Riding the wave of the artificial intelligence industry's rapid growth, payment services provider Stripe has delivered its strongest financial performance to date. From leading AI labs to small and medium-sized developers, a significant portion of their online payment processing is handled by Stripe.

Informed sources indicate that the payments giant saw its revenue surge by one-third in 2025, reaching $6.8 billion, marking its fastest revenue growth rate since 2021. The company's cash generation capability also saw a substantial leap, with full-year free cash flow skyrocketing by 52% to $3.2 billion. This robust financial reserve has empowered Stripe to confidently pursue bold cross-sector expansion. Recent reports suggest that Stripe, in partnership with private equity firm Advent International, has made a $53 billion offer to acquire PayPal.

Sources further state that Stripe's revenue for the first quarter of 2026 reached $2 billion. While the company's revenue remains highly dependent on its core payment processing business, it is actively diversifying its income streams by launching value-added services such as billing, invoicing, tax filing, and financial compliance. Stripe has indicated that the annualized revenue from these ancillary services is expected to surpass $1 billion in 2026.

The AI boom has directly fueled Stripe's performance growth: subscription and usage-based payments from AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic are all processed through Stripe. As these AI companies' revenues soar, Stripe collects a fixed transaction fee. Concurrently, Stripe has completed an acquisition to enhance its suite of tools, bolstering its capabilities for AI-related payments.

Following a tender offer for equity in February of this year, Stripe's latest valuation stands at $159 billion. Earlier this year, Stripe acquired usage-based billing service provider Metronome for $1 billion. AI billing logic is complex, with customer invoices fluctuating in real-time based on compute usage, creating a widespread need for tiered pricing capabilities. Stripe stated that this acquisition helps the company handle payment demands for various large models with usage-based billing, a model it identifies as the signature business model for the AI industry over the next decade.

Stripe's solid financial health supports more aggressive merger and acquisition activity. In recent months, while many tech companies have generally tightened AI-related spending, the industry has seen the rise of AI model routing services. These platforms connect to multiple large models, automatically allocate compute resources, and help clients choose more cost-effective options, with their payment flows deeply integrated with Stripe.

Star model routing startup OpenRouter, currently valued at $1.3 billion, confirmed earlier this year that it uses Stripe exclusively for its entire suite of services, including payment processing, billing, and tax reporting. Media reports last week indicated that a major tech company has made a multi-billion dollar offer to acquire OpenRouter, significantly exceeding its valuation from its last funding round.

OpenRouter is an excellent fit for Stripe: OpenRouter collects payments from AI users, charging an additional service fee of up to 5.5% on top of the model providers' base prices.

In March, Stripe launched an AI Gateway service, allowing developers to integrate multiple large models in one place, track usage, and easily bill their own end-users. Stripe product manager Miles Matthias stated on social platform X that the AI Gateway currently does not charge extra fees and even offers users AI tokens as a usage perk. Other payment companies, such as corporate card and expense management provider Ramp, have also begun rolling out similar AI gateway features.

Simultaneously, Stripe is expanding into cryptocurrency payments to capture additional value from the AI industry. Last year, Stripe acquired crypto firm Bridge for $1.1 billion. Bridge supports businesses in converting fiat currency to stablecoins and handles stablecoin issuance and on-chain payment settlement. Stripe also invested in the stablecoin-focused public blockchain Tempo the same year and recently joined Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, and others as a founding member of the new OpenUSD stablecoin alliance.

Stripe is actively promoting stablecoin adoption for AI agents: these agents require frequent, small payments to call models and purchase compute power. Stablecoins are better suited for real-time, high-frequency micropayments, enabling automated machine-to-machine settlements. Matthias revealed on X that Stripe is working to integrate its AI Gateway with stablecoin payments to implement automated machine payment functionality.

Stripe declined to comment on this report.