Our Head of Strategic Growth, Suzie Slingsby, led Team Zepto's deep dive into Stripe Tour Sydney 2026. It was a big day. Here's what went down.
Members of the Zepto team and I joined more than 2,000 people at Stripe Tour Sydney 2026 for a packed day of big ideas, product inspiration and conversations about what’s coming next in technology, payments and global commerce.
Stripe has long been a global pioneer in making it easier for businesses to build, transact and grow, and the ambition on display throughout the day was seriously impressive.
For me, though, the value of events like the Stripe Tour isn’t only what happens on stage. It’s also what happens over coffee, between sessions and in those quick corridor conversations that somehow turn into the most interesting discussions of the day. It was a chance to catch up with customers and partners, mingle with some genuine industry stalwarts, meet new people and compare notes on the opportunities and challenges we’re all thinking about.
A highlight was the conversation between Stripe co-founder John Collison and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht. It was candid, fast-moving and full of practical insights into how technology is changing the way businesses build, experiment and bring new ideas to market.
By the time I made it back to my hotel, I was more than ready to put my feet up. It had been a big day (in the best possible way) filled with ambitious ideas, familiar faces, new connections and the kind of conversations that follow you out of the room.
I left with pages of notes, a slightly overflowing brain and a few themes I haven’t stopped thinking about since.
AI isn’t simply adding another channel, it’s reshaping commerce
Unsurprisingly, AI was everywhere.
But the discussion went well beyond adding a chatbot to an existing experience. The bigger idea was that AI is beginning to reshape the foundations of commerce: how people discover products, how they decide what to buy, how businesses build software and how quickly new ideas can get to market.
Agentic commerce takes this even further. We’re moving towards a future where AI agents may discover, select and transact on behalf of customers.
That’s incredibly exciting. It also raises some big questions for the payments industry.
What does a great payment experience look like when the customer isn’t always a person clicking through a traditional checkout? How do we authenticate an agent acting on someone’s behalf? And how do businesses give customers confidence that the right decisions, and payments, are being made?
Stripe’s work with organisations including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta offered a fascinating glimpse into how shared standards and collaboration across the technology ecosystem could help bring that future to life.
The distance between an idea and a real product is collapsing
One of the most mind-blowing moments of the day was seeing businesses created and provisioned with AI in minutes.
Canva shared a similarly bold approach to product development: use the leanest possible team, build a prototype, put it in front of customers and learn. Fast.
It sounds simple, but it represents a real shift. When the time and cost required to test an idea falls dramatically, businesses can experiment more often, get closer to customers earlier and invest more confidently in the ideas that show genuine promise.
Cliff also spoke openly about how AI is changing the economics of software. Traditional software models have often assumed that serving another user costs next to nothing. AI breaks that assumption. Tokens, inference, image generation and agentic workflows all introduce genuine variable costs, which means businesses need to rethink pricing and monetisation alongside the product itself.
That really resonated with me. At Zepto, we talk a lot about staying close to customers and moving quickly, but speed for its own sake isn’t the goal. The real opportunity is to learn faster, solve genuine problems and create value sooner.
Payments are growth, not plumbing
Another message I loved was the way Stripe consistently spoke about payments through the lens of business outcomes: conversion, authorisation, revenue and customer experience.
Payments can sometimes be treated as plumbing, essential, but sitting quietly in the background. The reality is that they’re becoming a much more visible and strategic part of how businesses attract, serve and retain customers.
A great payment experience should remove friction for the customer while giving the business greater confidence, control and visibility over how money moves.
For account-to-account payments, the opportunity extends well beyond cost efficiency. Done well, they can help reduce failed payments, support faster movement of money and refunds, deliver richer information and create more seamless experiences for merchants and their customers.
The most exciting payment innovation isn’t necessarily the technology customers notice. It’s the technology that makes the whole experience feel simpler, faster and more intuitive.
The faster commerce moves, the more trust matters
The discussions about AI and automation also brought us to one of my favourite topics: trust.
Stripe spoke about new categories of risk emerging through AI, including multi-account and free-trial abuse, token theft and usage without payment. It was a powerful reminder that risk can no longer be assessed once, at the moment a transaction occurs, and then considered solved.
As commerce becomes faster, more connected and increasingly automated, risk can emerge before a transaction is initiated and continue long after it has settled. Identity, authorisation, data quality and verification therefore need to be considered across the entire experience.
This connects closely with our vision at Zepto: every payment trusted and verified.
As more commerce becomes machine-initiated, businesses and customers will need confidence not only that a payment can move quickly, but that it is moving to and from the right place, with the right authority and the right information attached.
Technology will automate more of the process, but human judgement won’t become less important. If anything, knowing what to trust, what to verify and what “good” looks like will become even more valuable.
Plenty to be excited about
So, after a big day and plenty of lively conversations, what stayed with me?
AI is dramatically reducing the distance between an idea and a real product. Payments are becoming more deeply connected to growth and customer experience. And trust will become even more important as commerce grows faster, more global and increasingly automated.
No single organisation will shape that future alone. It will take an ambitious and connected ecosystem working together to build the infrastructure, standards and experiences businesses and customers can rely on.
That’s what made the day so valuable: the chance to learn from a genuine global pioneer, hear from brilliant people, reconnect with customers and partners, and have plenty of candid conversations with others helping to move our industry forward.
I walked away inspired, curious and with quite a few more questions than I arrived with, which, in my experience, is usually the sign of a day very well spent.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of any company or person mentioned. They are included for context and illustrative purposes only, and do not imply any endorsement, partnership, sponsorship, or affiliation with Zepto, nor that these parties have reviewed or approved this content. All trademarks, brand names, and logos mentioned remain the property of their respective owners.
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