Visa's new tools are part of a larger push by major banks and financial institutions to incorporate AI into their businesses.
Visa has introduced six new artificial intelligence tools specifically designed to assist merchants, issuers, and acquirers in the payments ecosystem with managing charge disputes more efficiently. The company revealed that it processed over 106 million disputes globally in 2025, representing a significant 35% increase since 2019, underscoring the growing need for streamlined dispute resolution. This launch is a prominent example of a broader trend where major financial institutions are actively integrating AI capabilities into their core business operations to enhance efficiency and reduce manual efforts.
Visa is embarking on a significant initiative by launching six new tools utilizing artificial intelligence, aiming to modernize the often 'outdated' and manual process of disputing credit card charges. This strategic move, exclusively shared with CNBC, is expected to substantially reduce the operational costs and frustrations associated with current dispute resolution methods for all parties involved: merchants, card issuers, and transaction acquirers. Andrew Torre, Visa's president of value-added services, highlighted that traditional back-office systems are still largely manual, necessitating a transformative approach to handle the increasing scale of disputes. With over 106 million disputes processed globally in 2025—a 35% rise since 2019—Visa's objective is to significantly streamline this process and curb the growth rate of disputes.
The introduction of Visa's advanced AI tools is reflective of a wider industry trend, where leading financial institutions are increasingly incorporating artificial intelligence into various facets of their businesses. This integration spans both internal operational efficiencies and consumer-facing applications. Notable examples include JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which have publicly stated their use of AI to reduce hiring needs. Furthermore, BNY, one of America's oldest banks, demonstrates this commitment through substantial investment, having spent $3.8 billion on technology in 2025, which accounted for approximately 19% of its total revenue, underscoring the critical role AI is playing in the financial sector's evolution.
Three of Visa's newly launched AI tools are specifically engineered to benefit merchants by enabling them to address potential charge disputes proactively, ideally before they escalate into full-blown conflicts. These tools facilitate the management of disputes through generative AI, which can create intelligent responses, and provide a much deeper level of detail regarding order insights. This enhanced data transparency is crucial for mitigating confusion when cardholders encounter unfamiliar charges on their statements, allowing financial institutions to offer more context and clarity, thereby improving the customer experience and reducing unnecessary disputes caused by lack of information.
The remaining three AI tools are tailored for card issuers and transaction acquirers, leveraging sophisticated predictive AI models to assist in comprehensive, case-by-case dispute analysis. These tools are also capable of analyzing extensive documents to generate concise summaries and auto-fill relevant information, significantly reducing manual data entry and review time. Moreover, Visa is establishing a unified, AI-powered dispute platform designed to manage the entire resolution process from a single, centralized location. According to Andrew Torre, this integrated platform will empower financial institutions to transition from a reactive stance to a proactive one, offering them critical insights and data to anticipate and manage disputes more effectively.
These innovative AI tools represent a crucial component of Visa's broader strategy to deliver a comprehensive suite of solutions for consumers. This includes new offerings like a subscription manager, which was introduced just last week, allowing cardholders to conveniently cancel unwanted subscriptions directly from the platform. The automation embedded within these new dispute management tools is projected to yield significant benefits by saving time, reducing costs, and eliminating unnecessary confusion for both financial institutions and cardholders. Visa anticipates that most of these tools will become generally available later this year, promising to create a more efficient and less frustrating ecosystem for all participants in the payments process.