Paytia launches payment tool for AI phone and chat agents

Paytia has launched Conversational & AI Payments, a service designed to let AI agents complete card and bank payment flows without exposing sensitive data to the underlying model, call recording or chat transcript. The company said the product is built on its Capture Assist API and runs on its PCI DSS Level 1 SecureFlow platform.

The launch addresses a compliance issue emerging as businesses deploy AI agents in customer service, sales and support roles. Paytia said payment details can otherwise pass through an AI system’s context window and be retained in recordings, logs or other systems associated with the interaction.

Under the model described by Paytia, the AI agent manages the conversation until a payment is required. At that point, the agent calls Capture Assist and the customer enters payment information through a Paytia-hosted form in a chat journey or through a telephone keypad during a call.

Paytia said the payment data is isolated from the AI agent’s network and records. Once the payment is processed, Paytia returns a token and result to the agent, allowing the conversation to continue without handing raw card data to the bot or its language model.

Curtis Nash, Paytia’s chief executive, said card numbers should not be stored in chat logs or large language model context windows. He said Paytia’s approach separates the conversational function from the handling of sensitive data, with the bot managing the exchange and Paytia holding the payment information.

The company said the same isolation model can be used for other sensitive data, including bank account details, passport numbers and national insurance numbers, where a process requires those details to be captured.

How the service connects

For phone-based AI agents, Paytia said the service connects over SIP in two configurations. It can sit in front of the bot to provide full isolation, or it can be conferenced into a call when a payment is due.

In the second configuration, Paytia said a unique call ID in the SIP header triggers the capture process. For chat-based AI agents, the company said capture is handled through Advanced Payment Links.

Paytia said the service is intended to work with platforms that teams already use to build AI agents. For existing Paytia customers, the company said activation requires a configuration change rather than a new contract.

Compliance and data handling

The service is backed by a Data Protection Agreement, according to Paytia. The company said it acts as the appointed data processor, with terms covering how sensitive data is captured, retained and deleted.

Paytia said card data is not logged and is not used to train models. The company said it holds PCI DSS Level 1 and Cyber Essentials Plus certification and has processed more than £400 million since 2020.

Conversational & AI Payments is now available, according to Paytia.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.