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Global card payments leader Visa has announced a new $100 million generative AI initiative to invest in the next generation of companies focused on developing AI technologies and applications that will impact the future of commerce and payments.

The investments will be made through Visa Ventures, the company’s 16-year-old global corporate investment arm.

"As a pioneer of AI in payments since 1993, Visa considers this initiative an extension of the company's leadership in AI use to drive innovation in payments, create value for partners and clients and enable and empower global commerce," the company said in a statement late on Monday.

Generative AI is an emerging subset of AI that is built on Large Language Models (LLMs) to develop artificial general intelligence capable of generating text, images or other content from large sets of existing data when given prompts.

"While much of generative AI so far has been focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only reshape how we live and work, but it will also meaningfully change commerce in ways we need to understand," said Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Visa.

Visa Ventures has been investing in and partnering with companies driving innovation in payments and commerce since 2007. "With generative AI's potential to be one of the most transformative technologies of our time, we are excited to expand our focus to invest in some of the most innovative and disruptive venture-backed startups building across generative AI, commerce and payments," said David Rolf, Head of Visa Ventures.

Visa facilitates transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories.