Affirm Launches AI-Powered Platform ‘AdaptAI’ for Retail Partners

Affirm is extending the capabilities of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform, AdaptAI, to its network of merchant partners, upgrading the checkout experience with real-time personalization.

Previously integrated into Affirm’s consumer-facing products, including the Affirm App and Affirm Card, AdaptAI is now available at the point of sale through participating retailers.

AdaptAI uses real-time data analysis to customize promotional financing options based on individual customer profiles, factoring in purchase amount, spending behavior, and shopping preferences.

These custom offers may include reduced annual percentage rates (APRs), extended repayment terms, or immediate discounts so that merchants can drive conversion while delivering a more relevant, customer-centric experience.

With AdaptAI, Affirm brings precision, personalization, and performance to every transaction.

Key Takeaways

• AdaptAI will offer real-time, personalized deals at checkout as it analyzes each shopper’s financial profile, preferences, and purchase data to deliver customized benefits like special APR rates, extended repayment options, or instant cash savings – all this right at the point of sale.
• As a better alternative to traditional credit card reward systems, which are often designed to be complex and delay reward redemption, AdaptAI provides clear, immediate financial value. For example, a 0% APR over 12 months on a $500 purchase can potentially save around $120 in interest.
• Affirm reports that using AdaptAI within its own app and card offerings resulted in about a 10% increase in conversion rates, and now merchants can deploy it to improve their own sales metrics.
• By offering AI-driven, tailored promotions to merchants, Affirm is now directly competing with traditional credit systems (e.g., American Express), all while giving consumers more control, transparency, and flexibility, and by also helping merchants boost loyalty and engagement in the process.

Affirm’s AdaptAI Uses Real-Time Data to Deliver Smarter Checkout Offers

Affirm has started letting merchants use its new AI-powered promotions tool, AdaptAI, at checkout. The idea is simple. Shoppers see tailored offers right when they’re about to pay. No more generic discounts or delayed rewards. Instead, each offer is based on a shopper’s history, cart size, and how they usually pay back loans.

Affirm began in 2012, founded by Max Levchin after his time at PayPal. Over the years, it became one of the biggest buy-now, pay-later services in the U.S. Today, it works with hundreds of thousands of merchants and serves over twenty million users. Most shoppers know Affirm for breaking big purchases into smaller payments at fixed rates. But now the company wants to give merchants a way to boost sales without blanket sales or coupon codes.

AdaptAI sits on top of Affirm’s existing setup. When a shopper chooses Affirm at checkout, the platform runs a quick analysis. It looks at things like how much they’re buying, how often they come back, and how well they’ve stuck to past payment plans. Then it uses a machine-learning model to pick the best offer. That could mean 0% interest for a limited time, longer repayment stretches, or an instant cash rebate. The goal is to match each customer with the right deal in seconds.

Technically, AdaptAI uses Affirm’s real-time underwriting engine and a decision API. The underwriting part checks credit and risk instantly, just like it does now. The AI layer tests different promotional scenarios and balances shopper appeal against merchant costs. Over time, it learns which offers drive the most sales and which ones hurt margins. Merchants don’t need to change much. They add a few lines of code at checkout, and AdaptAI starts serving dynamic deals.

In practice, this means a new shopper buying a $500 item might get a 12-month, 0% APR plan, translating to about $0 interest. A loyal customer might see a 24-month plan at around 10% APR, which is still lower than typical credit-card rates but gives more breathing room. Both offers feel personalized and fair. Shoppers know exactly what they owe and when. And merchants only pay for the incentives that push a sale.

Affirm tested AdaptAI inside its app and with a limited set of merchants earlier this year. The results were clear: stores saw about a 10% uplift in conversion when tailored offers appeared at checkout. That means more buyers complete their purchase instead of abandoning their carts. On the financial side, Affirm’s revenue for the first quarter of 2025 jumped over 40% year-over-year, reaching nearly $700 million. Gross merchandise volume climbed by over a third to $7.6 billion, thanks in part to new merchants and more use of 0% APR deals.

