Visa launches Generative AI Initiative with $100 million fund

Global payment giant Visa is making a significant move into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) with the launch of a new $100 million fund dedicated to investing in generative AI ventures. The fund will support companies developing generative AI initiatives that are payment-driven.

Generative AI refers to algorithms or models that can create new content, such as text, images, audio, and synthetic data, based on the data they were trained on. These models are a type of machine learning and can generate all sorts of new and exciting content, from music and art to entire virtual worlds. 

Generative AI starts with a prompt that could be in the form of text, an image, a video, a design, musical notes, or any input that the AI system can process. Various AI algorithms then return new content in response to the prompt. 

According to Visa, the fund will be managed by its global corporate investment arm, Visa Ventures, which has been at the forefront of fostering innovation in the payments and commerce sectors since 2007.

Visa, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI and the AI market

Visa’s foray into generative AI builds on its history of AI technology in payments, dating back to 1993. In 2021, Visa introduced VisaNet +AI, offering AI-based solutions for financial institutions, and explored cryptocurrency technology for mainstream adoption.

Beyond Visa, there has been a proliferation of AI-focused investments from the top tech companies around the world. In the last month, Amazon made a recent $4 billion investment in Anthopy; OpenAI has plans to raise its valuation to $90 billion while Meta Meta launched its AI-powered assistant and VR headset.

Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, sees great potential in generative AI for finance. He believes it will go beyond tasks and content creation to transform how we live, and work, and fundamentally change commerce.

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