Adyen Innovation & Technology Culture

Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, today announced that it has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Merchant Payment Providers, Q1 2026 report. In this evaluation, Adyen received the highest score possible in 14 different criteria, including Innovation, Roadmap and Data, Analytics and Insights. 

According to the Forrester report, Adyen’s "Single platform, one integration" offering for global payments triggered a lasting industry shift and remains its core strength and differentiation. The report goes on to say that, "Adyen’s focused vision, detailed roadmaps, and steadfast build-over-buy ethos don’t slow its innovation: It’s still often first to market with new features." In fact, customers praised "Adyen’s disciplined strategy, high authorization rates, and architecture."

"Being recognized as a Leader by Forrester reinforces, for us, that our single-platform approach remains the gold standard for financial technology," said Roelant Prins, Chief Commercial Officer at Adyen. "We provide the technological foundation that allows our merchants to outpace the market. By relentlessly prioritizing performance and innovation, we ensure our customers are never just reacting to the future, they are defining it."

The report evaluated merchant payment providers across 24 criteria. Adyen received the highest score possible (5.0) in the following:

• Checkout and end-user user interface
• Card-based authorization and processing
• Bank account-to-account payments
• Real-time payments
• In-person payments
• Platforms, marketplaces, and ISVs
• Authentication optimization
• Fraud mitigation and management
• Data, analytics, and insights
• Software architecture
• Innovation
• Roadmap
• Partner Ecosystem
• Adoption

Adyen believes its 5/5 score in the Innovation criterion reflects the company’s commitment to shaping the future of commerce on a single, unified foundation. By bypassing the acquisitions and third-party dependencies of legacy players, Adyen’s single, in-house platform moves faster. This complete control allows for a seamless roadmap and rapid iteration that keeps global merchants ahead of the curve.

To learn more about Adyen’s recognition, you can access the report here.

About Adyen

Adyen (AMS: ADYEN) is the financial technology platform of choice for leading companies. By providing end-to-end payments capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial products in a single global solution, Adyen helps businesses achieve their ambitions faster. With offices around the world, Adyen works with the likes of Meta, Uber, H&M, eBay, and Microsoft. 

Forrester Objectivity Statement 

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.

On January 22, the sun never set on our engineering spirit. Across cultures and time zones, over 200 Adyen’ers, divided into more than 60 teams, hacked through the night to build solutions to real problems for our merchants and our teams.

A continuous drive to reinvent the wheel and build what's next has always motivated Adyen's engineers. So it was only fitting that a group of Adyen’ers across the organization saw an opportunity to go beyond just talking about the potential of Generative AI: They wanted to see what happens when we give our engineers the keys to the sandbox. So they created Adyen’s first in-person, 24-hour Global AI Hackathon.

The goal was simple: Use AI to make things better, specifically focusing on two areas:

• Merchant impact: Build AI solutions that create simpler, more effective journeys for our merchants.
• Work smarter: Use AI to remove manual tasks, making our daily work faster and more efficient.

Leonard Galesky, a Staff Engineer and one of the hackathon's organizers, wanted the event to highlight the excitement of AI exploration. “Giving everyone a high-velocity space to hack with AI tools unlocks new business wins and a totally new way of thinking for the team.”

Here’s how it worked

Anchored by our Adyen way of engineering and our Formula, 60 teams across 6 offices identified challenges within their solution and set out to solve it for the long term. The organizers provided participating teams with Windsurf credits and LLM access - meaning the tools they needed to move from “idea” to “prototype” in a single day.

To win, teams needed to submit their finished prototype by 9AM the following day. A group of judges across the Tech organization then reviewed every single project and selected the winners. They assessed each project on its ability to benefit all, its path to production, and how well it solved known pain points for the long term.

“I was going through the submissions and I must say, I was impressed. There were so many projects submitted, and a great number of them focused on solving real world problems. Maybe I'm biased but I think this was one of our best hackathons yet,” said Ignacio Jimenez Pi, SVP of Engineering, and the Global Leadership team Hackathon sponsor.

A truly global effort

Every office found its own way to fuel the 24-hour sprint. From early-morning builds in Singapore and Zumba in Bengaluru, to 24-hour hacking and Mario Kart speed runs in Amsterdam, teams around the world continued to build with momentum. And between Madrid’s Office Olympics, São José dos Campos’s mechanical keyboard build, and Chicago’s coffee-fueled scavenger hunt, the energy stayed high until the very last line of code was written.

“Throughout the day, pictures kept rolling in from around the world. From Amsterdam, we woke up to a buzz already going in Singapore and Bengaluru, and by evening a wave of energy came in from Chicago and São Paulo. It really makes you appreciate how global this company is,” said Bjorn van Dijkman, Data Engineer, and one of the organizers.

At the end of the hackathon, we had a total of 57 projects submitted and judged. And after an in-depth judging process, we had three winning groups across the globe: A team from Amsterdam, one in Singapore, and another in Madrid.

