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EBANX co-founder and CEO João Del Valle says artificial intelligence could reshape the payments industry so profoundly that its next major competitor may emerge from outside the sector. As AI makes technology faster and cheaper to build, Del Valle argues that customer relationships, regulatory infrastructure, geographic reach and strategic partnerships will become increasingly important sources of competitive advantage.

AI Could Redefine Payments Competition

Speaking with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in a What’s Next in Payments interview, Del Valle said AI is accelerating the pace at which companies can develop products and reach product-market fit.

That shift could expand the competitive landscape beyond traditional payments providers. “A new competitor may come from a completely different kind of organization,” Del Valle said, pointing to the speed at which AI is changing how companies operate.

The development echoes the warning made decades ago by former Intel CEO Andy Grove, who argued that major strategic disruptions can originate outside the competitive landscape executives are accustomed to monitoring. In Only the Paranoid Survive, published in 1996, Grove described such disruptive technological and market shifts as “10X forces.”

Grove cited the internet as one such force, although he did not foresee the smartphone eventually challenging the personal computer. His broader lesson, however, remains relevant: a threat capable of transforming an established industry may emerge from an unexpected direction.

Technology Is Becoming Easier to Replicate

For payments companies, Del Valle believes the rapid commoditization of technology is weakening one traditional source of protection.

Features, payment methods and infrastructure that previously required years to develop can increasingly be reproduced more quickly. As a result, companies may need to rely more heavily on assets that are difficult to recreate through software alone.

Those assets include customer relationships, regulatory capabilities, geographic presence and partnerships.

“AI can make the build happen faster, and you can get to product market fit faster than perhaps was true even just a couple of years ago,” Webster said.

Del Valle expects the impact of that acceleration to be difficult to predict because innovation is no longer likely to emerge from a single, identifiable center.

He pointed to strong activity in markets including the United States, Singapore, China and France, while noting that companies in other markets are also closing the gap.

“Five years from now, we won’t have even an idea of what a payments platform will look like, given the amount of innovation that’s going to happen,” Del Valle said.

Still, he believes companies can prepare for the disruption by establishing a strong foundation. “The best ingredient for a transformation is to have a solid base,” he said.

AI Is Changing How Companies Operate

Del Valle’s interest extends beyond the technology itself to the way organizations function.

He is examining how information moves through companies, how AI agents interact with employees, and how organizations develop what he described as “company brains” and “personal [individual] executive brains.”

Companies are experimenting with internal AI operating systems and exploring how those systems can exchange knowledge with employees and with one another.

That creates a management challenge alongside the technological one. Grove argued that senior executives can be slow to recognize strategic inflection points because early warnings often emerge several layers below the C-suite and may lose urgency as they move upward.

Webster asked Del Valle how executives can avoid that problem when information is sometimes “watered down because everyone wants to try to mitigate the bad news.”

Del Valle said leaders need to challenge organizational hierarchies, stay close to operational details and understand AI capabilities themselves.

He spent several months in San Francisco studying AI, primarily to understand what the technology can now do. That knowledge, he said, can help executives identify jobs, organizational structures and processes that could be vulnerable to disruption.

Reskilling Will Become an Employee Responsibility

Del Valle also expects AI to transform workforce skills across organizations, from the C-suite downward.

While EBANX can provide employees with tools, resources and guidance, he does not believe AI proficiency can be developed through conventional corporate training alone.

“Don’t wait for the company,” Del Valle said. “This revolution is on you.”

At the same time, companies must continue meeting sales, product and operational targets while investing in AI capabilities whose financial returns may take time to materialize.

Del Valle warned that businesses cannot allow their existing operations to deteriorate while pursuing transformation. Maintaining current performance is necessary to generate the resources required to fund that transformation.

His broader advice remains grounded in a basic commercial principle: companies need to understand precisely what customers value and what they are willing to pay for.