Agentic Concerns Return Trust to the Forefront (Money 20/20 Reflections Pt. 1)

Whether by design or the irresistible force of industry trends, each annual edition of Money 20/20 seems to coalesce around a prevailing vibe. Who can forget the “Jesus Loves Bitcoin” year? At other times the impact of regulators, venture capitalists and household tech company names spreading their wings have all taken turns in the limelight.

Zero bonus points will be given for correctly guessing that Agentic AI was the hottest topic in Las Vegas at the fintech ecosystem’s largest get-together this October. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised the inescapable issue didn’t suck more of the air out of the Sands Convention Center. This may be thanks to payment agents’ still embryonic status from a commercial standpoint, thereby inviting deep dives into a wide array of diverse angles. The implications for fraud and the potential redefinition of consumer shopping journeys alone could each have driven days of debate and competing perspectives.

The week before Money 20/20 Jamie Dimon announced that JP Morgan Chase would block access to its systems for most agents, citing safety concerns and echoing Chase’s approach to screen scraping in the last wave of data aggregator battles. Amazon has similarly throttled Perplexity’s agents, setting off a court battle.

On the other end of the spectrum, the CEOs of Plaid and Perplexity appeared in tandem on the Money 20/20 main stage to tout their collaboration on the Perplexity Computer product, promising ”a CFO for your life.” Plaid CEO Zach Perret stressed the importance of authoritative sources to make these operating systems effective, emphasizing two must-haves: accuracy and (wait for it…) trust.

At the same time Perret admitted, “Honestly, I’m quite scared. We’re in a dead sprint using AI to fight fraud. We’re going to have a scary year.”

At the core of it all, however, I heard a welcome emphasis on the cornerstone of financial services- Trust. I’m not suggesting the fintech sector ever lost sight of the importance of trust. Nonetheless it’s refreshing to see a breakthrough technology with such disruptive (and to the pessimists, cataclysmic) potential give rise to an acknowledgement of banking’s bedrock principles. 

Of course there were many other key takeaways over three-plus days. We’ll be sharing those- along with onsite interviews- on the BIGCast in the next few weeks. Suffice to say I found Money 20/20 to be worthwhile yet again, and was particularly thrilled to find its forward-focused discussions serve to reinforce the enduring nature of financial services fundamentals.