Unite.AI featured Baxter’s analysis on the payment revolution finally reaching blue-collar industries after decades of exclusion from financial innovation. The article reveals the stark reality: while consumers tap phones for instant coffee purchases, 69% of construction companies still process payments with paper checks in 2025. Baxter explores how historical barriers—$100,000-$500,000 system costs, 18-month implementations, and enterprise-only complexity—created a two-tiered payment ecosystem that left traditional industries behind.
The piece demonstrates how AI’s convergence with cloud infrastructure has shattered these barriers, enabling mid-market companies to access enterprise-grade capabilities for $10,000-$50,000 annually with 2-hour deployments. Early adopters report 40-50% DSO reductions and 80% operational cost cuts through “autonomous payment systems” that fundamentally reimagine cash flow operations. With AI creating order-of-magnitude improvements rather than incremental gains, Baxter argues this represents a one-way transformation door where early movers establish unbridgeable competitive advantages.
