Welcome FINTECHTALKERS!
In this episode, I sat down with Toby Brown, who leads regulated industries at Google Cloud, to explore how AI in financial services has evolved from pilot projects to real deployments driving measurable ROI.
Last year, the conversation was about proofs of concept. This year, it’s about deployment, integration, and scale. Toby explains how banks, fintechs, and exchanges are turning generative AI into productivity tools, compliance engines, and customer experience drivers—while building a framework for secure, regulated AI adoption.
We also dive into Google’s emerging role in agentic commerce—from the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol and Agentic Payments Protocol to the Google Cloud Universal Ledger, which enables programmable money movement and real-time settlement across industries.
If you’re curious about how AI, Stablecoins, and distributed ledgers are converging to define the next generation of financial infrastructure, this episode paints the roadmap from assistive chat to autonomous finance.
💡 Key Takeaways From the Episode
AI goes from pilot to production: Deployments are happening across productivity, customer service, and marketing use cases.
Agentic finance emerges: The next evolution—agents transacting, settling, and verifying autonomously.
Google’s A2A and payments protocols: Open frameworks enabling secure, verifiable agent-to-agent interactions.
Universal Ledger for programmable money: A distributed infrastructure built for compliance, throughput, and scale.
Risk & compliance first: New AI models like Gemini enable anomaly detection, KYC automation, and financial crime prevention.
Stablecoins’ institutional moment: Adoption is surging in B2B, remittances, and settlement—while consumer use cases are still forming.
Customer experience reimagined: From static dashboards to interactive, multimedia financial guidance powered by generative AI.
The future is hybrid: Human-in-the-loop systems for high-value transactions; autonomous AI for low-friction commerce.
🎧 Listen now to the full episode
⏱️ Timestamp Table
0:00 – 2:00 – Welcome + Meet Toby Brown
From 20 years in financial services to leading Google Cloud’s regulated industries team.
2:01 – 4:00 – AI’s New Vocabulary
From pilots and proofs to deploy, integrate, measure.
4:01 – 7:00 – Where AI Works Today
Real ROI in developer productivity, customer service, and marketing (with Klarna results).
7:01 – 10:00 – Agentic Commerce Takes Shape
The shift from assistive chat to autonomous money movement.
10:01 – 13:00 – A2A & Agentic Payments Protocol
Open frameworks for agent-to-agent trust and verification.
13:01 – 18:00 – Universal Ledger + Partners
How PayPal, AmEx, Etsy, and CME are piloting programmable money infrastructure.
18:01 – 22:00 – Stablecoins in Context
Early wins in B2B remittance and institutional settlement; consumer use cases still emerging.
22:01 – 26:00 – AI for Risk, Fraud, and KYC
Financial crime detection and compliance automation with Gemini.
26:01 – 29:00 – Reimagining Customer Experience
From text and charts to interactive, multimedia financial guidance.
29:01 – 31:00 – The Always-On Financial Advisor
AI-powered advisory and inclusion at scale.
31:01 – End – Announcements + Where to Find More
Google Cloud at Money20/20; Monday, Oct. 27 keynote.
FINTECHTALK: A Top 10% Global Podcast Shaping the Future of Fintech, AI, and Crypto and was recently ranked in the Best 100 Future Tech Podcasts by Million Podcasts.
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Enjoy and always be in the know,
Paddy Ramanathan
Founder of iValley and Host of the FINTECHTALK™ Show (on Substack, Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify)
Interested in sponsorship opportunities and be associated with sculpting the future? Please reach out to fintechtalk@substack.com.
Thanks to ChatGPT for suggestions.
(Violin piece in podcast, courtesy of my daughter Ilina)
