Forter on Preparing Merchants to Safely Engage with Agentic Commerce

At MPE 2026, Adam Davies, Director of AI at Forter, dives into how they are redefining fraud prevention and payment processing, turning what used to be a business drag into a driver for growth. Davies explains that when Forter launched 13 years ago, the main goal was to modernize fraud management by replacing outdated, static rules with automated, scalable technology.

Forter notes that those old systems often failed by declining valuable, trustworthy customers or, conversely, letting fraudulent ones through.

Davies highlights that Forter has expanded its focus significantly beyond just fraud management to include payment optimization. Today, Forter’s mission is to help merchants grow by transforming their fraud and payment systems from being a simple cost center into a powerful revenue optimization engine. According to Davies, while most industry players focus on minimizing chargebacks from fraudulent transactions, many overlook the substantial revenue loss caused by falsely declining good customers. 

Forter addresses this by accurately assessing the trustworthiness of every transaction, ensuring legitimate customers enjoy a frictionless, excellent buying experience that drives up merchant conversion rates. On the payment side, Davies details how Forter uses intelligent decision-making, for instance, choosing the right payment rail, network, or PSP, to boost approval rates and simultaneously reduce processing costs.

Looking ahead, Davies identifies agentic commerce as the major trend with real substance behind the buzzword and this new channel introduces complex security and engineering challenges. Davies emphasizes that Forter is heavily investing in solutions to equip merchants with the technology required to engage with this channel safely. By embedding their core capabilities around identity, trust, and payment optimization into this new infrastructure, Forter ensures that transactions originating from AI agents are secure while maintaining high conversion levels.

Finally, Davies speaks positively about the value of attending MPE and describes the event as a crucial meeting place where partners, vendors, and merchants connect to have real conversations. The primary benefit, Davies concludes, is the efficient networking opportunity, getting all the experts in one room to discuss merchant pain points, find synergies for future solutions, and explore new opportunities for partnership and client engagement.