Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the most influential forces inside modern enterprises, and insurance is no exception. Its potential to automate underwriting, accelerate claims, and deliver unprecedented predictive insight is immense.
While AI is starting to reshape insurance with speed and scale, it also exposes a hard paradox: the industry that prices uncertainty is hesitant to insure AI-driven uncertainty. In this episode of ATP, Bernhard Kotanko, Senior Partner at McKinsey and Asia-Pacific Insurance Practice Leader, and Julien Condamines, co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Novo AI, argue that AI creates two intertwined risk fronts—enterprises deploying AI and insurers using it themselves.
Some of the topics that Bernhard and Julien discussed in detail include:
Scam operations have transformed into highly organized, cross-border networks that function less like lone criminals and more like global enterprises. These groups build physical infrastructure, create vast fleets of fake or stolen accounts, and use AI to generate convincing messages, voices, and identities.
As David Agranovich, Director, Global Threat Disruption at Meta, explains on this episode of ATP, today’s fraud ecosystem spans physical compounds in Southeast Asia, cross-platform digital infrastructure, and AI-accelerated content generation.
Some of the topics that David covered in detail included:
The convergence of blockchain technology with real-world commodities is beginning to challenge long-held assumptions about who can access and trade strategically important assets. Uranium, once limited to large utilities and specialized traders because of regulatory and logistical barriers, is now being reimagined as a digitally native, globally accessible commodity.
In this episode of ATP, Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos and the visionary behind Uranium.io, reveals how tokenizing uranium is less about crypto experimentation and more about solving a long-standing market inefficiency. Uranium, one of the world’s most strategically important commodities, has historically been inaccessible to all but large industrial players.
Some of the topics that Arthur covered in detail include:
Compliance is often viewed as a necessary burden, something designed to prevent mistakes rather than enable progress. Yet the ideas explored here challenge that assumption by reframing compliance as a potential catalyst for trust, speed, and intelligent growth.
In this episode of ATP, Martin Markiewicz, CEO at Silent Eight and Boon-Hiong Chan, Industry Applied Innovation Lead at Deutsche Bank discuss the increasing complexity of today’s regulatory landscape. Diverging rules across markets, strict data-localization requirements, and growing expectations for explainability demand a more thoughtful approach to automation.
Some of the topics that Martin and Boon-Hiong covered in detail included:
Treasury is undergoing a fundamental shift as global businesses operate across more markets, more banks, and more currencies than ever before. The old model, built on spreadsheets, manual reconciliation, and after-the-fact reporting, cannot keep pace with real-time payments, 24/7 liquidity demands, and increasingly complex cross-border flows.
In this episode of ATP recorded at SFF 2025, David Hanna (Finmo), Kriti Jain (Deutsche Bank), and Jessie Toh (Coda) paint a picture of Treasury as an ecosystem role, data-driven, modular, compliant, and deeply strategic, where Treasurers become designers of liquidity and key partners in how global businesses grow.
Some of the topics that David, Kriti and Jessie covered in detail included:
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how information is created, processed, and acted upon, but it is also eroding the foundations of trust that business systems have relied on for decades. In the past, documents, signatures, and deterministic software offered predictable and auditable outputs.
In this episode of ATP recorded at SFF 2025, Ben Stein, the CEO of Staple.ai, explains, this shift from predictable, rules-based systems to probabilistic, black-box models has created a widening “trust gap”, one that becomes especially dangerous in domains like finance, insurance, or government, where proof matters more than almost anything.
Some of the topics that Ben discussed in detail:
Cross-border commerce is entering its fastest, most chaotic growth phase in history. The world’s smallest sellers now have global reach, but they are trying to scale on top of payment infrastructure that was never designed for them.
In this episode of ATP recorded at SFF 2025, Nicholas Liao, the Founder and CEO of Whalet explains that today’s MSME sellers are not just exporting products, they are building global brands across DTC sites, marketplaces, and social platforms. But while demand is global, payment systems remain deeply local.
Some of the topics that Nicholas covered in detail included:
The idea of programmable money represents a fundamental shift in how value moves through the digital economy. Instead of money acting only as a static store of value or medium of exchange, it becomes a dynamic instrument capable of carrying rules, conditions, and logic.
In this episode of ATP recorded at SFF 2025, Effie Dimitropoulos, the CEO of AUDD Stablecoin, notes that programmable money is not a sudden disruption but the next step in a long evolution of how value moves in the digital world.
Some of the topics that Effie covered in detail:
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the way money moves, turning payments from isolated actions into intelligent, context-aware interactions. Instead of searching, tapping, or navigating apps, users will increasingly rely on AI agents that understand their routines, anticipate their needs, and act proactively, often before they make a request.
In this episode of ATP recorded at SFF 2025, Jiangming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer at Ant International, explains how AI-powered agents can understand a user’s context, anticipate needs, and act in advance.
Some of the topics that Jiangming covered in detail included:
Payments are becoming both more complex and more interconnected, especially across a region as diverse and fast-moving as Asia. The landscape is defined by massive scale, deep fragmentation, and rapid innovation, all of which demand infrastructure that is global at the core but deeply local in execution.
In this episode of ATP filmed at SFF 2025, Jeff Parker, CEO of Paymentology, explains how a single global platform can navigate successfully with different markets, cultures, and payment networks.
