In 2025 everyone experimented with AI, even us at Flywire. Our core themes of how to apply AI were how we could:
- Improve developer efficiency through co-pilots
- Automate more internal business processes and functions
- Enable AI in our products to make our customers more efficient
Many fintechs have been working with AI, but from where I sit — as the CTO of Flywire and leading teams that build our global payments platform and the products serving education, healthcare, travel, and B2B - 2026 will be different.
AI is not new to us. But our work in 2025 prepares us to move from experimentation, to use cases that deliver tangible ROI. This is because the foundation of our practices are in place for AI to reshape how money moves and how we deliver value to our verticals.
How will AI expand Flywire’s global payments’ capacity?
For years, innovation in global payments meant adding more options - more methods, more currencies, more local rails, and more wallets - all of which Flywire has led and excelled at! In 2026, innovation will be about orchestrating the complexity of global payments to make it seem even more local and effortless for the payer.
AI will dynamically route payments across the best rails, identify the most efficient methods and most reliable path for the payer. It will detect risk in real time and tune every part of the payment flow based on geography, regulation, and user behavior.
Our close attention to securely innovating our payments engine enables customers across the verticals to seamlessly embed and enjoy the efficiencies AI brings in their own processes and workflows. Here are a few examples of how I see that playing out.
Prediction 1: In higher education, AI helps institutions better personalize the student financial journey to ensure predictable revenue
Higher education is experiencing dramatic shifts in student demographics, global mobility, and affordability pressures. Schools are increasingly asking: How do we improve international student recruitment and retention, have greater visibility into the entire student financial experience at the institution, and improve student outcomes?
Through integrating AI capabilities into our Student Financial Software, Flywire will aim to provide a guided financial journey from recruitment to graduation, including functionality to:
- Spot emerging and shifting international markets. International enrollment is falling due to global politics and visa restrictions - threatening institutional revenue. Through our platform we can provide institutions early insight of international student interest.
- Deliver more effective payment plans. The future is more personalized affordability plans that recommend the right payment plan structure for each student, based on their financial needs, for both domestic and international students.
- Automate more outreach. We’ll see more personalized communications that find the best channel, tone, and timing for students and authorized users.
- Intervene earlier to assist students at risk of non-payment. Predictive risk indicators that help schools interview before a student stops attending or falls into collections will be critical.
- Improve student success. Full insight of each student from application to graduation will help institutions improve student outcomes.
And, what Flywire already excels at…a seamless experience for domestic and international students.
Prediction 2: In healthcare, providing frictionless payments becomes a critical part of care
The most confusing part of the healthcare journey for most patients is not only navigating health issues or a diagnosis—it’s making sense of the bill.
In 2026, health systems will use AI to bring clarity and compassion to the financial experience, including things like:
- Providing real-time, AI generated cost estimates that reflect benefits, prior history, and eligibility.
- Automating payment plan offers that meet the payers financial profile.
- Automatically showing patients a financing offer and/or payment plan based on their capacity to pay – which ensures more predictable cash flow to providers.
Hospitals and health systems will differentiate not only on clinical outcomes but on the financial experience they deliver—and AI will make this possible at scale.
Prediction 3: In travel & luxury hospitality, the winners will provide hyper-personalized journeys, and the ease of“invisible” payments
In luxury travel, experience is everything—and the payment experience is increasingly part of that promise and must be seamlessly integrated.
In 2026, AI will continue to reshape how itineraries are built, booked, and paid for in luxury travel. AI-crafted itineraries will dynamically assemble flights, hotels, transfers, DMC experiences, and group components.
Flywire will use AI to continue to ensure travelers experience zero friction in booking those trips – and those delivering the experiences get paid with ease. This includes:
- Frictionless global payments across multiple currencies, suppliers, and payout channels
- Risk-aware checkout flows that protect against fraud without creating frustration
On the back end, agencies and DMCs will benefit from AI-driven reconciliation, settlement automation, and supplier risk insights.
Flywire will be at the center of travel & luxury hospitality simply making it “all happen” with our global payment platform.
Prediction 4: B2B payments shift from ‘Pay This Invoice’ to ‘Optimize This Business’
B2B payments are finally modernizing, and 2026 will be the turning point.
The big shift? Businesses won’t just want digital invoicing—they’ll want intelligent cash-flow optimization.
Flywire’s Invoice- to- Cash system will leverage AI for:
- Chasing Automation: Flywire’s invoicing system will learn from payment behavior to design and adjust personalized follow-up cadences - automatically!
- Integration Automation: Flywire’s MCP server will assist in real-time automation or file import automation. It will read data structures, organize and map data for seamless and efficient integration.
- Smarter Insights: Predictive intelligence helps you make proactive, data-backed decisions.
The B2B payment experience will evolve from a necessary back-office function into a strategic financial lever.
Prediction 5: The top engineering teams will use AI responsibly to augment capabilities of human developers
A final prediction—one that affects how we build, not just what we build.
By 2026, every engineering and product team will be AI-assisted by default.
Not to replace expertise, but to amplify it.
Expect:
- AI-generated code that engineers review, refine, and secure
- AI-automated code testing
- AI-driven observability that correlates signals across microservices and infrastructure
- AI-powered product analysis for user journeys, friction points, and experiment ideas
- Automated documentation, architecture diagrams, and workflow summaries
The companies that win won’t be the ones who simply “use AI,” but those who manage data responsibly, uphold security and compliance, and deploy AI where it enhances—not replaces—human judgment.
2026: The year payments and software become intelligent
If the last decade was about unbundling and digitizing payments, 2026 will be about intelligent orchestration—payments that adapt, learn, and personalize in real time and AI-enabled software that improves operational efficiency for our customers.
As I look ahead at Flywire, our focus remains clear:
- Build the strongest global rails for moving money
- Infuse AI across every workflow and vertical we serve
- Continue to deliver experiences worthy of the trust students, families, patients, travelers, and businesses place in us
The future of payments isn’t just faster or cheaper. It’s smarter!