Innovation Forum 2025: Five Key Takeaways on AI, Cybersecurity, and Financial Inclusion

Digitization, AI, cybersecurity, SMEs and stablecoins headlined Mastercard’s annual Innovation Forum, as the company introduced new consumer and SME products and deepened its commitment to building a trusted, connected digital economy.

This year’s theme, “Synergy,” called for collective action toward the future—bringing together more than 1,200 industry leaders, innovators, developers and partners for the event’s 14th edition in Miami.

Across mainstage sessions, roundtables and hands-on demos, we walked away with five major takeaways:

1. AI is Shaping the New Wave of Innovation: AI anchored many of the Forum's most compelling discussions, with clear applications in fraud prevention, real-time analytics, and more intuitive digital interactions. The dialogue expanded to address generative AI's transformative impact on business, politics, and society. Nina Schick, globally renowned AI expert, underscored a historic inflection point: humanity is beginning to deploy artificial intelligence as a foundational industrial utility—scaling non-biological intelligence for the first time with implications across the entire ecosystem.

2. Agentic AI is Powering the Future of Commerce: Agentic commerce captured significant attention at the Forum. Adam Cheyer, the architect behind Siri and Bixby, explored how Apple's Siri embodied the founding principles of agentic AI. Today, that vision has evolved: companies are building a new generation of agentic tools that seamlessly integrate transparency and accountability into every customer interaction.

3. SMEs – From Financial Inclusion to Digital Acceleration: SMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean's face a critical gap: despite their economic importance, they lack access to tailored financial tools. This disparity leaves substantial untapped potential in the region. As innovation flourishes, transitioning SMEs from cash-based to digital payments is essential to building a fully connected, digital economy.

4. Cybersecurity is the Trust Layer Behind Every Innovation: Cybersecurity emerged as the foundational thread connecting all themes at the Forum—from agentic commerce to stablecoins to SME digitalization. As digital interactions multiply, the need for strong, visible, and invisible layers of protection becomes even more critical. Cybersecurity is no longer a requirement operating in the background—it is a competitive differentiator, an enabler of financial inclusion, and the anchor that allows innovation to scale responsibly.

5. Stablecoins are Bridging Digital Innovation with Mainstream Payments: Stablecoins are emerging as powerful enablers of programmable, efficient, and globally accessible digital money. Mastercard's Raj Dhamodharan shared his vision for stablecoins across Latin America and the Caribbean, proposing to harness the region's digitization wave as a pathway to financial inclusion—offering unbanked populations a new route into the digital economy.

As we look ahead, the conversations sparked at the Innovation Forum will continue to shape Mastercard’s roadmap for inclusive, secure, and AI-driven growth. By fostering collaboration across industries, we remain committed to building a digital economy that works for everyone—where trust, innovation, and inclusion go hand in hand.