MasterCard (MA) is taking payments, the last — and sometimes, the most painful — part of shopping into the future, replacing card swipes with robots, artificial intelligence and the ubiquitous selfie.
The steps, including this week’s introduction of a chatbot for banks called “MasterCard KAI” that uses artificial intelligence to respond to customer queries via texts or through apps like Facebook Messenger, are vital parts of CEO Ajay Banga’s strategy of leverage technological development to expand the $113 billion company beyond traditional card-based transactions.