Some of the topics that Jeff covered in detail included:
Asia’s accelerating digital transformation has created an environment of unprecedented interconnection, and unprecedented vulnerability. Threats now move quickly across borders, clouds, and supply chains, exposing both large enterprises and SMEs to risks that often stem from the simplest gaps: weak authentication, exposed remote access, and misconfigured systems.
In this episode of ATP, Paul Jackson, CEO of THEOS Cyber, argues defenders can keep pace when fundamentals are properly applied and Gene Yu, CEO of Blackpanda, frames resilience as the speed and effectiveness of ‘Readiness, Response, and Recovery’.
Some of the topics that Paul and Gene covered in detail include:
Financial innovation in Asia is accelerating, but not in a uniform way. Markets across the region move at very different speeds, shaped by culture, regulation, and consumer behavior. At the same time, major technological shifts are underway.
In this episode of ATP, Chee Beh, SVP & GM APAC at Yuno, explains how the center of gravity is shifting from Generative to Agentic AI, where autonomous agents do not just make recommendations but execute end-to-end actions.
Some of the topics that Chee discussed in detail included:
Artificial intelligence is forcing humanity to confront what truly makes us valuable. As machines become more capable of performing tasks once reserved for human intelligence, the definition of talent is shifting away from knowledge and efficiency toward qualities like judgment, empathy, creativity, and ethical decision-making.
In this episode of ATP, Jeevika Makani, Francis Pẽna, and Kristen Lim posit that while AI levels access to information, it ultimately widens the gap between people who use it to deepen thinking and those who accept generic outputs.
Some of the topics they covered in detail included:
Across Southeast Asia, small and medium-sized enterprises are the driving force of economic growth, yet many still face obstacles when accessing financing, managing payments, and expanding beyond their home markets. Fintech innovation is reshaping this reality by bridging gaps through digital payment infrastructures, data-driven lending, and localized financial tools.
In this episode of ATP, Chen Yu (Nicholas) Liao, CEO of Whalet, and Vikas Jain, Country Head (Thailand) at Funding Societies, argue that the region’s fragmentation, multiple currencies, regulations, and languages, makes regional trade complex and that the path forward is “global vision, local rails”.
Some of the topics that Nicholas and Vikas covered in detail include:
WEB3 gaming has experienced a turbulent journey, from the early excitement of play-to-earn models and scholarship programs to the realization that crypto speculation alone cannot sustain an industry. The promise of digital ownership drew millions into the space, offering real economic impact for players, particularly in Southeast Asia, during moments of global crisis.
On this episode of ATP, Chin Yaul Yu, co-Founder and CEO at W3GG, explains, many studios tied their survival to token prices; when crypto fell, earnings collapsed, treasuries dried up, and hundreds of projects shut down. The core lesson: speculation can’t substitute for product-market fit.
Some of the topics that Chin covered in detail:
Digital transformation is often associated with industries that are already forward looking and generally technologically savvy. However, its greatest impact may come in areas that have traditionally resisted change.
Grassroots football and the global seafood trade may seem worlds apart, but both face similar challenges. ATP was joined by Tariq Cassim, co-Founder and CEO of Koach Hub and Scott Chambers, a co-CEO at Seafood Souq to discuss how transformation is not about shiny new tools. It is about rethinking how value and opportunity are distributed across ecosystems that involve millions of lives.
Some of the topics that Tariq and Scott covered in detail include:
Wealth management is facing a critical inflection point. Legacy systems built decades ago still power many private banks, creating inefficiencies that slow down operations and frustrate clients. Manual processes like emailing PDFs and reconciling data across multiple custodians remain common, leading to errors and missed opportunities.
In this episode of ATP, Olzhas Zhiyenkul, Founder of InvestBanq, contends that private banking runs on a fragile trio of Excel, PDFs, and eMail, because rebuilding the multi-layer “wealth stack” requires years of orchestration and leadership courage.
Some of the important topics that Oz covered in detail included:
AI is evolving from static question-and-answer systems to dynamic agents capable of reasoning, learning, and making decisions in real time. These intelligent systems rely on vast amounts of data to function, but the real challenge lies not in building the AI itself, but in ensuring that the data feeding it is clean, accurate, and accessible.
In this episode of ATP, Shanmuga Muniandy, Director of Architecture & Chief Evangelist, APAC at Denodo, argues that most AI failures are really data failures: stale copies, siloed systems, and patchwork security.
Some of the topics that Shan covered in detail included:
Artificial intelligence and blockchain are no longer separate innovations. They are beginning to merge, creating systems that are both intelligent and trustworthy. AI brings automation, reasoning, and decision-making, while blockchain provides transparency, provenance, and security.
On this episode of ATP, Qin En Looi, a Partner at Onigiri Capital & Saison Capital and Ganesh Kompella, a Founding Partner at Tykhe Ventures, highlight that this moment is different because of a shift in mindset and infrastructure.
Some of the topics Qin En and Ganesh covered in detail:
The global financial system is entering a period of profound change driven by the convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and decentralized infrastructure. At the center of this transformation is tokenization, which converts real-world assets into programmable digital representations that can move seamlessly across modern, borderless rails.
In this episode, Nikhil Joshi, Chief Operating Officer at EMURGO, explores how the convergence of blockchain, AI, and decentralized finance is reshaping global markets.
Some of the topics Nikhil covered in detail: