Speech by Governor Waller on payments in the age of AI agents - Federal Reserve Board

Federal Reserve Governor Waller delivered a speech titled 'Payments in the age of AI agents,' published on the Federal Reserve Board's website. The speech addresses artificial intelligence in relation to payments and to cybersecurity. Waller said AI is not just an offensive tool. He noted that cyber professionals are optimistic about using AI for cyber threat detection and exposure management, and for catching vulnerabilities before they are introduced. The text was published by the Federal Reserve Board.

Waller said 'there is clearly an asymmetry.' He described the asymmetry in terms of what each side must do: threat actors need to exploit only one key vulnerability, while defenders must protect a large attack surface. He also discussed open versus closed agentic commerce systems, comparing them to open- and closed-loop payment networks.

The title of the speech places AI agents within the payments system rather than treating them as a separate subject. Waller's comparison of agentic commerce to payment networks presents open and closed configurations as the two structures under consideration. On cybersecurity, the speech sets the optimistic case for AI in defence — threat detection, exposure management, catching vulnerabilities before they are introduced — against his statement that 'there is clearly an asymmetry' between attackers and defenders, which he attributes to the fact that a threat actor needs only one key vulnerability while defenders must protect a large attack surface.