FinTech TV Host: Welcome to FinTech TV. Artificial intelligence unleashing a wave of sophisticated online fraud, but it's also powering a new generation of consumer bots that shop and transact on our behalf. And not surprisingly, that's triggered a rush to rebuild the internet's digital identity plumbing. Socure is fresh off a $5.2 billion valuation and doubling its customer base. Joining us here at Money 2020 to break down the battle for digital trust is Johnny Ayers, founder and CEO of Socure. Great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Johnny Ayers: Thank you so much for having me.
FinTech TV Host: Well, first and foremost, tell me what's driving this corporate demand right now and the surge in growth.
Johnny Ayers: Yeah, I'm, I'm sure as everyone's seen, it's difficult to trust what you see on the internet these days. AI has really broken trust between counterparties, and so, we're seeing the fake synthetic identities at some, some, some areas of the market, uh, accelerating over 8,000% year over year in terms of attacks. Uh, customers need to protect themselves at the front door, at login, at money movement, um, and so whether it's gaming, government, financial services, crypto, insurance, we're just seeing demand across really all markets as, as AI, uh, uh, fraud is really accelerating in one way as the tooling and capabilities just get better and better and better, uh, each passing month.
FinTech TV Host: And Johnny, for our viewers out there who may not be familiar with the depth and breadth of all of your products, services, as well as the industries that you serve, can you give us a broad overview?
Johnny Ayers: Yeah, of course. So, Socure started, uh, a little over 10 years ago where we've really built out all the different dimensionality of how you verify a consumer's identity, uh, phone, device, email, documents, behavioral biometrics, uh, face biometrics, and then we've wrapped all of this into an orchestration decisioning platform called Risk OS. So that consumer verification has really given us an unbelievable foundation to move into business verification and now into agent verification as well, uh, to really ensure, uh, whether this is human or bot traffic. Uh, these products serve a plethora of use cases across the life cycle. Really, anytime there's a regulatory risk or a monetary action, where you need to make sure this is actually the person or agent that you think it is, uh, that's really where Socure shines.
FinTech TV Host: And of course at Money 2020, there have been so many conversations about agentic commerce as well as trust and convergence as well as payments. So give us your vision for the growth of Socure as you move into the future.
Johnny Ayers: So, uh, fraud is a business, uh, as AI has made the, uh, uh, you know, efficiency of basically committing fraud much, much, much cheaper. Naturally you see fraud going only in one direction, um, and so for us we're seeing just a massive amount of demand across really every market, uh, not only to verify consumers, uh, and predict agentic traffic, but provide agent credentials with really a signed known good identity behind it. As well as build and deliver agents ourselves to be able to automate decisioning for all types of financial crime use cases. And so, uh, yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're feeling very, very lucky to be in the situation that we're in, and the position that we're in is really a market leader and, uh, transforming everything we've learned over a decade from identity verification and, and really bringing it into this new agentic world.
FinTech TV Host: And of course as we stand here, here at the final quarter of 2026, there are a lot of expectations, especially when we're gathered at a conference such as Money 2020. But when it comes to the world of identity, especially now that artificial intelligence is part of the equation, what do you think is key for enterprise as we move forward?
Johnny Ayers: Yeah, I think continuing to buy best of breed, um, uh, you know, all these are quantitative, like, uh, you know, quantitatively kind of uh uh validated problems. And so continue to ensure that you have the best in class partners that are really investing heavily in AI themselves. Um, you know, we talk a lot about AI and offense, uh, and AI on defense, uh, and really ensuring that the folks that you're, you're partnering with are staying a couple of steps ahead. They are working with the labs, they are participating in all the big working groups, uh, defining, you know, effectively how the future of the internet is going to work. And so, yeah, our, our, our, uh, our, our hope is that we get to continue to innovate, uh, and build, uh, with many of the largest organizations and enterprises in the world.
FinTech TV Host: And finally, before I let you go, you mentioned a keyword there, and that is future. So what does the future of trust look like?
Johnny Ayers: Oh man, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a wild time. Uh, you know, 8 weeks ago, 10 weeks ago, there was no consumer bots, right? Everything and agents were in the enterprise, right? Whether it's a Dropic or Cloud or Lindy or N8N and so it's been this amazing, uh, uh, immediate acceleration where we no longer have to do our own shopping. We no longer have to book our own travel. We no longer, right, uh, uh, uh, can have this like uh uh uh automation uh that's available to us as consumers. And so I think the whole interface of the internet is going to change, right? Uh, checkout forms are going to go away, uh, potentially even websites as we know them today will cease to exist. Um, and so, uh, yeah, I think there's gonna be a new interface of the internet. I think these agents are, are going to become, uh, you know, the thing that we interact with, whether it be, you know, a piece of hardware, whether it be in a talking into a WhatsApp thread, uh, but, uh, yeah, I think, uh, very, very, very quickly, it's transforming, uh, how, how people, uh, purchase, how people interact, um, you know, how people make insurance claims or, or, you know, negotiate their cellphone bill. I think, uh, the, the, the the interaction is going to be with your agent or, or, or series of agents, um, which will, of course, dramatically change the downstream, you know, interaction with mobile applications, web applications, websites, and so it's a really, really, really fun time to be an entrepreneur in this space. Um, and yeah, we feel very very grateful for this opportunity to be a part of this like massive product cycle change.
FinTech TV Host: Well, Johnny, I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. Thank you so much for sharing the story of Socure as well as all of your insights and your perspective.
Johnny Ayers: Thank you so much for having me.
