerful tool. And I think it's more valuable than just, like we said, asking it a question, having or having it rewrite something that you may say just a little bit more eloquently. So, you know, one thing that I think all of us can get better at is thinking of ways AI can help us make those informed decisions or help even us support our clients in that matter to drive different, you know, financial outcomes and make things less manual. Great stuff. And and, Greg, back over to you. Is this conversation that we're we're having today, really, is it is it mainly relevant for software as a service platforms, or or does it apply more broadly? That was very broad. AI is really changing the way businesses, you know, utilize their their people, their processes, technology. And so anywhere in a business from end to end for any process, any procedure, can be looked at in kind of the same view. It's like, how can I look at the technology and the process of whatever it may be and and take these same elements that we talked about today and apply it to those those exact processes, whether they involve a payment or not or whether it involves another SaaS platform? There are a lot of things that don't involve SaaS platforms that are come companies are still doing that this certainly is also relevant. So it cuts across it cuts across a company platform involved or not. It's really about business process. It's about workflows. It's about efficiencies and driving value to the customer. Mhmm. And share in agreement there with with Greg? Absolutely. I I think our challenge is every organization should be thinking about leveraging AI or even any of the topics we've discussed today, whether it's embedded payments, just the orchestration layer. If you're touching a client and you're helping them with payments and data and reconciliation or any type of financial decision, I'll challenge each of you to think of how could you be incorporating AI to help you through those processes. Is there a better and more efficient way? I think the old statement used to be not working harder, but working smarter. So I think that's something that we all have to continue to challenge ourselves on in a daily basis, if not hourly, if not every minute because time is valuable. Fantastic. Now I would encourage our audience to keep submitting, their questions. We've had a few come in already. You have to bear with me glancing over to see them as they come in. We've got one that's coming from Gary. And, Greg, it's addressed directly to you. So, Greg, in your workflow orchestration example, is the AI making these pretransaction decisions autonomously in real time, or is it surfacing insights for a human to review and approve? So good question and, recommendations, insights for a human to approve. But but this gets back to what I was discussing earlier about the policies and procedures because, you know, ultimately, as as AI becomes more pervasive within a company, what however gets involved is is really gonna be up to the company and the controls that need to be put in place to make sure that AI stays in its place and and and is a value add and doesn't doesn't get out of control, if you will. So it it's it's really a comp from from our perspective, what I describe, it's it's a a point for decision, it's information, it's recommendation. But every company needs to really decide this for themselves. How are they gonna use it? What controls are they gonna be put in place? If it is a decision point, how how critical if the decision is bad? Is it to the company? Does it need it nephocentomized? Does it need human action? Those are all decisions we're all gonna be struggling with and addressing here in the near future for us, not just in payments, but probably across the organization. Mhmm. Great I and I do. think we should we should echo back to what Greg even said earlier. I loved your analogy where you said treat AI like you would an employee where you you trust them, but you also have some guardrails around what you may want them to do as you they're thinking through and making those decisions. I think that's very important, as we continue forward. Fantastic. Is it no. It's a great point. Absolutely. And I just wanna rewind actually to you know, we were discussing before before the orchestration versus build. How actually should leaders make that initial decision? Greg, I don't know if I'll I'll come to you first on that one. Sure. There there's to me, there's a buy versus build versus orchestrate. You know, they all kinda collectively merge in at some point. But from a a a build perspective, I think you really have to ask yourself if you're if you're if you're doing a build decision, you know, what you're building, does it give you competitive advantage? And if if your competitor makes a buy decision, are they in a better situation because they partner with somebody? So you you really need to look at at where you orchestrate across other platforms, where you can leverage those platforms, where you build that gives you something very proprietary or an advantage out of marketplace. So that becomes very important decisions because I've seen this happen even with embedded payments where organization or organizations, companies, you know, software companies have decided to try to take on, doing some of the lifting of embedding payments. And, they get it, you know, it's it's a it's it's a difficult build, but then it's an ever ending build because the payments world is ever changing. I