Agentic AI and Embedded Finance: Fintech’s Infrastructure Play for 2026
The fintech landscape is experiencing a strategic pivot. After years of consumer-facing innovation, capital and attention are shifting decisively toward B2B infrastructure, autonomous AI systems, and embedded financial services. The companies building the railsânot just riding themâare attracting the largest checks and commanding the highest valuations.
The B2B Shift Is Decisive
According to Inter-American Development Bank figures, 40.1% of fintech companies in Latin America now operate B2B business models. This represents a fundamental reorientation from consumer applications to infrastructure provision.
“Consumer fintech is oversaturated,” one prominent venture capitalist explained. “Funding flows to startups solving institutional problems, and in 2026, that means B2B infrastructure.” The winners are companies building foundational capacity in compute, networking, specialized platforms, and financial plumbing that everyone else runs on.
Community banks competing against national institutions need sophisticated technology platforms. Large financial institutions require AI-powered tools that integrate with legacy systems. Payment companies need next-generation rails handling both traditional and blockchain-based transactions.
Agentic AI Transforms Payment Operations
Autonomous artificial intelligence is moving from concept to commerce with remarkable speed. Unlike traditional AI assistants that recommend actions, agentic AI can negotiate and settle transactions without direct human intervention.
Major financial institutions and payment businesses are rapidly integrating these systems. Only 11% of organizations currently have agents in production, despite 38% piloting themâa gap that investors and technologists are racing to close.
Early adopters in payments and financial services are already using agentic AI for transaction negotiation and settlement. The technology enables machines to make autonomous purchasing decisions, accelerating throughout 2026 as trust frameworks and regulatory clarity improve.
This shift represents fundamental change in payment architecture. When machines can independently transact, the entire stackâfrom authentication to settlementâmust be redesigned. Success requires more than deploying AI models; it demands new approaches to governance, compliance, and user experience.
AI Adoption Moves Past Experimentation
AI adoption in financial institutions has moved decisively beyond experimentation into operational use. What’s changing is where AI is applied. By late 2025, 43% of banks were deploying AI in internal functions like risk, compliance, and fraud preventionâwhile only 9% used it directly in customer-facing channels.
This distribution shows AI is becoming foundational infrastructure rather than cosmetic add-on. Investment continues rising, with AI-related investment remaining one of the strongest segments of fintech funding even when overall VC investment fluctuates.
However, as AI adoption accelerates, regtech firms emphasize systems must be used safely, consistently, and in line with regulatory expectations. John Byrne, CEO of Corlytics, predicts 2026 will see “the emergence of AI discipline” as regulators shift from guidance to enforcement.
Organizations need systems that prove their decisions are accurate, governed, and defensibleânot just fast. Firms that succeed will resist the trade-off between speed and precision, taking an “ensemble approach” that enhances decision-making without sacrificing accuracy.
Embedded Finance Reaches Critical Mass
Embedded financeâseamlessly integrating financial services into non-financial platformsâis exploding through multi-rail payment systems and API integrations. The model enables cost-efficient transactions embedded in retail, e-commerce, mobility, and other sectors.
Regulatory pushes for openness and partnerships facilitating tokenized payments are accelerating adoption. Banks are modernizing core systems to enable real-time integrations while maintaining security and compliance.
Looking ahead, embedded finance will evolve into fully interoperable ecosystems powering autonomous finance. Embedded trust via AI agents and real-time rails will unlock new revenue streams and redefine commerce accessibility across global markets.
Real-Time Settlement Infrastructure
Real-time settlement infrastructure is transforming how money moves. Instant payment rails reduce settlement times from days to seconds, improving working capital management and reducing counterparty risk.
Blockchain technology is playing a significant role. Distributed ledgers power cross-border payments with instant settlement, transparent audit trails, and reduced counterparty risk. The GENIUS Act provided regulatory clarity for stablecoins, while MiCA created passportable crypto licensing across the EU.
For B2B transactions particularly, real-time settlement eliminates float periods that have historically complicated cash flow management. Companies can operate with tighter working capital requirements when payments settle instantly.
RegTech Becomes Core Infrastructure
Future-fit compliance programs won’t be sustainable without automation. Manual reviews, scattered documentation, and reactive audits cannot scale as fintech operations grow and regulatory requirements intensify.
Next-generation compliance relies on tools that automate transaction monitoring, customer onboarding and KYC verification, regulatory reporting and filing, policy management and version control, and audit trail documentation.
The benefit isn’t just efficiencyâit’s visibility. Compliance must be integrated into daily operations rather than siloed in back-office functions. For teams without dedicated compliance ops, external partners who understand the RegTech landscape can build systems that withstand regulatory scrutiny.
In the next phase of fintech, compliance won’t be back-office function. It’ll be core to how products are launched, updated, and maintained.
The Infrastructure Gold Rush Continues
Perhaps the most significant fintech trend is recognition that infrastructure providers represent the most valuable opportunities. From API providers to cloud platforms, from payment rails to distributed ledger technology, companies supplying digital infrastructure attract outsized investor attention.
