Agentic Agents Confront and Combat Fraud as Scams Accelerate

A consumer receives a text message that appears to come from her bank. The tone is urgent. The link opens a convincing login page. Credentials are entered. Moments later, a transfer request appears inside what seems to be a trusted session.

Across town, a mid-sized business CFO reviews an invoice from a long-standing supplier. The amount aligns with prior payments. The banking details are new, accompanied by a routine explanation. The transaction is approved. Days later, the supplier calls. The funds never arrived.

These situations reflect a common weakness in modern fraud prevention. The transactions are authorized. The credentials are valid. The behavior, viewed in isolation, appears reasonable. The deception occurs at the level of human judgment rather than system breach.

PYMNTS Intelligence data underscores how rapidly this pattern is expanding. Scams recently accounted for 23% of fraudulent transactions reported by financial institutions, following a 56% year-over-year rise. Even more telling, the share of dollars lost due to scams increased by 121%.

Fraud systems have traditionally been structured around discrete checkpoints such as verified logins and scored transactions. The payment is approved or declined. If fraud later emerges, disputes and reimbursements follow.

That structure performs well when fraud originates from stolen credentials, compromised cards or abnormal spending patterns. Scam-driven fraud introduces a different challenge because the payment “intention” appears legitimate. The risk signals often develop during the interaction itself.

Instant payment rails intensify this pressure due to the fact that settlement windows are compressed. Reversals become more difficult.

Financial institutions are already seeing the strain. PYMNTS Intelligence finds that 40% of financial institutions (FIs) lost more money to fraud, while 38% experienced higher fraud volumes.

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) agents introduce a different operational posture when it comes to battling fraud. Instead of evaluating risk at fixed points, the system observes and assesses continuously throughout the transaction lifecycle. In effect, agentic agents can change when and how intervention occurs.

Speed and data are critical in an era, where, as PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster noted, data as recently as last month indicate that 41% of consumers used dedicated AI platforms for product discovery, and agent-enabled shopping may equate to more than $5 trillion in spending activity. “They’re not layering AI on top of old habits,” Webster said of these consumers, “they’re shutting the door and leaving them behind.”

An agent can evaluate behavioral patterns as a customer navigates a payment session. The data and patterns can correlate device attributes, session dynamics, historical activity and contextual anomalies as signals evolve. Decisions are refined while the interaction unfolds.  Most importantly, intervention does not inherently require interruption, so the parties on either end of the transaction don’t experience a hiccup.

A frequent concern surrounding advanced fraud controls is the risk of slowing legitimate activity. In practice, agentic systems can operate largely outside the customer’s awareness.

Risk evaluation occurs in parallel with the payment flow. Authentication strength may adjust using credentials already present in the session. Contextual confirmations appear as routine security checks rather than alerts.

This capability addresses a longstanding tension in fraud management. Stronger controls have historically translated into broader friction. Agentic systems enable more selective responses.

The industry’s investment patterns reflect these pressures. PYMNTS Intelligence reports that 26% of financial institutions added behavioral analytics capabilities in the past year, while 76% are deploying or planning new fraud technologies. Confidence in faster payments is also rising. Ninety-eight percent of FIs report that they believe faster payment experiences can be offered without compromising security.

External forecasts reinforce the urgency. Deloitte has projected significant growth in authorized push payment fraud as instant payment adoption expands.

Loss prevention strategies increasingly require systems that can assess intent, context and behavior in dynamic fashion.

From an economic perspective, earlier intervention reduces loss severity

Agentic agents also align with the trajectory of commerce interfaces. As digital experiences move toward embedded finance and agent-driven interactions, continuous decisioning will move towards becoming a structural requirement.

For the time being, adoption challenges remain material. Cost pressures continue to dominate investment decisions. PYMNTS Intelligence data shows that 83% of FIs cite cost as a constraint on fraud-prevention upgrades.   Governance demands also expand. Continuous decisioning introduces model-risk considerations, auditability requirements and accountability questions. Against a longer term backdrop, agentic agents reflect a broader shift in defensive strategy as risk assessment becomes continuous.

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