Governed agents inside the bank account: a natural-language assistant (Command) that proposes while the product enforces and the user authorises, virtual cards and an MCP server built for customers' own AI agents, and AI-driven accounting, all ahead of a pending national bank charter.
How is Mercury bank using AI?
Mercury's AI strategy is Command, launched June 16, 2026: a natural-language assistant inside the bank account that stages financial work for approval under the rule 'the model proposes, the product enforces, the user authorizes', with credentials never reaching the model. Around it sit AI Agent Cards (August 2026) for customers' own agents, a read-only MCP server and AI-driven Mercury Books (September 2026). Mercury serves 300,000+ customers with $650 million annualised revenue, raised $200 million at $5.2 billion in May 2026 and holds OCC conditional approval for Mercury Bank, N.A.
Category
Business finance & infrastructure
Founded
2017
Headquarters
San Francisco, United States
Licence and supervision
Not yet a bank: deposits held through partner banks Choice Financial Group and Column Bank (Evolve Bank & Trust relationship ended March 2025); OCC preliminary conditional approval for Mercury Bank, N.A. (Salt Lake City) granted April 24, 2026, with FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals pending.
Scale
More than 300,000 customers, $650 million annualised revenue (Q3 2025) and a $5.2 billion valuation at the May 2026 Series D
Flagship platform
Mercury Command (with Agent Cards and Mercury MCP)
AI leadership
Immad Akhund · Jon Auxier · Ryan Wiggins
- Mercury Command (June 16, 2026) lets customers ask for categorisation, bank letters, cash-position analysis, payments and invoices in plain language; answers are grounded in live account data and every action is staged for approval, governed by existing permissions and logged. Mercury's principal engineer on Command wrote that the team assumes LLMs 'will hallucinate' and designed the system so the model proposes, the product enforces and the user authorises, with the backend executing after approval 'bypassing the AI entirely'.
- Mercury Spend (August 11, 2026) introduced AI Agent Cards: virtual Mastercard cards a human issues to an AI agent with spend limits, merchant restrictions and duration; the agent can retrieve the card credentials through Mercury's API or CLI to pay at checkout but can never create cards, raise limits or reach other cards. CEO Immad Akhund told Fast Company customers had already been issuing virtual cards to agents manually.
- Mercury MCP, a hosted server in beta since November 2025, gives ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Studio and other assistants OAuth-gated, read-only access to balances, transactions, cards and recipients; Mercury says it does not build agents and customers run their own on platforms such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI.
- Mercury Books (September 16, 2026) is double-entry accounting built into the bank account that uses AI to categorise and reconcile banking, card, invoicing and bill-pay activity as it happens; earlier AI features include Mercury Insights, a dashboard with traceable AI-generated trends and recommendations, and auto-categorisation.
- The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval for Mercury Bank, N.A. (Salt Lake City, Utah) on April 24, 2026 (Corporate Decision #1372) after a December 19, 2025 application for a charter and FDIC insurance; FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals are pending, former SoFi Bank CFO Jon Auxier will be bank CEO, and the charter would add Zelle, lending and owned payment rails.
- Mercury raised $200 million at a $5.2 billion valuation on May 20, 2026 (TCV-led Series D), up from $3.5 billion at the $300 million Sequoia-led Series C in March 2025; Akhund told CNBC the company has been profitable for four years, hit $650 million annualised revenue in Q3 2025 and serves one in three US startups, with growth 'fueled in part by an AI-driven surge in new-business formation'.
- Mercury says it onboarded more than twice as many AI-startup customers in 2025 as in 2024, and that 73% of new customers in 2025 came from outside the tech-startup category.
What is Mercury Command (with Agent Cards and Mercury MCP)?
Command, launched June 16, 2026, turns natural-language requests into staged financial work across Mercury: categorising transactions, generating bank letters, explaining cash-position changes, preparing payments and invoices. Every action is prepared for review, governed by existing permissions (approval rules, daily limits, dual-admin approval) and logged; card numbers, SSNs and credentials are never passed to the model, and after approval the backend executes without the AI. Around it sit Mercury MCP (a hosted, read-only, OAuth-gated server for ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants, in beta since late 2025), AI Agent Cards (August 11, 2026) that an agent can use at checkout within human-set limits, and Mercury Books (September 16, 2026), which uses AI to categorise and reconcile activity in real time.[1][3][4][6][7]
What has Mercury done on AI, and when?
- Sep 16, 2026
Mercury Books: AI-driven accounting[7]
Double-entry accounting inside Mercury that uses AI to categorise and reconcile banking, card, invoicing and bill-pay activity as it happens, for over 300,000 customers.
