Capital One pushes deeper into AI, business payments

• Key insights: Capital One has closed its $5 billion deal to buy business banking fintech Brex.
• What's at stake: Brex has about 35,000 clients, providing a boost to Capital One's business banking strategy. 
• Forward look: Brex also has a suite of agentic AI products, enabling Capital One to bolster its AI strategy. 

Capital One took another step toward its goal of boosting its payments capabilities this week as it closed its $5 billion deal to buy Brex.

The half-cash/half-stock acquisition follows Capital One's larger $51.8 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services in 2025, a deal that made it one of the market's largest credit card companies. Brex supports business payments, selling software that enables businesses to issue corporate cards, manage expenses and make real-time payments. 

A key nugget for Capital One is Brex's AI capabilities, particularly those in agentic AI. Brex's AI agent handles tasks that would traditionally be performed by the back office, Art Levy, chief business officer at Brex, told American Banker in December. Financial institutions are racing to invest in new forms of AI and related trends, such as agentic commerce. More than half of banks say AI is a top priority, according to new research from American Banker. Nearly two thirds of national banks say AI is either the top priority or among the top priorities. Brex adds a ready-made portfolio of AI tools for Capital One. 

There are four main agents that Brex uses. The first is an expense agent that grabs receipts. A review agent makes sure all the expenses are actually covered under the company's expense policy, such as alcohol with a meal. The portfolio also includes an auditing agent, and an accounting agent, which syncs the Brex charges into the company's enterprise resource planning tool. 

"Brex's expertise and AI-native technology combined with Capital One's scale, sophisticated underwriting and iconic brand creates a transformational opportunity in the business payments space," Richard D. Fairbank, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Capital One, said in an email from Capital One's public relations office.

The next step is to consolidate Brex. Capital One will spend nearly $1 billion over the next three years to integrate Brex and absorb expenses such as retention compensation. It's also Capital One's second major acquisition in the past two years. It acquired Discover's card portfolio in 2025. Before that deal, Capital One was the fourth largest credit card issuer in terms of outstanding balances in 2024, and Discover was tied with Bank of America as the fifth largest card issuer. Capital One plans to use Discover's network to compete with Visa, Mastercard and large card issuing banks including JPMorganChase and Citi.

In a research note, KBW Managing Director Sanjay Sakhrani said one of Capital One's long-term strategies in the wake of the Discover acquisition is to use the combined Capital One/Discover network to create a payments hub for businesses. 

Brex fits that strategy, adding an addressable market of more than 35,000 business clients that use Brex's payments technology. 

"Brex was built on the belief that finance teams shouldn't have to choose between speed and control. Joining forces with Capital One means we can deliver on that promise for even more businesses faster and at a scale that would have taken us years to build independently," Pedro Franceschi, founder and CEO of Brex, said in an email from Capital One's public relations office.

The Brex deal "accelerates the opportunity for Capital One to build out the credit network," Jeffries analysts said in a research note. "We see this as an exciting deal as it gives [Capital One] tech and customers that will allow it to scale and compete for more business volumes; thus potentially enabling on-boarding more credit volume in a more rapid fashion."