The increasing use of artificial intelligence in financial systems is driving a shift towards machine-based transaction execution, posing new challenges related to control, oversight, and infrastructure, according to executives from Microsoft and Chainalysis. Bill Borden, Microsoft's corporate vice president of worldwide financial services, stated that legacy systems will face growing pressure as transaction demands become more complex. The breaking point occurs when "latency, scale, and complexity start to impact your ability to compete," forcing firms to reevaluate their system architecture, he said at an Alchemy-hosted event in New York City. While automation has long been a part of finance, Borden noted that the focus is now shifting from capability to trust.
"It's not about whether technology can automate a hedging strategy – that's achievable. The question is: can you trust it?
Can you audit and control it?" he said. To manage this transition, Microsoft is developing tools that assign identities and permissions to AI agents and track their actions. In regulated environments, Borden emphasized that firms must be able to demonstrate "what controlled it" and whether a system "followed the policy" when decisions are made without direct human input.
Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, pointed to the crypto sector as a working model of automated finance. Blockchain networks process large volumes of transactions through smart contracts and software-driven wallets, creating an environment similar to agent-based systems.
"We've been preparing for these moments long before other parts of the financial services industry," Levin said. This experience extends to risk management, with Levin citing efforts to track illicit funds across "thousands of different wallets" as an example of the kind of monitoring needed in a system where transactions occur at scale without direct human input.
Looking ahead, both executives expect a mix of systems to coexist. Levin predicted that "the majority of commerce in 10 years will be settled on public infrastructure," while Borden envisioned a more integrated approach linking public blockchains, private networks, and existing rails. "I think traditional rails will continue to exist," Borden said, with software serving as the layer that connects them.