Ada (ada.cx) is an enterprise AI customer service platform built around what the company calls Agentic Customer Experience. Launched as a chat-first product, Ada now runs AI agents across web chat, messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS), email, and a Voice AI channel that connects to telephony platforms including Twilio, Genesys, Amazon Connect, Aircall, and NICE CXone. Large enterprises in retail, financial services, telecoms, and SaaS use Ada to automate a significant portion of inbound support volume before a human agent ever picks up.
Payments are a different matter. Ada explicitly states that its services are not PCI DSS compliant and that Ada is not a payment card processor. Its only card-adjacent feature is a data redaction capability that scrubs payment card digits pasted into a chat window. That is a safety net, not a payment product. Ada agents can surface billing information held in your systems, or hand a conversation off via API, but they cannot capture a card number, tokenise it, or route a transaction to a payment gateway. If your Ada agents need to complete a payment, you need a compliant layer sitting alongside Ada to do it.
This guide is for customer experience and payments teams at companies running Ada, and for solution integrators building on the Ada Partner Ecosystem. It explains how Shuttle slots into Ada's architecture to handle card capture, processing, and routing across Ada's voice and chat channels, without any card data passing through Ada itself.
The Payment Challenge for Ada Agents
Ada's compliance posture is SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3, and HIPAA certified. That is a strong enterprise security baseline for a CX platform. PCI scope is simply outside its design: Ada is built to understand intent, resolve queries, and orchestrate next actions. Capturing and processing payment card data is a specialised, highly regulated function that carries its own audit and certification requirements.
The practical consequence is that any Ada agent workflow that touches a payment hits a wall. The agent can confirm an outstanding balance, tell a customer which cards are on file, or explain a billing dispute. The moment you need to capture new card details, process a transaction, or collect a payment on a call, the conversation needs to hand off to something that is PCI certified to handle it. Without that handoff, your team ends up interrupting the agent flow to move the customer to a separate process, which introduces drop-off and friction at exactly the wrong moment.
Shuttle is built to be that layer. It handles the card capture moment in isolation, keeps card data entirely out of Ada, processes through your chosen gateway, and returns a clean result to the Ada agent flow.
How Shuttle Adds Payment Capture to Ada
The integration follows a straightforward five-step pattern across both Ada's voice and chat channels.
The Ada agent runs the conversation. Intent is identified, the customer's account is looked up, and the payment amount or requirement is confirmed. Ada handles all of this natively.
The Ada agent triggers Shuttle at the payment moment. Via a webhook or API call from Ada's custom action or escalation flow, Ada passes the transaction context (amount, currency, customer reference) to Shuttle.
**Shuttle captures the card in isolation.** On voice, Shuttle uses DTMF tone suppression to capture card digits entered on the keypad, preventing them from being recorded or transcribed. On chat and messaging channels, Shuttle serves a hosted payment form or a secure payment link. In both cases, card data is captured within Shuttle's PCI DSS Level 1 certified environment and never enters Ada's infrastructure.
Shuttle processes and routes to your gateway. The card is tokenised, the transaction is routed to your configured payment gateway, and the result (authorised, declined, reference number) is returned via API.
Ada receives the clean result. The agent flow continues with the payment confirmed. No card numbers, no PANs, no sensitive authentication data have touched Ada at any point. This is consistent with Ada's own position as a non-processor.
Multi-PSP Support
Shuttle connects to 30+ gateways through a single integration. You do not need to build and maintain separate connectors for each gateway. Supported processors include Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, Checkout.com, Braintree, Square, and Mollie, among others.
For organisations operating across multiple brands, geographies, or client accounts, Shuttle supports per-tenant routing: different clients or business units can transact through different gateways via a single Shuttle instance. If you have an existing gateway relationship you want to keep, bring your own credentials. Failover routing is also available, so a gateway outage does not take down the payment capability across your Ada agents.
PCI Compliance
Shuttle is a PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider, the highest certification tier. It undergoes annual on-site QSA assessment and quarterly network scans.
From a compliance architecture perspective, this matters for Ada deployments because it solves the scope problem cleanly. Card data captured via Shuttle never flows through Ada's environment. For merchants, this reduces PCI scope significantly: rather than bringing Ada's entire infrastructure into your cardholder data environment, the scope is limited to your integration with Shuttle. Most merchants can move from SAQ-D toward SAQ-A as a result.
