It’s been three decades since Visa brought AI into its tech stack, but by the end of the year, there won’t be a job or position that doesn’t involve the technology.
Visa relies on AI for mission-critical tasks such as processing payments, detecting fraud and securing its large network infrastructure. It has over 300 AI models that are live and working. The payments giant has spent more than $3 billion on AI over the past 10 years, and one of its tools used to monitor payments in real time has helped prevent $27 billion in fraud in 2022.
It is now licensing generative AI software from OpenAI and will spend hundreds of millions annually on its AI budget and hire thousands of people over the next two years, Visa’s technology president Rajat Taneja told Insider.
“AI will be a big part of how we grow, but it will also be part and parcel of everyone’s work,” Taneja said. “It’s a big part of how we’re going to think about the future, where it’s helping you in almost everything you do, whether it’s marketing, finance, client service or coding.”
Visa is going all-in on generative AI for its employees
The company has licensed a private version of GPT-4 that runs on Microsoft Azure and includes Visa’s internal data. The payments company has opened the tool to 13,000 employees since February and has guidelines and underlying data for using it. The aim is to roll it out to the rest of our workforce by the end of the year.
Taneja recently used it to revise a job posting for an AI role, using ChatGPT to rewrite the job description, draft interview questions based on the position, and then ask the AI for ideal answers.
Taneja said Visa continues to experiment with AI models such as Meta’s AI model Llama 2 and French-American company Hugging Face.
Visa’s engineers are leveraging AI to write code, and while it’s not perfect, more AI-generated code is being used every week, with nearly half of the code being approved in some cases. The idea is that engineers will direct and supervise the model and use them as an “assistant coder,” who never forgets anything, who is trained on the latest technology and who is learning more every day, Taneja said.
AI will not only change the way Visa employees work, it will also inspire companies to increase their numbers. Visa has more than 2,500 technologists building its data and AI platforms and services, but the firm plans to hire another 2,000 people over the next few years to complete its AI road map.
How Visa is using AI to measure risk management and cybersecurity
Although Visa first used AI in 1993, it wasn’t until 2014 that Visa rebuilt its core data platform and began applying AI throughout its business and operations.
Every second, Visa processes up to 76,000 transactions. In the blink of an eye, Visa must connect multiple parties to authorize transactions while managing risk. Speed and security are important. And AI is needed to make this happen in real time, the way consumers expect, Taneja said.
The payments firm uses AI to make sure its systems are up and running, for example, by identifying if a cable or fiber has been cut across its 24 million miles of telecommunications network.
Visa introduced AI models that use billions of data points daily to train, learn patterns, and identify any cybersecurity or payment-security threats. As Visa makes thousands of software changes and updates every day, it uses AI to constantly upgrade its tech stack.
It protects cardholders from criminals signing into their accounts through AI by knowing how a particular customer types their user ID and password. Even if the ID and password are correct and the IP address and device are identified, if the models think someone other than the customer is typing the credentials, biometric behavioral analysis will trigger the AI to step up the authentication, Taneja said.
AI is indispensable for Visa to provide assurance and reliability to customers and consumers, Taneja said. “If someone’s buying a subway ticket or paying for groceries or buying medicine or getting a cup of coffee, if there’s a problem, Visa’s AI systems will prevent fraud, catch counterfeits, keep working like that. And any ATM withdrawals Catches attacks,” he added.