--- title: Beyond the Button: Investigating Fraud in the Age of Agentic Payments source_page: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/agentic-payments canonical: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/agentic-payments format: text/markdown date: 2026-07-15T05:00:00.000Z description: Agentic payments are changing fraud investigations, SAR reporting, audit trails, AML compliance, and transaction monitoring as AI makes more payment decisions… --- **Quick links:** [Human page](https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/agentic-payments) · [Home](https://www.sardine.ai) · [Customers](https://www.sardine.ai/customers) · [Blog](https://www.sardine.ai/blog) · [Demo](https://www.sardine.ai/demo) --- # Beyond the Button: Investigating Fraud in the Age of Agentic Payments **Published:** 2026-07-15T05:00:00.000Z Agentic payments are changing fraud investigations, SAR reporting, audit trails, AML compliance, and transaction monitoring as AI makes more payment decisions… What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward! Over the last few months, I've had more conversations about agentic payments than just about any other topic. At conferences, on webinars, and in discussions with some of the smartest people in payments, compliance, and fraud, one thing has become clear to me: I think we're asking the wrong question. Most people want to know whether AI will start moving money. The question I keep coming back to is this: How do fraud teams investigate transactions when software starts making decisions? In this solo episode, I pull together insights from recent conversations with Matt Vega, Mary Ann Miller, and Matt Janiga to explore what agentic commerce really means for fraud investigations, SAR reporting, and the future of financial crime investigations. We talk about why traditional fraud models have always assumed a human initiated the payment, why that assumption no longer holds, and what investigators will need to understand when AI agents begin making decisions on behalf of customers. The technology may be changing, but the principles of good fraud prevention are not. Documentation, audit trails, authority management, explainability, and strong transaction monitoring will become even more important as agentic payments move from theory to reality. What you’ll hear in this episode: Why agentic payments are fundamentally different from traditional payment automation. How agentic commerce changes the way fraud teams investigate payment fraud. Why audit trails, attribution, and explainability will become essential during fraud investigations. How SAR reporting and AML investigations may evolve as AI becomes part of the payment decision process. Why regulators are focused on enabling innovation safely instead of slowing it down. The three questions every fraud investigator should begin asking today to prepare for the future. You should listen to this episode if you: Work in fraud prevention, AML compliance, investigations, or financial crime. File suspicious activity reports or conduct SAR reporting. Lead fraud operations, transaction monitoring, or payment investigations. Are evaluating how AI and agentic commerce will affect your institution. Want practical steps your team can begin implementing today instead of waiting for the rulebook to catch up. ### Episode notes Agentic payments require a new investigative framework For decades, fraud investigations have started with one assumption: a person initiated the payment. We reconstruct who logged in, what device they used, how they authenticated, and what actions they took. Agentic payments challenge that model. When software begins making decisions on behalf of a customer, investigators need to understand not only who owns the account, but also who authorized the AI agent, what permissions it received, whether it stayed within those permissions, and what information influenced its decision. That represents an entirely new investigative framework for fraud teams. Audit trails will become just as important as transaction history Tomorrow's investigations may rely as much on software history as transaction history. Investigators will increasingly need: Agent activity logs Permission history Decision history Authority changes Data inputs Human review records These audit trails will help investigators reconstruct why an AI agent made a particular payment decision and support both internal reviews and regulatory examinations. SAR reporting will continue to evolve Current SAR reporting was built around human actors. As agentic commerce becomes more common, suspicious activity reports will likely include richer narratives describing AI-initiated payment activity, delegated authority, decision paths, evidence reviewed, and known limitations. Rather than replacing existing SAR processes, agentic payments will expand how investigators document complex financial crime investigations and support AML compliance. ### Key takeaways Good governance is still good fraud prevention. Strong documentation, authority management, fraud controls, transaction monitoring, and governance remain the foundation of effective fraud prevention. We don’t need every answer before we begin preparing. Start with three: Who authorized the action? What authority was granted? Did the activity remain within those boundaries? Those three questions will matter whether you’re conducting fraud investigations, reviewing payment fraud, filing suspicious activity reports, supporting AML investigations, or simply trying to understand what happened. ### Final takeaway Agentic payments are not replacing fraud investigators. They're changing what we investigate. Identity still matters. Customer relationships still matter. But as software begins participating in financial decisions, institutions that invest in better documentation, stronger audit trails, thoughtful governance, and modern fraud controls will be better prepared than those waiting for regulations to catch up. Innovation has always moved faster than the rulebook. Our job as fraud fighters is not to predict every answer. It's to start asking better questions. Episode resources & links: Connect with Hailey Windham, CFCS | LinkedIn Host of the Fraud Forward Podcast Banking Community Lead at Sardine Certified Financial Crimes Specialist (CFCS) 2023 Credit Union Rockstar, CU Magazine Continuous Improvement Award, SAFE Federal Credit Union, 2023 Top 20 Professionals Under 40, The Sumter Item, 2022