The increasing use of artificial intelligence in financial systems is pushing the industry towards a model where machines execute 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, with the tipping point occurring when latency, scale, and complexity start to impact competitiveness.
This forces companies to rethink how their systems are built. While automation has long been a part of finance, Borden emphasized that the focus is now shifting from capability to trust, with the question being whether technology can be trusted, audited, and controlled. 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, companies must be able to demonstrate what controlled a system and whether it followed policy when decisions are made without direct human input. Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, noted that the crypto sector already offers a working model of automated finance, with blockchain networks processing large volumes of transactions through smart contracts and software-driven wallets. This experience extends to risk management, with efforts to track illicit funds across thousands of wallets serving 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, with Levin predicting that the majority of commerce in 10 years will be settled on public infrastructure, while Borden envisioning a more integrated approach that links public blockchains, private networks, and existing rails.