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| As per Visa, the new AI-enabled system will provide more granular data to financial institutions. |
The payments giant is betting on artificial intelligence to tackle a $170 billion industry headache: the slow, manual, and costly process of handling chargebacks and customer disputes.
Visa announced the launch of six new AI-driven tools on Wednesday, aiming to modernize the outdated infrastructure behind credit card disputes. According to a CNBC report, the digital payments company processed over 106 million disputes globally in 2025, marking a staggering 35% increase compared to 2019.
Andrew Torre, Visa’s president of value-added services, told CNBC that the legacy systems currently in use are "still largely manual," leading to frustration for consumers and billions in operational losses for merchants and banks. "Our goal is to streamline this as much as possible," Torre said. "We'd love to be able to see that growth rate come down".
A Dual-Pronged Attack on 'Friendly Fraud'
The new suite of tools is split evenly between two sides of the transaction aisle. Three tools are designed specifically for merchants, while the other three are built for issuers and acquirers.
For merchants, the focus is on prevention. Visa is rolling out the Visa Dispute Resolution Network, a pre-dispute system designed to intercept potential chargebacks before they escalate into full-blown financial fights. The company is also introducing a generative AI tool that automates the "representment" process (the merchant's rebuttal to a chargeback) and provides win-prediction scoring, helping businesses decide which disputes are worth fighting. Furthermore, an update to the Order Insight product allows merchants to submit Compelling Evidence 3.0 to banks, sharing detailed data about suspicious transactions to reduce instances of "friendly fraud".
For issuers and acquirers, the focus is on automation. Visa has deployed predictive AI models in a tool called Dispute Intelligence to help financial institutions analyze cases using the network's vast global transaction data. The Dispute Doc Analyzer uses AI to summarize supporting documents and auto-fill key fields, drastically cutting down the time analysts spend on manual review. Finally, the Visa Dispute Case Manager centralizes the entire dispute workflow—across various card networks—into a single, unified platform.
Industry Context: A Manual Process in a Digital Age
The overhaul comes as the payments industry struggles to keep up with consumer expectations. According to Visa, a significant chunk of these disputes stems from cardholders simply not recognizing a transaction on their statements.
"Monthly statements are typically multiple pages and consumers are challenged to remember where they shopped and what they bought," said Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, in a PaymentsJournal analysis. "With cryptically brief merchant descriptors and no purchase details, consumers frequently click on the 'dispute this charge' button."
With Visa processing record volumes, the industry is losing billions annually to inefficient processes. Analysts note that institutions that continue to rely on fragmented, manual workflows risk leaving recoverable revenue on the table.
The Bigger Picture: Subscription Management and Availability
The AI dispute tools are part of a wider suite of consumer-facing features. Visa recently confirmed an Enhanced Subscription Manager tool that allows users to cancel recurring payments directly within their banking apps, addressing one of the common friction points that leads to disputes.
Visa announced that most of these dispute-related tools will become generally available later this year, with some features, such as the Dispute Doc Analyzer, rolling out to issuers as early as late April 2026.
As the payments ecosystem braces for even higher transaction volumes, Visa is betting that moving from a reactive to a proactive AI-driven model will not only save money but also salvage customer trust. "We'll be able to get them insights and data so they can move from being reactive to proactive," Torre told CNBC.
Source: CNBC, The Paypers