AI-Powered Fraud Protection Boosts ECommerce Revenue

Riskified is an AI platform for ecommerce that helps companies prevent fraud and approve more transactions. It offers solutions for fraud prevention, policy protection, and payment optimization.

Q: What added value does Riskified bring to the Latin American ecommerce fraud prevention market? 

A: We are the market leader in Latin America, transitioning merchants away from the obsolete, legacy systems that still dominate the region. These traditional systems rely on static rules, which are ineffective against modern fraudsters and force merchants to absorb the high costs of both chargebacks and false declines. Our greatest value is a fundamentally different model built on technology and alignment. 

Technologically, we utilize advanced AI and machine learning (ML) for instant, accurate decisions, replacing outdated rules. Commercially, our business model is the key differentiator: we provide a full chargeback guarantee, taking financial liability for any fraud, we approve, and we only charge for approved transactions. This model aligns our interests perfectly with the merchant’s, helping us focus on the same goal: maximizing legitimate revenue and conversion rates while guaranteeing protection.

Q: Which sectors are increasingly adopting your solutions and what factors explain these trends? 

A: We see exceptional adoption in sectors where speed is critical and friction is detrimental. Industries such as travel, particularly airlines, and ticketing for concerts or events cannot afford manual reviews; the inventory is time-sensitive and sells out in minutes. Similarly, digital goods and gaming require immediate fulfillment. We also see strong traction in physical retail, including fashion and electronics, as merchants competing on same-day delivery must optimize logistics, and that optimization requires instantaneous fraud detection.

Q: How does Riskified integrate with the existing payment systems and ecommerce platforms used by your clients? 

A: To simplify the integration process, we maintain native integrations with major ecommerce platforms, including Vtex, Magento, Salesforce, and Commerce Tools. Furthermore, as payment orchestration platforms gain traction in the region to manage multiple banks and gateways, we have ensured we are integrated with all major orchestrators. While these pre-built connections offer simplicity, we are not limited by them; we also provide a direct Application Programming Interface (API) for customized integration. Although the initial API setup may require more resources, it provides a fully automated, real-time data flow that ultimately frees merchant teams to focus on strategic tasks rather than manual order review.

Q: How does the Policy Protect solution help minimize merchant policy abuse and what is the expected return for clients who implement it? 

A: Policy Protect addresses losses that are not traditional fraud but severely impact profitability. Merchants often create policies, such as a 50% discount coupon for a first-time buyer, intending to build long-term customer value. Abuse occurs when a single user creates multiple accounts — using different emails or phone numbers — to repeatedly exploit this promotion, destroying the campaign's return on investment. Our solution uses identity clustering to recognize when hundreds of seemingly different accounts are, in fact, one entity. Once identified, the merchant can apply friction, for example, by invalidating the coupon for that identity.

Q: What metrics or indicators do you use to measure the effectiveness of your fraud prevention products? 

A: Clients often express a valid concern: if we guarantee chargebacks, we might become overly conservative and decline more legitimate sales (false positives). However, our business model is designed to counteract this problem. We only charge a fee on transactions we approve, meaning we have a direct financial incentive to maximize approvals, as declined orders represent a cost to us with zero revenue. To formalize this, we provide merchants with a guaranteed approval rate in their contract, ensuring we meet or exceed their previous performance. Furthermore, we continuously measure and reduce false positives through "tagging tests," where our expert teams manually review samples of declined orders. 

Q: What kind of personalization or real-time intelligence does your Adaptive Checkout solution offer and how does it translate into increased revenue? 

A: Standard fraud decisions are often binary: approve or decline. However, reality includes a "gray area," transactions that are not clearly safe nor clearly fraudulent. Adaptive Checkout addresses this segment. Instead of issuing a blanket decline, the solution intelligently applies a minimal, appropriate level of friction only to these specific gray-area orders. This "step-up" challenge could be a simple Short Message Service (SMS) verification, a request for the Card Verification Value (CVV), or invoking 3-D Secure (3DS). If the customer passes this low-friction check, we gain the certainty needed to approve the transaction. 

Q: How is the application of AI and ML in risk management and fraud prevention evolving, and what developments will be the most disruptive in the coming years? 

A: Previously, sophisticated AI was restricted, but Generative AI tools are now widely accessible. A novice fraudster can use dark web platforms like “FraudGPT” or “WormGPT” to scale attacks and bypass static merchant rules. It is no longer possible for merchants to combat this level of AI-powered fraud with manual review teams. The evolution requires fighting AI with more sophisticated AI. The most significant development is the power of the network; we do not only analyze one merchant's data. We leverage our entire global network, allowing us to identify a new fraud modus operandi at one client and instantly apply those learnings to protect every other merchant on our platform.Ultimately, maintaining trust in ecommerce requires collaboration between merchants, issuers, and technology partners to establish shared standards for secure, AI-driven commerce. This kind of ecosystem alignment will be key to ensuring that innovation and trust evolve together.

Q: What emerging challenges do you expect Riskified to face as ecommerce grows? 

A: A primary emerging challenge is differentiating legitimate AI-assisted behavior from malicious bot activity. We recently conducted a survey in Mexico and Brazil which found that over 40% of consumers already use AI tools, like ChatGPT, for price comparisons or product recommendations. In the past, high-velocity transactions were a clear indicator of a fraudulent bot. That same velocity could now be a legitimate customer using an AI assistant. Relying on old technology that simply blocks bots will result in declining good customers. Technological innovation is crucial here.

Q: Global expansion means managing risk across geographies, what consumer behavioral changes are transforming fraud prevention strategies in the region? 

A: The most significant behavioral change is the globalization of fraud modus operandi. We operate in over 180 countries, and whereas fraud patterns were once isolated geographically, that is no longer the case. Through the dark web, a sophisticated fraud tactic that appears in Russia today can be purchased as a guide and replicated in Brazil tomorrow. Fraudsters are sharing information globally and instantly. This transforms prevention strategies because defenses can no longer be purely regional; they must be global. Our strategy relies on our network's ability to identify these emerging cross-regional patterns and adapt our models in real-time to prevent an attack that started in one country from succeeding in another.

Q: What expansion or development plans does Riskified have in Mexico and Latin America for 2026? 

A: Latin America is a highly strategic market for us, driven by high ecommerce growth rates and rapid consumer adoption of new technologies. Our research shows Mexico and Brazil consumers are early adopters of AI, making our value proposition essential. We anticipate huge growth, with Mexico as our first priority, followed by Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. We are already seeing significant success in the travel sector, with major carriers like Viva Aerobus and Avianca switching from legacy tools to our platform because we provide a significant lift in approval rates and revenue. This success fuels our continued investment in local teams and technology. As we expand in Mexico and across Latin America, each merchant we onboard strengthens our network and enhances our platform for all merchants.