Prove, the leader in digital identity, today announced The Trust 25, a new industry recognition program honoring 25 executives who are redefining how businesses establish trust in an increasingly AI-driven world. The inaugural class draws from a wide swath of the economy including global banks, payment networks, e-commerce marketplaces, gaming platforms, and technology companies, underscoring how identity, fraud, and authentication have become board-level priorities across every sector.

Honorees were selected from hundreds of nominations by an independent panel of industry experts, who evaluated each leader’s impact, innovation, and contributions to advancing trust in the digital economy. The final list spans five categories: Identity, Payments, Customer Experience, Agentic Commerce, and Fraud & Compliance.

“These leaders are defining what trust looks like in a world where AI is changing how people interact and transact online,” said Rodger Desai, Co-Founder and CEO of Prove. “As it becomes harder to know who or what is on the other side of a digital interaction, identity becomes even more foundational. The Trust 25 recognizes the people building the systems, standards, and strategies that will make trusted digital relationships possible in this next era.”

The Trust 25: Recognizing Leaders Across Digital Identity, Payments, Fraud, and AI

The Trust 25 honorees represent organizations including Uber, Amazon, Citi, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, TD, PayPal, Visa, Stripe, eBay, FanDuel Group, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, Synchrony Financial, AvidXchange, Care.com, and others illustrating that the challenge of establishing digital trust is no longer confined to financial services alone.

Across every category, honorees are addressing the identity trust challenges of the AI era:

  • Identity executives are architecting systems where verification is not a single event but a continuous, adaptive process that persists across the customer relationship.

  • Payments innovators are rethinking authentication as money moves faster and increasingly without a human directly initiating the transaction.

  • Customer Experience leaders are proving that security and seamless design are not in tension, using identity signals to reduce friction for trusted users while targeting it precisely where risk exists.

  • Agentic Commerce pioneers are building the standards and infrastructure needed to let AI agents shop, pay, and act on consumers’ behalf without surrendering control, consent, or accountability.

  • Fraud & Compliance leaders are moving beyond static rules toward real-time, layered signals that can detect AI-generated impersonation and social engineering without penalizing legitimate customers.

Why Digital Identity and Trust Matter in the Age of AI

The announcement comes as AI reshapes both sides of the digital trust equation. Generative AI has made synthetic identities, deepfake documents, and voice-cloned social engineering attacks dramatically easier to produce at scale. At the same time, a new category of actor, the autonomous AI agent, is emerging, capable of making purchases, signing up for services, and moving money on a person’s behalf.

Prove recognizes the following as the 2026 Trust 25 honorees:

Identity

Payments

Customer Experience

Agentic Commerce

Fraud & Compliance

  • Karen Boyer, SVP, Financial Crimes, M&T Bank

  • Andy Hodges, SVP, Authentication Analytics and Testing Innovation, Bank of America

  • Brian Oh, Head of Product – Identity & Fraud, FIS

  • Stacie Purcell, Fraud Solutions Executive, KeyBank

  • Adam Wood, Managing Director, Client Protection and Scam Prevention, Citi

Honorees were selected using a defined scoring rubric by an independent judging panel of internal and external industry experts, including:

Each Trust 25 honoree will be featured in Prove’s inaugural Trust 25 Report, bringing together insights from leaders at the forefront of identity, fraud, payments, customer experience and agentic commerce.

To learn more about the Trust 25 and the 2026 honorees, visit Prove.com/the-trust-25-awards.

About Prove

Prove makes identity work – verifying real people, businesses, and agents in real time without friction or guesswork. Trusted by 19 of the top 20 U.S. banks and thousands of leading brands worldwide, Prove helps the biggest names in banking, fintech, crypto, gaming, commerce, insurance, and healthcare grow with confidence. Prove’s identity verification and authentication solutions streamline onboarding, prevent fraud, and deliver seamless customer experiences across channels. With Prove, identity is no longer a question – it’s proven.

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