PayPal Introduces AI-Powered Features

PayPal announced a number of updates, including many powered by AI technologies. This is the first major announcement made by PayPal since Alex Chriss took over as CEO of the company in September.

PayPal made improvements to its checkout, introduced features to create a more personalized experience, and implemented updates to generate more engagement with PayPal and enhanced business profiles with Venmo.

“PayPal is introducing six new innovations that will not only solve real customer pain points, but we believe will change the world of payments and commerce,” Chriss said.

A new checkout experience will reduce disruption at the last step of the sale, avoiding lost revenues for merchants. Users will be able to “log in with their face or fingerprint with one tap,” avoiding latency and speeding up the checkout process in a secure way.

Targeting users who are not logged into the merchant’s site, Fastlane by PayPal will also help accelerate the checkout. Customers browsing websites will be able to check out by saving their information with Fastlane and pay with one tap. A pilot run with select merchants on BigCommerce concluded that Fastlane “can recognize 70% of guests3 and accelerated checkout speeds of nearly 40%” in some cases.

Smart Receipts will allow merchants to better target customers with promotions or cashback rewards by leveraging AI to analyze user data to provide personalized recommendations directly following a purchase. PayPal has determined that 45% of customers open their email receipts daily, making this an ideal channel to re-engage customers.

The PayPal Advanced Offers Platform will allow merchants to further extend their ability to target their customers with personalized offers, going beyond an analysis of the users’ browsing activity to analyze purchase history as well.

Updates to the PayPal app focus on the launch of its CashPass in March. This AI-powered solution will allow users in the US to access a wide range of personalized cashback opportunities in partnership with a number of merchants.

Finally, PayPal introduced updates to Venmo business profiles to better help small businesses drive traffic and increase sales. This cross between social media and a payment app will add subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and a means for merchants to better target consumers with promotions.

Investors will be closely watching how these improvements boost PayPal’s margins and stock performance, which has dropped by 22% in the last 12 months.