Shuttle's PCI Level 1 posture is additive to Ada's SOC 2 and SOC 3 certifications. Ada provides assurance around data handling, availability, and confidentiality for CX data. Shuttle provides the cardholder data environment. The two sit alongside each other without overlap, which is precisely the architecture Ada's own design anticipates.
Beyond Voice: Payment Links
Shuttle's payment capture is not limited to voice. Ada's strongest channel is still chat and messaging, and Shuttle generates hosted payment links that work across every channel Ada supports.
An Ada chat agent can send a payment link inline in a WhatsApp message, an SMS, a Messenger thread, or an email. The customer taps the link, completes payment on a Shuttle-hosted page (branded to your organisation), and Ada receives confirmation via webhook. The card data never enters the messaging channel.
For businesses where Ada handles a high volume of billing queries across messaging apps, this is the most direct way to convert a resolved query into a completed payment without requiring a channel switch or agent handover.
Use Cases
Bill-Pay and Account Payments
Ada agents already handle a large share of billing enquiries: outstanding balance lookups, payment history, invoice queries. With Shuttle connected, the same agent flow can collect the payment rather than ending with a hand-off. The customer confirms the amount, Shuttle captures the card via DTMF (voice) or a payment link (chat), and the transaction is processed against the balance.
Subscription and Renewal Payments
For SaaS and subscription businesses using Ada to manage renewals and failed payment recovery, Shuttle enables the agent to attempt a new card capture inline. Dunning flows that previously required an outbound call or a manual payment page can be handled within the Ada conversation.
Order and E-commerce Support
Retail and e-commerce deployments often use Ada to handle order queries, returns, and re-orders. When a re-order or a replacement order requires card capture, Shuttle provides the compliant capture layer. Per-tenant gateway routing means different brands or storefronts can transact through their own accounts within the same Ada deployment.
Collections and Payment Plans
Contact centre deployments using Ada for collections use cases (debt management, overdue accounts, payment arrangements) need a compliant voice capture path. Shuttle's DTMF suppression handles card capture on outbound or inbound voice calls, and supports split payments and payment plan arrangements where a series of transactions are scheduled from a single card capture event.
FAQ
Does Ada process payments natively? No. Ada explicitly states that its services are not PCI DSS compliant and that Ada is not a payment card processor. Ada's only card-adjacent feature is a redaction function that scrubs card digits from chat transcripts. To process a payment within an Ada agent flow, you need a third-party payment layer.
How do I take PCI-compliant payments on Ada? Integrate Shuttle alongside your Ada deployment. Ada triggers Shuttle via webhook or API at the payment moment, Shuttle captures the card (via DTMF on voice, or a hosted form or link on chat), processes through your gateway, and returns the result to Ada. Card data never enters Ada's environment.
**Which gateways does Shuttle support?** Shuttle connects to 30+ gateways, including Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, Checkout.com, Braintree, Square, and Mollie. You can bring your own gateway credentials or use per-tenant routing to send different clients or business units through separate processors.
Does this work across Ada's voice and chat channels? Yes. On Ada's Voice AI channel (Twilio, Genesys, Amazon Connect, Aircall, NICE CXone), Shuttle uses DTMF suppression for in-call card capture. On Ada's chat and messaging channels (web chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS, Instagram, email), Shuttle generates hosted payment links the agent sends inline.
Can I build payment capture into Ada myself? You could use Ada's custom API actions to redirect to a payment page you build and host. However, that page and its infrastructure would fall within PCI scope and require its own certification. Shuttle provides a pre-certified, pre-built capture layer that is faster to deploy and scopes you out of the cardholder data environment assessment burden.
Related Reading
The Payment Layer for AI Agents: how AI agent platforms and payment processing fit together architecturally.
AI Voice Agent PCI Payments: DTMF clamping, masking, and suppression explained for compliance teams.
Voice Payments: end-to-end guide to PCI-compliant payment capture on voice channels.
Intercom Payments: the same gap-fill pattern for Intercom's AI agent and messaging platform.
Zendesk Payments: how to add compliant payment capture to Zendesk's AI agents and Talk channel.
Add Payments to Your Ada Agents
Shuttle is a PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider. It adds compliant card capture to Ada's voice and chat agents across 30+ gateways, at $0.20 per transaction with no setup fee, no monthly fee, and no per-seat charge (see pricing).
See Voice Checkout | Book a discovery call