The increasing use of artificial intelligence in financial systems is driving a shift towards a model where machines handle transactions on a large scale, creating new challenges related to control, oversight, and infrastructure, according to Microsoft and Chainalysis executives. 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 turning point occurs when latency, scale, and complexity start to impact a company's ability to compete, forcing firms to reevaluate their system architecture, he said at an 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. The question is no longer about whether technology can automate tasks, but rather whether it can be trusted and audited. Microsoft is developing tools to manage this transition, including systems that assign identities and permissions to AI agents and track their actions.
In regulated environments, firms must be able to demonstrate what controlled a system and whether it followed policy when decisions are made without direct human input, Borden said. Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, pointed to the crypto sector as a working model of automated finance, where blockchain networks process large volumes of transactions through smart contracts and software-driven wallets. This creates an environment similar to agent-based systems, he said.
Levin noted that the crypto sector has been preparing for this shift for some time, citing efforts to track illicit funds across thousands of 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 will be settled on public infrastructure in 10 years, while Borden envisioned a more integrated approach linking public blockchains, private networks, and existing systems. Borden believes that traditional systems will continue to exist, with software acting as the layer that connects them.