For our 2026 outlook, we picked six trends to better acquaint you with what to expect this year in the payments arena, but then we went a step further in selecting three worthy of a deeper dive. See all four stories below, and a brief explanation of why we focused where we did.
Our senior reporter, Justin Bachman, dug deeper into the AI-driven agentic payments topic to help readers better understand when and how this tech tool really becomes a reality. Spoiler: not in 2026. Still, his story describes the challenges being tackled this year that are likely to lead to bot payments as early as next year.