- Aug 11, 2026
- Jul 16, 2026
Mercury publishes Command's security principles[3]
Principal engineer sets out the design: reuse existing audit, permission and risk systems; assume LLMs will hallucinate; the model proposes, the product enforces, the user authorises; execution bypasses the AI after approval.
- Jun 16, 2026
- May 20, 2026
- Apr 24, 2026
- Dec 19, 2025
Mercury applies for an OCC national bank charter[2]
Application to the OCC for a national bank charter and to the FDIC for deposit insurance, framed as the next step toward a regulated, software-led institution for its then 200,000-plus customers.
- Nov 18, 2025
Mercury MCP documented in beta[4]
Hosted, OAuth-gated, read-only MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Studio and other assistants to query spend, balances, cards and recipients.
- Mar 26, 2025
$300 million Series C at $3.5 billion[14]
Sequoia-led round; Mercury reports $500 million of 2024 revenue, 10 consecutive profitable quarters, 200,000+ customers and $156 billion payment volume; the Evolve Bank & Trust relationship ended March 12, 2025.
Where does Mercury use AI today?
| System | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury Command[1][3] | Natural-language assistant that stages categorisation, letters, analysis, payments and invoices for approval; the model proposes, the product enforces, the user authorises. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI Agent Cards[6][5] | Virtual cards issued by a human to an AI agent with limits, merchant restrictions and duration; credentials retrievable by the agent via API or CLI; agents cannot create cards or raise limits. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Mercury MCP for customers' own agents[4][5] | Read-only, OAuth-gated MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants; Mercury does not build agents and warns users to double-check LLM responses. | Pilot | Third-party & vendor AI |
| Mercury Books and auto-categorisation[7][3] | AI categorises and reconciles transactions in real time inside a double-entry ledger; auto-categorisation and Mercury Insights preceded Command. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI guardrails and audit trail[3][1] | Command reuses Mercury's audit, authorisation, permissions, risk and security systems; card numbers, SSNs and credentials are never passed to the model; actions are logged and traceable. | In production | AI governance (general) |
| Hallucination-tolerant design[3] | Mercury's stated philosophy is to assume LLMs will hallucinate and make unintended account actions 'virtually impossible' by executing only through deterministic backend calls after user approval. | In production | Model risk management |
Use-case links open the tracker's rules-by-use-case matrix: which documents govern each system type.
What has Mercury disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Customers | more than 300,000, including one in three US startups[9] | May 20, 2026 |
| Annualised revenue | $650 million (Q3 2025); $500 million revenue in 2024[10][14] | Sep 30, 2025 |
| Valuation | $5.2 billion (Series D, May 2026), from $3.5 billion (March 2025)[9][14] | May 20, 2026 |
| Total primary and secondary funding | approximately $700 million[9] | May 20, 2026 |
| Years of GAAP profitability | four[10] | May 20, 2026 |
| AI-startup customers onboarded | more than twice as many in 2025 as in 2024[8] | Dec 31, 2025 |
| New customers from outside tech startups | 73% in 2025[12] | Dec 31, 2025 |
“AI is collapsing the friction between an idea and a company faster than anything I have seen in my career.”[9]
Immad Akhund · Co-founder and CEO, Mercury · May 20, 2026
“Companies can be smaller and faster than they were two years ago, and they're a mix of people and agents doing real work.”[6]
Immad Akhund · Co-founder and CEO, Mercury · Aug 11, 2026
“You can have a lot of control while having agents with some ability to spend.”[8]
Immad Akhund · Co-founder and CEO, Mercury (to Fast Company) · Aug 11, 2026
“The work now is earning trust by building the bank our customers deserve.”[12]
Jon Auxier · CEO and President, Mercury Bank (proposed) · Apr 27, 2026
Who runs AI at Mercury?
Which regulators govern Mercury's AI?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| OCC | Granted preliminary conditional approval for Mercury Bank, N.A. on April 24, 2026; once open, Command, agent cards and AI accounting would run inside an OCC-supervised national bank subject to its model-risk and third-party guidance. | OCC Bulletin 2011-12 OCC Bulletin 2023-17 |
| FDIC | Deposit insurance for Mercury Bank is a condition of final OCC approval; FDIC guidance on model risk and third-party relationships would apply. | FDIC FIL-15-2026 |
| Federal Reserve | Mercury Bank must apply for Federal Reserve membership, and the Fed's SR 11-7 model-risk guidance frames supervision of AI used in a member bank. | SR 11-7 |
| CFPB | Mercury Personal, launched in late 2025, brings consumer accounts and Command's consumer use under CFPB expectations for chatbots in consumer finance. | CFPB Chatbots in Consumer Finance (issue spotlight, 2023) |
Linked authorities have a page in the AI Regulation Tracker; the others are named for completeness and not yet tracked.
What does the public record suggest about Mercury's AI strategy?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice.
01
The control model is the product
Mercury's AI announcements lead with what the AI cannot do: no credentials in the model, no autonomous execution, no agent-created cards. That is a deliberate contrast with autonomous-agent framing elsewhere in fintech.
02
Mercury monetises other people's agents
Agent cards, the MCP server and the CLI assume customers already run agents on Claude, OpenAI or similar; Mercury supplies the rails and the guardrails rather than the agent.
03
AI shows up on both sides of the ledger
Mercury credits AI-driven company formation for customer growth (twice as many AI-startup customers in 2025) while shipping AI features to keep those customers from Ramp and Brex.
04
No usage figures for Command or agent cards
Mercury publishes customer counts, revenue and profitability but not how many customers use Command, how many agent cards exist or what share of volume they carry.
05
The bank charter changes who supervises the AI
Today Mercury's AI runs in a fintech supervised indirectly through partner banks; once Mercury Bank opens, the same features sit under direct OCC and FDIC oversight.
What is Mercury Command?
Command, launched June 16, 2026, is AI built into a Mercury account that turns natural-language requests into completed financial work: categorising transactions, producing bank letters, explaining cash-position changes, preparing payments and invoices, and moving money between business and personal accounts. Every answer is grounded in live account data, every action is staged for approval under existing permissions and logged, and card numbers, SSNs and credentials are never passed to the AI model.
Can AI agents spend money through Mercury?
Yes, within limits. Mercury Spend (August 11, 2026) added AI Agent Cards: virtual Mastercard cards that a human issues to an AI agent with a spend limit, merchant restrictions and duration. The agent can retrieve the card number, expiry and CVC through Mercury's API or CLI to pay at checkout, but cannot create cards, raise limits or access other cards. Mercury does not build agents; customers run their own on platforms such as Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI.
Does Mercury work with ChatGPT or Claude?
Through Mercury MCP, a hosted Model Context Protocol server in beta since November 2025 that gives ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Studio and other assistants OAuth-gated, read-only access to balances, transactions, cards and recipients. Mercury warns users to double-check LLM responses against their account. Command itself is Mercury's own assistant inside the product.
Is Mercury a bank?
Not yet. Mercury is a fintech whose deposits sit with partner banks Choice Financial Group and Column Bank. On April 24, 2026 the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval for Mercury Bank, N.A., a national bank to be based in Salt Lake City, Utah, with former SoFi Bank CFO Jon Auxier as CEO; FDIC and Federal Reserve approvals are still required. The charter would add Zelle, expanded lending and Mercury-controlled payment rails.
How does Mercury keep its AI safe?
Mercury's principal engineer on Command described two principles: rely on systems already trusted (the audit, authorisation, permissions, risk and security infrastructure of the past seven years) and treat AI as an orchestrator, not an executor. The team assumes LLMs will hallucinate, so Command only proposes; the product enforces limits and the user authorises, after which the backend executes 'bypassing the AI entirely'. Sensitive data never reaches the model.
How big is Mercury?
Mercury serves more than 300,000 customers, including one in three US startups, reached $650 million in annualised revenue in Q3 2025 after $500 million of revenue in 2024, and has been GAAP-profitable for four years. It raised $200 million at a $5.2 billion valuation in May 2026, led by TCV, following a $300 million Sequoia-led Series C at $3.5 billion in March 2025; total funding is about $700 million.
Does Mercury use AI for accounting?
Yes. Mercury Books, launched September 16, 2026, is double-entry accounting built into the bank account that uses AI to categorise and reconcile banking, card, invoicing and bill-pay activity the moment it happens. Earlier, Mercury used AI in auto-categorisation and in Mercury Insights, a dashboard with traceable AI-generated trends and recommendations, and Command can categorise transactions on request.
- Introducing Mercury Command
- Mercury Applies for OCC National Bank Charter to Become the Bank for Builders (Business Wire via Yahoo Finance)
- Our security principles behind Command
- What is Mercury MCP?
- Agent cards: Giving AI agents a card of their own
- Mercury Launches Spend with Agent Cards and Intelligent Budgets for the AI Era (Business Wire via Yahoo Finance)
- Mercury Launches Intelligent Accounting with Mercury Books (Business Wire via Morningstar)
- Silicon Valley startups are about to hand corporate credit cards to AI agents
- Mercury Raises $200 Million Series D at $5.2B Valuation
- Fintech firm Mercury hits $5.2 billion valuation after funding round, up 49% in 14 months
- Mercury raises $200 million after OCC bank charter approval
- Mercury Receives OCC Conditional Approval to Establish Mercury Bank, N.A.
- Corporate Decision #1372: De Novo Charter Application, Mercury Bank, N.A., Salt Lake City, Utah
- Fintech Mercury lands $300M in Sequoia-led Series C, doubles valuation to $3.5B
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