Adyen Authenticate: AI chooses between 3DS and passkeys, Too Good To Go reports 11 per cent higher conversion

What happened

Adyen announced an upgrade to its product Authenticate on 22 September 2026; on 26 September retail-news picked up the announcement for the German market. Instead of fixed 3DS rules, a machine-learning model makes three decisions per transaction: whether authentication is needed at all, which method to use, and which data to send to the card-issuing bank. The options are 3D Secure, Google Secure Payment Authentication and the Visa and Mastercard Payment Passkeys, via a single integration according to Adyen. Adyen names the pilot customers itself: Too Good To Go with 11 per cent higher payment conversion, and Just Eat Takeaway.com with 12 per cent on eligible traffic. The product is live worldwide for 3DS; the new methods currently run only in the United Kingdom, with further rollout planned through 2027.

Who is affected

Online merchants with card payments in their checkout, especially those with a high share of mobile purchases and returning customers. Also anyone working today with rigid 3DS rules or a separate authentication provider.

Assessment

With 3D Secure, merchants have been losing customers for years without seeing it clearly: the banking app does not open, the SMS code arrives too late, the customer gives up. Passkeys, meaning approval by fingerprint or face recognition on one’s own device, are the obvious answer. What is new here is not the method but the fact that an acquirer links the choice of method to the outcome of the authorisation. Only a provider that sees both sides of the payment can do that.

The double-digit figures are vendor claims from a pilot with two selected customers. They show the direction, not the average. For German merchants, it also remains open when the passkey methods will go live here and how card-issuing banks will follow. The rules on strong customer authentication still apply; an AI only decides within the permitted exemptions. As we noted in the week 39 briefing: whoever does not choose the rail themselves takes on someone else’s rules.

What to do now

Ask your payment provider for the abandonment rate at the 3DS step, split by mobile and desktop.
Clarify whether passkeys and the SCA exemptions for low-value payments and transaction risk are already being used today.
For new authentication products, insist on figures from your own traffic, not on pilot values from other merchants.