These firms typically operate outside traditional financial regulation but play increasingly essential roles in financial services functioning. The Digital Operational Resilience Act, effective in January 2025, brought these “ICT service providers” into regulatory purview across the EU.
DORA emphasizes threat-led penetration testing, vendor oversight, and incident reportingârequirements shaping how infrastructure companies operate throughout 2026. Compliance becomes competitive advantage rather than burden.
Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Automation
AR and AP are interesting because they sit where money actually moves through businesses. They touch every customer and vendor relationship, yet workflows remain painfully manual.
That combination of volume and financial consequence makes them perfect for automation. Small improvements in how invoices are sent, collected, approved, or paid can free up cash, reduce errors, and meaningfully improve working capital.
Companies building intelligent AR/AP solutions are attracting significant investment as businesses recognize that back-office efficiency directly impacts bottom lines.
Open Finance Expands Beyond Banking
The proposed Financial Data Access Regulation in the EU will extend open banking principles to insurance, pensions, and other financial products. Though adoption is 18-24 months away, forward-thinking companies are positioning for the expanded data-sharing ecosystem.
Open finance represents evolution from transaction data to comprehensive financial profiles. When consumers can share investment portfolios, insurance policies, and retirement accounts as easily as bank balances, entirely new service categories become possible.
Personalization and Inclusive Finance
AI enables hyper-personalization of financial products and services. Rather than one-size-fits-all offerings, institutions can tailor products to individual circumstances, risk profiles, and financial goals.
This personalization extends to underserved populations. Alternative data sources and AI-powered underwriting enable institutions to serve customers who lack traditional credit histories. Financial inclusion becomes business opportunity rather than charity.
The Capital Intensity Challenge
QED Investors identifies a critical challenge: AI and market forces will increase capital intensity of fintech, compressing timelines, amplifying volatility, and forcing companies to deliver outcomes rather than tools.
The premium in 2026 will be on capital, speed, resilience, and results. Companies that can execute quickly while maintaining unit economics and regulatory compliance will capture disproportionate market share.
M&A Activity Accelerates
After several quiet years, fintech M&A is heating up. Multiple factors drive consolidation:
Market Maturity: Saturation in consumer fintech pushes smaller companies toward strategic exits while successful players expand through acquisition.
Regulatory Pressure: Compliance demands and capital constraints make standalone operation increasingly difficult for smaller fintechs.
Profitability Pressures: Companies with novel products or large customer bases seek additional capital while implementing inorganic growth strategies.
Recent notable transactions include Lloyds acquiring Curve and Starling Bank purchasing Ember. Speculation about long-rumored IPOs for Stripe, Revolut, and Monzo potentially materializing in 2026 adds to the activity.
Quantum Computing Enters Strategic Planning
Quantum computing is transitioning from labs to boardrooms. Executives are examining potential for solving intractable problems in optimization and simulation, with market pilots emerging in finance for risk modeling.
By 2026, quantum will infiltrate strategic agendas at scale, enabling institutions to pioneer quantum-secure transactions and fundamentally reshape risk management with unprecedented computational power.
The flip side: quantum computing threatens existing encryption standards. Financial institutions must prepare for quantum-safe cryptography even as they explore quantum’s benefits.
Sustainable Finance Gains Board-Level Priority
ESG investing and sustainable finance are gaining board-level attention. Ecosystems are building around carbon offset marketplaces and impact measurement platforms that align profitability with environmental and social imperatives.
Data-driven ESG reporting and green fintech innovations are accelerating, spurred by regulatory mandates and investor demands for verifiable sustainability metrics in portfolios.
By 2026, sustainable finance will integrate AI for precise impact analytics, fostering composable ESG platforms that scale green investments, mitigate climate risks, and position leaders in net-zero transitions.
The Cloud-Native, API-First Architecture
Composable, cloud-native, and API-first infrastructure forms the driving force of modern fintech. These architectures enable scalable data platforms underpinning AI initiatives, compliance requirements, and agility in dynamic markets.
Cloud migrations and API ecosystems have accelerated post-legacy re-platforming, supporting embedded finance and real-time processing. In 2026, this architecture will dominate with 5G-enhanced, agentic deployments allowing seamless orchestration of microservices.
What It Means for the Industry
The fintech transformation in 2026 is characterized by infrastructure over applications, B2B over B2C, and autonomous systems over manual processes. The foundational technologiesâAI, blockchain, cloud architectureâare proven. The question now is execution.
Winners will be infrastructure players and B2B-focused companies rather than consumer apps. As the industry moves from pilot to production, from ambition to discipline, successful companies treat financial technology with the rigor, compliance, and reliability the financial system demands.
For investors, entrepreneurs, and financial institutions, the message is clear: the infrastructure play is where value accrues, practical solutions beat ambitious visions, and regulatory sophistication is competitive advantage.
The fintech of 2026 isn’t about disrupting bankingâit’s about becoming the infrastructure banks, fintechs, and commerce platforms run on. That’s where the massive value creation happens.