The payments giant Visa планирует инвестировать $100 млн в стартапы, ориентированные на разработку технологий и приложений генеративного искусственного интеллекта.
The company described the initiative as an expansion of AI-powered innovation in payments, which Visa began in 1993.
Generative AI is a field of technology that uses large language models to generate text, images and other content from a set of prompts.
“Although most of generative artificial intelligence to date has focused on content creation tasks, this technology will soon not only change the way we live and work but also significantly reshape commerce in ways we have yet to understand,” said Jack Forrestell, Director of Product and Strategy.
Investments will be made through Visa Ventures — the payments company’s venture arm, established in 2007.
In a comment to TechCrunch, David Rolf, head of Visa Ventures, said the firm “has considerable flexibility” with regard to the amount and average size of future investments.
“Given the early stage of the industry’s development, we expect to make a number of small investments in the order of a few million dollars,” he noted.
If there are solid grounds, the unit could allocate larger sums, he added.
Rolf named the main criteria for backing startups as the aim to use artificial intelligence to “solve real problems in commerce, payments and financial technologies”.
As reported in September, the generative AI platform for enterprises Writer attracted $100 million in a Series B funding round.