--- title: SardineCon 2026 Debrief: Live from the Show Floor source_page: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/sardinecon-2026-debrief canonical: https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/sardinecon-2026-debrief format: text/markdown date: 2026-08-26T04:01:00.000Z description: A live SardineCon 2026 debrief on AI powered fraud, deepfake detection, and agentic commerce. Straight from the fraud fighters who are there… --- **Quick links:** [Human page](https://www.sardine.ai/media/fraud-forward/episodes/sardinecon-2026-debrief) · [Home](https://www.sardine.ai) · [Customers](https://www.sardine.ai/customers) · [Blog](https://www.sardine.ai/blog) · [Demo](https://www.sardine.ai/demo) --- # SardineCon 2026 Debrief: Live from the Show Floor **Published:** 2026-08-26T04:01:00.000Z A live SardineCon 2026 debrief on AI powered fraud, deepfake detection, and agentic commerce. Straight from the fraud fighters who are there… What’s up fraud fighters, and welcome back to Fraud Forward! This one’s a little different. I recorded this episode live on the floor at SardineCon 2026, and instead of one long sit down with a single guest, you're getting a debrief of the day. One conversation after another, right where they happened. I kicked things off by catching up with Simon Taylor after his opening keynote. From there I sat down with Tal Link, Vice President at City National Bank, who’s spent 17 years in payment risk and consulting. Everything from chargeback abuse to friendly fraud to credit risk. Then came the conversation that’s going to stick with you. Joseph Cox didn’t just talk about AI powered fraud in theory. And to close out the day, Karisse Hendrick and I got into a full recap of Sardine Con. If you couldn’t make it this year, consider this your SardineCon 2026 debrief. Straight from the people who were actually there. What you’ll hear: Simon Taylor on whether the industry actually understands AI or is just moving fast enough to look like it does Tal Link on 17 years in payment risk, and the practical takeaways she's already applying from SardineCon sessions on AI and AB testing Joseph Cox walking through how he built and deployed a fake ID against a real KYC process, and what it revealed about where fraud detection still falls short Why agentic commerce came up in almost every conversation on the show floor, and what it means for how fraud teams need to start thinking Karisse Hendrick on her SardineCon roundtable, where the room debated who owns liability when an agent makes the purchase A rundown of the sessions, fireside chats, and roundtables that shaped the day, plus a look at Sardine's own workflow product You should listen to this episode if you: Couldn’t make it to SardineCon 2026 and want the debrief straight from the floor Are trying to figure out where agentic commerce fits into your fraud strategy Want to hear what it actually looks like when someone tests fake ID detection and KYC testing against real defenses instead of just talking about it Are building out deepfake detection and want perspective from people who are living it day to day Want to hear how a traditional bank is thinking about fraud alongside the fintech and crypto crowd Like your fraud content with a little conference energy instead of another studio recording ### Episode notes Simon Taylor: Are we actually keeping up with AI? The same energy from Simon’s opening speech, and his challenge to the room to find one thing they could use the very next day, carried over into our conversation. We got into whether the industry has genuinely caught up to AI or if we’re all just moving fast enough to look like we have. We also discussed what skills become more valuable once the tools get this good. Don't confuse using AI daily with actually understanding it. Ask your team where the gaps still are. Don’t confuse using AI daily with actually understanding it. Ask your team where the gaps still are. Judgment and curiosity are becoming more valuable than technical AI skills, not less. Give your team the same challenge Simon gave the room and try to leave every AI conversation with one thing you can apply tomorrow. Tal Link: 17 years of payment risk, applies Tal walked me through what she's learned across chargeback abuse, friendly fraud, and credit risk. Then got specific about what she's taking home from SardineCon itself, from a live demo of Sardine's workflow product to a quiet return of AB testing as a fraud strategy tool. AB testing is coming back into fraud strategy conversations. If your team dropped it, it may be worth revisiting. Building and testing models on smaller data sets before scaling up saves real computing effort. Bring this back to any team building in-house models. Take one page from Tal's approach and leave every conference with one thing you can actually implement, not just information. Joseph Cox: Testing AI powered fraud instead of just talking about it Joseph didn't stop at theory. He built a fake ID, ran it through a deepfake, and successfully got it past a real crypto exchange's KYC process. We talked through exactly how he did it, what it exposed about the gaps in identity verification today, and why fake ID detection has to be stress tested against real attacks and not just modeled on paper. If your KYC process hasn't been tested against a real, deployed deepfake, you don't actually know if it works. Theoretical fraud scenarios and tested fraud scenarios are not the same thing. Prioritize the second. Schedule a real red team exercise against your identity verification flow, don’t just have a tabletop discussion. Agentic commerce, the topic that followed us all day This one came up in nearly every conversation on the show floor, not just the ones you'll hear on this episode. Karisse’s own roundtable spent 45 minutes on it, surfacing a real split. Agentic commerce for big-ticket consumer purchases still feels far off, but B2B agentic transactions, and low-friction purchases like groceries, are already closer than most people think. If agentic commerce isn't on your team's radar yet, it needs to be. It was the most repeated topic at the entire conference. Liability ownership between card brands, merchants, and AI companies is still unresolved. Start tracking how this shakes out, because it will affect your dispute process directly. There's no data point yet that distinguishes an agent-initiated purchase from a human one. If you're thinking about fraud prevention for agentic commerce, this is the gap to watch closing. Karisse Hendrick: A full SardineCon 2026 debrief Karisse and I closed out the day comparing SardineCon 2026 to last year's event. Then we went deep on her own roundtable on agentic commerce, including a lively debate about whether stablecoins or micropayments make more sense for agent-driven purchases. Revisit the assumption that agentic commerce means big purchases. The stronger near-term case may be small, recurring, low-friction ones. If you haven't asked your own team what data point would prove a purchase was agent-initiated versus human, that's a useful exercise to run this quarter. Cross-industry perspective matters. Karisse's most useful insights came from people outside her usual practitioner circle. ### Key takeaways Understanding AI right now is less about mastering the tool and more about staying curious enough to keep testing it Fake ID detection and KYC testing need to be stress tested against real, deployed attacks, not just theoretical ones Agentic commerce was one of the most discussed topics on the show floor, and fraud teams that aren't thinking about it yet are already behind Liability for agent-initiated purchases is still an open question between card brands, merchants, and AI companies AB testing is making a quiet comeback as a fraud strategy tool, even outside of traditional use cases ### Final takeaway If SardineCon 2026 makes one thing clear, it is that the fraud fighters who are ahead right now aren’t the ones with the most theories about AI powered fraud. They’re the ones who went out, built the fake ID, ran the test, and found out what actually breaks. As always, stay vigilant, stay informed, and keep moving fraud forward. Episode resources & links: Connect with Joseph Cox | LinkedIn Co-founder and Journalist at 404 Media Author of DARK WIRE: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever Connect with Karisse Hendrick | LinkedIn Host of the Fraudology Podcast Award-Winning Cyberfraud Expert Ecommerce Fraud Prevention Consultant Startup Advisor, Keynote Speaker, and Consultant to Fortune 500 merchants Connect with Simon Taylor | LinkedIn Founder FintechBrainfood Market Development at Tempo Advisor at Sardine Connect with Tal Yeshanov | LinkedIn Head of Risk and Compliance, Zeni 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