The Impact of AI on Real-Time Payments (RTP) for Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises' Performance in the United States of America

Abstract

This study evaluated the impact of Ai on real time payment (RTP) for small and medium scale enterprises performance in United States of America with the aim of answering the research questions on how AI technologies adopted by US SMEs have facilitated access of payment rate, the extent at which AI technology impact the performance of US SMEs using a literature review approach. Findings from the analysed data confirmed that the rate of digital payments transactions in the US is growing on a fast rate which was also confirmed by recent empirical studies conducted after 2020 period stressing that the adoption of AI technologies by U.S. SMEs significantly impacts their access to payment rates particularly during the periods after the pandemic. This study also revealed that the impact of AI on the performance of SMEs in the United State appears to be unstable with the sampled periods of 2019 to 2024 with larger percentage of the sampled respondents in 2024 indicating that their business was in a favourable condition. On the final note, the findings revealed that the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology significantly enhances risk management for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the US majorly in terms of influencing informed decision making, operational efficiency and response to market fluctuations. This study thereby recommended that SMEs in US should keep adopting AI technology for transaction processing, decision making, market forecast, fraud detection, compliance processes, credit risk management, data quality monitoring and operational resilience.