mean, there's different rails that there's different ways to move money. Now there's innovations like we've been talking about today. So if if you're not planning on keeping up with those innovations and expanding, then you really should look at partnering and and and orchestrating, basically. Great stuff. Share share your cycle on that one. Yeah. I was surprised. I thought Greg would just say everybody needs to be partnering with TransCard, but I love where he took the conversation, which truly is evaluating what it's it's not just about what you can build. To Greg's point, it's really about what are you trying to solve for? What do you want what issues could you maybe resolve? And then once you understand what those pain points are either for yourselves or for your clients, thinking about then how what what you need to do to help improve that situation. If you're capable and can build something, great. That's a great avenue. If you wanna partner with somebody, amazing. Think about who's out there then that you could partner with. But be careful to not just think about, are they really great at what they do? Understand if you brought them into your ecosystem, could that connectivity still be seamless? Could it actually then function as you intended to so you don't disrupt or make things worse for yourselves or your clients? Because that could happen if you don't put enough thought into it. We've all seen that happen. So, just ask you to think about that. The building or buying or partnering, all of those are great solutions. It's just how you wanna tackle those things and then making sure that it's seamless within your own organization depending on what you wanna do. Now, Greg, finally, I just wanna ask, what really, in summary, does success look like for organizations that are getting this right? I it's it really becomes looking at the businesses and how efficient and seamless they're able to operate internally and how well they communicate and share information with their customers. I mean, it it it really comes down to some some fundamental things. That is easily said. It's very difficult to do. There's a lot of complexity as we talked about today. Payment, you know, purchases, selling, is it especially when you get into b and b b to b transactions, it's not not a simple, you know, point a to point b sort of situation. There there's a lot of complexity involved. So it's solving for that complexity, making it seamless and easy and intuitive, and allowing, the the employees of both sides, both parties, basically empowered with the information to make good decisions. Awesome. And, Sha, your take. Yeah. I think what we said at the top, which was anymore, it's not just about driving payment volume. It's making sure that you drive a very deep relationship with your client and think about where others may be connecting with your client and figuring out ways that you can display some of those other competitors and make yourself even more valuable to that client by having more things that you do with them. So I think you can have that through those deep relationships, obviously, ensuring that if you have more things with them, they have very smooth, you know, experiences with you, and also a strong engagement, meaning you're involved with the client and you're understanding and and highlighting anything that could be going not well. So it's really not, again, about just the volume or increasing what you're doing with the client. It's becoming more central to how they operate and what we would call being a trusted adviser. Great stuff. Thank you both. Now, sadly, that that is pretty much all we have time for for today. But to close, I just wanna ask each of you for one final takeaway. Cher, let's start with you from, from the Visa perspective. Yeah. Sure. I mean, as we mentioned many times already, but I just challenge everybody here to think about embedded payments as really more of a strategy to make yourself invaluable to your clients. Clients already are changing every day. They expect more things being connected. They want intelligence, behind all of the financial experiences that they're, you know, going through and inter when they interact with you. So I think they're gonna reward those providers that can provide those easy, smooth, seamless experiences for them. Great stuff. And finally, Greg from from the Transcard, points of view. Sure. The, I mean, looking at the future, I mean, the future is not just embedded payments or embedded finance alone. It's really about payment orchestration. It's broad. It's across the financial ecosystem. And the companies that can connect the software, the ERPs, the system of record, the booking platforms, to the banks and the networks and the payment rails, and and then ultimately to the counterparties or the trading parties, to the to the vendors, to the providers, sharing data back and forth, you know, as well as transaction status and moving money and and and decisioning back and forth that layer on top of AI and governance of AI. That's what's important. That's what customers are looking for. That's what partners are looking for. And, certainly, that's what what payment orchestration delivers. Fantastic. Cher, Greg, we we have reached the end. Thank you so much for for joining us today, and thank you, our audience, for joining today's Visa and Transcard webinar. We do, of course, appreciate your time and look forward to continuing the conversation. But for now, thanks again, and we'll see you soon.