For merchants, this approach can cut costs on customer acquisition. Many brands spend up to 30% of gross sales on finding and keeping customers. With AdaptAI, they target incentives to the shoppers most likely to buy. That can raise average order values and drive repeat visits without raising overall promo budgets. And because offers show up in the payment flow, shoppers don’t need to hunt for coupon codes or remember loyalty points.

Affirm’s product team sees this as a step toward more transparent, flexible financing. Vishal Kapoor, Affirm’s product lead, says old credit card rewards are confusing, never change, and end up costing those who can least afford it. AdaptAI picks the right offer for each shopper the moment they pay. You don’t have to spend extra, track points, or wait months to see a benefit. You get a clear, personalized reward right away. That’s all possible because of Affirm’s AI technology and instant credit checks. It builds on what Affirm already does best: giving you payment options that stretch your money further.

Max Levchin adds that flexible payment plans aren’t just about borrowing. They’re about control. AdaptAI aims to give shoppers control over the deals they get and merchants control over how they spend their marketing dollars.

AdaptAI plugs into the wider Affirm ecosystem. Shoppers can access offers through the Affirm App or on the Affirm Card. Merchants using platforms like Shopify already offer Affirm’s installment options, and now they can layer on smart promotions without switching partners. Affirm also works with banks via FIS, so traditional lenders can offer installment plans in their apps. With AdaptAI, those partners can join in too.

The buy-now, pay-later market is crowded. Afterpay, now under Block, has over 24 million users. Klarna serves 93 million globally. Both have rolled out their own perks and loyalty features. But few combine flexible financing with AI-driven promotion at checkout. That’s where Affirm hopes to stand out. And it fits a wider trend. Visa is testing AI shopping assistants, and PayPal has started showing personalized offers at payment time. Financial services are becoming more context-aware and customer-focused.

Looking ahead, Affirm aims to grow its international business. It recently expanded its partnership with Shopify into Canada and will roll out in Europe and Australia later this year. It expects international revenue to hit $250–300 million in 2025. And the company remains on track to reach GAAP profitability by the end of the year, fueled by higher-margin tools like AdaptAI.

About Affirm

Affirm Holdings, Inc. is an American financial technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California, publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker AFRM, and a component of the Russell 1000 index. Founded in 2012 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, along with Jeffrey Kaditz, Nathan Gettings, and Alex Rampell, the company was a trailblazer in introducing the buy now, pay later model in the United States. As of 2025, Affirm serves over 22 million users and 358,000 merchants, processing approximately $28 billion in payments annually through a suite of point-of-sale installment loan products that charge no late fees or hidden charges.

Driven by its mission to deliver honest financial products that improve lives, Affirm offers consumers flexible installment plans, ranging from three to 36 months, with transparent terms, no compounding interest, and absolutely no late or hidden fees. The company’s underwriting engine leverages machine learning and real-time transaction evaluation to assess borrower creditworthiness, generating revenue primarily through service fees charged to merchants and interest on loans rather than punitive penalties.

Beyond installment loans, Affirm integrates seamlessly with leading merchant platforms, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify, and digital wallets including Apple Pay, while also issuing its own debit card and savings account products to deepen customer engagement. Since its IPO in January 2021, Affirm has expanded its geographical footprint into Canada and the United Kingdom and continues to pursue phased profitability targets for fiscal 2025

Conclusion

With AdaptAI, Affirm is pushing its platform beyond basic installment payments and into personalized, performance-driven promotions. By analyzing real-time shopper data and automating incentive delivery at checkout, Affirm gives merchants a way to improve conversion without relying on broad discounts or manual segmentation.

For consumers, the result is greater clarity, more relevant offers, and easier access to fair financing. As competition in the buy-now, pay-later space intensifies, tools like AdaptAI may help Affirm differentiate itself, not just as a lender, but as a data-focused partner for retailers looking to drive smarter growth.