“The most rewarding part of the Global AI Hackathon was the cross-team collaboration. It enabled us to move fast and seamlessly embed a new idea into our existing ecosystem. Watching that collective effort translate into a tangible improvement in our platform was incredibly energizing,” said Madalina Dinga, Senior Software Engineer, and one of the winners from the Amsterdam group.

What’s next?

A hackathon is only as good as what happens after the deadline. These projects now have clear roadmaps, and the GenAI Platform team will host a series of “From Hack to Product” sessions to help every participating team get production-ready.

“What struck me most wasn't the 373M tokens burned or the 200K API calls. It was watching people get completely absorbed in building something they were really passionate about,” said Hanna van der Vlis, AI Research Engineer, and one of the organizers. “This wasn't just about the code. It was about creating space for ideas that might not surface in the usual flow of work,” she added.

Here at Adyen, our engineering team is driven by a passion for solving real-world problems and advancing the fintech industry. We're proud of what we've accomplished, but the most exciting part is knowing that we're just getting started.

Agentic commerce is no longer theoretical. AI-driven discovery is already shaping how shoppers find products, narrow choices, and decide where to buy. But despite the momentum, one thing is clear: agentic commerce isn’t fully here yet.

Today’s reality sits between two sides. On one side is conversational commerce, where AI helps shoppers discover products and routes them to merchants, with humans still in the loop. On the other is a future where agents will search, decide, and transact autonomously, at machine speed.

Retailers don’t need to choose between the two. They need to prepare for both—deliberately, and in parallel. For a deeper look at what that preparation involves, see Adyen’s guide on building a merchant-first foundation.

Balance was a central theme of a recent panel at NRF 2026. With leaders from VF Corporation (parent company of brands such as The North Face and Vans), OpenAI and Adyen, here’s what they discussed.

Discovery has changed, but purchase hasn’t disappeared

One of the clearest shifts discussed was how consumers are starting their shopping journeys.

“We’re moving from a place where shoppers would search based on keywords and categories to shoppers searching based on intent,” said Yelena Reznikova, who leads B2B Partnerships at OpenAI. “Half the time, shoppers don’t even know what they’re looking for.”

Instead of filtering through product lists, shoppers are increasingly asking conversational questions, What should I wear? What’s best for this trip?, and relying on AI to guide early discovery. Platforms like ChatGPT are becoming a new top-of-funnel channel, surfacing personalized results and directing high-intent traffic to merchants.

What hasn’t changed is the need for trust at the moment of purchase. Discovery may begin in an LLM, but conversion still depends on familiarity, confidence, and reassurance, especially when money and personal data are involved.

Opportunity and risk arrive together

For brands, agentic commerce opens a powerful new channel, but one that also comes with real trade-offs.

“Yes, this is another way to reach consumers at moments of high intent,” said Kate Thomas, Senior Director, Global Digital Product & Experience Design at VF Corporation. “But we’ve worked incredibly hard to build our consumer relationships.”

Thomas pointed to the emotional connection shoppers feel when they walk into a brand’s store or land on a familiar website, a connection that risks being diluted when discovery happens in a neutral chat interface.

“When you walk into a store or land on a brand’s website, you feel something. We want to make sure we don’t lose that,” noted Thomas.

That tension defines the current moment. Agentic commerce can increase reach and relevance, but only if businesses remain recognizable, trusted, and in control of the experience.

Humans are still in the loop, and that matters

Despite growing excitement around fully autonomous agents, the panel agreed: today’s implementations still rely on human decision-making. “We’re still a little bit away from autonomous agents kind of scouring the internet and making purchases on users’ behalf,” Reznikova said. 

For now, the focus is on capturing intent and routing shoppers to the right merchants at the right moment. And the foundation for that routing is data. 

Reznikova noted, “Having really structured, clean data in product feed allows us to capture that intent and route it to the appropriate merchant.”

While volumes remain relatively small today, the signal is clear: agent-driven discovery is changing where intent forms.  For retailers, the priority isn’t chasing traffic spikes. It’s building the foundations that let them capture that intent reliably while keeping checkout, loyalty, identity, and risk management firmly under their control.

Friction is the real conversion risk

As discovery improves, friction becomes more visible—especially at checkout.

Reducing friction doesn’t mean rushing toward autonomy. It means designing secure, seamless handoffs that preserve confidence at the moment of intent, while maintaining safeguards around payments, fraud, and data privacy.

Consumers themselves remain divided on how comfortable they are with AI-driven shopping experiences, particularly when sensitive data is involved. That uncertainty reinforces why trust, security, and brand integrity are non-negotiable, even as experimentation continues.

The long view: Autonomy, interoperability, and trust

Looking further ahead, the panel surfaced deeper questions about scale and structure.

What happens when agents operate across platforms, geographies, and regulatory regimes? How do brands avoid fragmentation while preserving choice and control?

In the near term, Reznikova emphasized that most commerce activity will continue to flow through merchant-owned apps, even when discovery begins elsewhere.

Today, LLMs are primarily shaping discovery. They help interpret intent, personalize search, and guide shoppers toward the right merchants, while brands continue to own checkout, branding, loyalty, and authorization.

“Payment credentials are becoming loyalty assets. They’re no longer just about authorization — they’re how merchants recognize shoppers across channels and deliver consistent experiences, even as discovery moves into new AI-driven environments.” Katyal noted. 

Longer term, the challenge becomes interoperability: building infrastructure that allows merchants to connect once and securely interact with many agentic surfaces, without sacrificing identity or data ownership.

Katyal summed it up simply, “The future of agentic commerce won’t be about ripping and replacing infrastructure. It will be about plugging new channels into the systems merchants already trust.”

To support this vision, Adyen has joined the Agentic AI Foundation, an initiative focused on building the standards and infrastructure that will power a secure, merchant-centric agentic ecosystem.

Why balance matters

The panel closed with clear, practical guidance for retailers navigating this transition:

• Protect the non-negotiables: Safe transactions, secure consumer data, and brand integrity.
• Plan for uneven adoption: Agentic discovery is growing, but change won’t happen overnight.
• Experiment intentionally: Test where it makes sense, without opening the floodgates too early.
• Invest in clean, structured product data so agents can represent your catalog accurately.
• Design strong merchant-owned experiences within conversational platforms, assuming humans remain in the loop.
• Support local payment methods to ensure agent-driven journeys work across markets, not just in theory.

Agentic commerce isn’t a single switch retailers flip. It’s a transition. And one that requires acting now, while designing for what comes next.

The retailers that thrive won’t be the ones that wait, or the ones that rush blindly ahead. They’ll be the ones that strike the right balance: preparing for a future shaped by agents, while grounding today’s experiences in trust, familiarity, and control.

At Adyen, that balance is built into how we partner with merchants; from supporting new discovery channels, to protecting payments performance, fraud resilience, and customer relationships as commerce evolves.

In a world where commerce becomes increasingly invisible, confidence is the differentiator, and balance is how it’s built.

Did you stop by our booth at NRF?

Continue the conversation with our payments experts to see how agentic commerce fits into your roadmap for 2026.

Global commerce moves in real time. Across markets and teams, data moves without friction. Revenue is recorded instantly, dashboards update continuously, and forecasts can be recalculated in seconds. Money does not.

Despite digital payments and seamless customer experiences, money still moves in fragmented stages across markets, accounts, rails, and systems that weren’t designed to operate as one. The lag between the speed of data and money is one of the defining structural constraints in enterprise finance today. And as capital costs rise and margins thin, it’s become impossible for business leaders to ignore.

The hidden cost of slow money

Most enterprises now operate with a lower tolerance for timing errors. In this environment, the difference between having visibility and usable cash defines capital efficiency.

Today, money typically travels through local banking structures in every country, and is governed by independent settlement cycles and cutoffs. It flows through providers that handle authorization but not liquidity and lands in accounting systems that reflect balances only after funds have settled.

The average enterprise has: 

• 5-6 primary banks
• 40+ bank accounts
• 12 pay-ins and payout providers

Because these components work independently, money is effectively idle. Trapped capital doesn’t generate return, support investment, or protect margins. When timing is critical, businesses are forced into expensive trade-offs: either delay action and risk opportunity, or bridge the gap with costly external financing. These costs compound because the liquidity moves behind the speed of the business.

A new, unified approach: Intelligent Money Movement

Businesses need money to move continuously. To do so, enterprise money movement needs to be visible and controllable from payments, to liquidity management, and payouts. To meet this need, we’ve launched Intelligent Money Movement, which connects payments, liquidity management, and payouts on our single platform.

A unified platform

Most financial stacks are a combination of acquired technologies and third-party redirects. We’ve built our entire stack from the ground up on a single platform. Because payments and payouts happen in the same system, the hand-off between receiving a payment and having it ready to spend is minimal. This unified approach collapses the time gap that traditionally traps capital.

Global banking licenses

We aren't just a software layer sitting on top of legacy banking infrastructure. We own banking licenses across the US, UK, and Europe, effectively removing intermediaries from the flow of funds. We connect directly to payment rails and card schemes. This infrastructure allows us to settle funds up to three days faster than the industry average and move money 24/7, even on weekends.

Turning treasury into a growth engine

The future of money movement demands more than just fast transfers. It requires:

• Speed: Access to usable capital when the business needs it
• Efficiency: Streamlined infrastructure that replaces manual reconciliation with automated flows
• Visibility: Continuous, end-to-end clarity across the full lifecycle of funds

Intelligent Money Movement unifies this lifecycle. By eliminating the fragmentation that limits visibility and traps cash, we help businesses improve working capital efficiency, lower operational costs, and make faster, more proactive decisions.

In a real-time economy, capital shouldn’t be stuck in transit. It should move at the speed your business demands.