A PYMNTS Intelligence report, produced in collaboration with Splitit, finds that 61% of U.S. consumers are open to AI-assisted Pay Later recommendations, a signal that artificial intelligence is moving from back-office underwriting into the consumer-facing checkout lane. The catch: shoppers want the technology to work around their existing financial lives, not reshape them.
What "Pay Later" Means and Why the AI Angle Matters
Buy Now, Pay Later — commonly called BNPL — lets shoppers split a purchase into installments, often interest-free, instead of paying the full amount upfront. Traditional BNPL products open a new line of credit at checkout, which can ding a consumer's credit score and add another account to manage. AI-assisted versions, as described in the PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit report, are designed to layer recommendations on top of credit that consumers already hold, rather than originating fresh debt.
That distinction matters for anyone watching where installment-payment volume flows. If AI can route Pay Later transactions through cards a consumer already carries, the competitive pressure shifts away from standalone BNPL lenders and toward the card networks and issuers already embedded in wallets.
The Three Conditions Consumers Are Setting
The report identifies three priorities consumers attach to any AI-assisted Pay Later experience: preserving personal control over payment decisions, protecting their credit scores, and using credit lines they already have rather than opening new ones. In other words, the welcome mat is out, but only for AI that acts as an assistant rather than an autonomous decision-maker.
More than one in three consumers, the report also notes, have used Pay Later options — a baseline that indicates the behavior is mainstream enough for AI augmentation to reach meaningful scale.
What the Numbers Tell Lenders and Fintechs
For capital allocators watching the installment-finance space, the PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit findings draw a line between consumer tolerance and consumer enthusiasm. Sixty-one percent openness is a wide door, but the conditions attached to it suggest that products which hand control back to the user — rather than optimizing purely for conversion — are the ones most likely to hold adoption over time. The existing-credit preference, in particular, points toward partnership models between BNPL technology providers and traditional card issuers as the structure consumers say they prefer.