TLDR: Stripe essentially believes that AI agents will become economic actors. That appears to be the main strategic rationale behind its acquisition of OpenRouter. Strikingly, 88% of the Forbes AI 50, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are building on Stripe, while Stripe says the share of revenue coming from AI companies and crypto is more than doubling YoY. Overall, payments and financial infrastructure are still the foundation of the business. Meanwhile, AI is becoming the main strategic direction. Its existing businesses (see table below) are still growing very fast. According to the letter, H1 2026: - Stripe net revenue grew 41% YoY - FCF grew 43% YoY - Stripe Billing grew 71% YoY - Stripe Capital exceeded 100,000 active loans - Link passed 300 million users - Stripe Treasury is described as one of Stripe's fastest-growing products ever This is where OpenRouter fits into the picture. Stripe manages the money flow, Metronome measures usage, while OpenRouter determines where AI/token demand gets routed across models. Also, don’t expect a Stripe IPO anytime soon. Despite now being valued at $159B, Stripe appears comfortable staying private.