BridgerPay Connect Plus 2026: From connection to the future of payments

BridgerPay has unveiled Bridger AI, a new AI-powered suite built to optimize transaction routing and approval rates in real time - marking the next stage of the company's payment orchestration journey.

The suite is built around five specialized functions: Kanji, the brain behind routing decisions; Alexander, the routing specialist; Athena, focused on fraud detection; Amelia, the co-pilot; and Charlie, the autopilot designed to take payment optimization end-to-end.

The announcement came alongside results from BridgerPay's Black Box of Payments report. Over the past year, BridgerPay rescued $500 million globally from transactions that failed due to technical declines, including $55 million for Israeli businesses alone. Today, Bridger Retry™ is saving 1 in 5 soft-declined transactions and improving approval rates by an average of 15%.

Bridger AI represents a shift from infrastructure that simply connects and routes payments to infrastructure that can interpret signals, make decisions, and optimize payment flows as they happen - moving orchestration from a passive layer to an active one.

Where it happened

Ran Cohen, Co-founder and CEO of BridgerPay, introduced BridgerAI at BridgerPay Connect Plus 2026, held on September 9 at East-TLV in Tel Aviv - a day built around where the payments industry is heading next.

Inside the room

The summit brought together leaders from SHVA, PayPal, Shift4, Chargeflow, Justt, Visa Israel, Gett, Monday, Waves Audio, Bits of Gold, GMT, Better, Artlist, Move (Holiday Finder), Paywise Network, Dmelio, and the Israel Fintech Center, among others.

Eitan Lev-Tov, CEO of SHVA, opened with a look at the infrastructure powering Israel's payments ecosystem: ₪566 billion moving through SHVA's network annually, across 2.6 billion transactions and roughly 300,000 Israeli businesses.

From there, the agenda moved through four sessions shaping the industry's near future:

• The Business Behind Every Decline - Fraud & Embedded Finance

• Approval Rates Are the New Revenue Line

• The Agentic Era - Payments When AI Does the Buying

• Cross-Border 2.0 - Stablecoins, Local Rails & Instant Settlement

Across every session, one theme kept resurfacing: as payments grow more complex, businesses need infrastructure that adapts without adding friction.

From Connect to Connect Plus

Connect Plus grew out of the first BridgerPay Connect - an event created to bring Israel's payments community together around connection, collaboration, and the future of the industry. That first evening explored intelligent routing, 3DS, and Bridger Retry™, and highlighted the collaboration between BridgerPay and SHVA. It laid the groundwork for something bigger: a platform for merchants, payment leaders, technology partners, and industry experts to exchange ideas and shape what comes next.

Why it's still about people

"Connect Plus had an incredible turnout, but what stood out to me most were the conversations happening throughout the day. People came together to exchange ideas, share solutions, talk openly about the challenges they're facing, and learn from each other. That's what Connect is really about. BridgerPay may be the invisible layer working behind payment flows, but events like this give us the opportunity to bring the people behind those payments together. Technology should make complexity disappear in the background, so businesses can focus on what matters: their customers, their growth, and the relationships that move the industry forward. At the end of the day, Connect Plus is about people."

- Ran Cohen, Co-founder & CEO, BridgerPay

A huge thank you to our sponsors and exhibitors: PayPal, SHVA, Shift4, Chargeflow, Justt, CryptoPay, and Airwallex - and to every speaker, moderator, panelist, partner, and attendee who joined us.

See the highlights from BridgerPay Connect Plus 2026.

Thank you for being part of Connect Plus 2026. We'll see you at the next one 🚀