Lithic Says AI Agents Will Rewrite Online Payments and Fraud Controls

Lithic grew out of Privacy.com, founded in 2014, and shifted toward enterprise payments infrastructure under its current name in 2021. Its combined card and ACH monthly processing volume reached $1 billion in November 2024. The rise of AI agents challenges fraud systems built around human browsing, device and checkout behavior, because legitimate software acting for an authorized buyer can resemble the automated activity those defenses were designed to block.

As of July 24, 2026, Lithic argues that payment controls must shift toward virtual cards, tokenization and intent verification, with each agent transaction constrained by merchant, amount and delegated authority. It expects adoption to begin in repeatable B2B workflows such as advertising, API usage and data procurement before expanding in consumer commerce. Lithic said on February 19 that clients were already embedding agents into payment workflows; one multi-tenant customer cut 3DS-related fraud by 40% using its integrated controls.