Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is placing artificial intelligence at the center of the company’s next phase of growth, describing the technology as a powerful tool for accelerating expansion rather than simply reducing headcount.
Speaking at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on Aug. 20, Garlinghouse said Ripple has been aggressively adopting AI across its operations as the company expands its financial infrastructure business.
The strategy comes alongside an ambitious financial target. Garlinghouse expects Ripple to more than double its annual revenue in 2026 while continuing to increase its global workforce.
Ripple Turns to AI to Accelerate Growth
Garlinghouse described artificial intelligence as an “enabler and an accelerant” for companies that already have strong products, customers and opportunities for expansion.
His view is that AI can help successful businesses operate faster and more efficiently rather than simply replacing employees.
Ripple currently employs approximately 1,500 people globally. Garlinghouse also said the company has around 150 open positions and intends to continue hiring as its operations expand.
Ripple’s public careers portal showed 94 available positions when reviewed, although the difference could reflect jobs that have not yet been publicly listed, positions being recruited through other channels or changes since Garlinghouse made his comments.
Several available roles indicate that AI is becoming increasingly important to Ripple’s engineering strategy.
One senior engineering position, for example, focuses on building an “AI native operation” using agentic development methods. The goal is to expand Ripple’s payout network more efficiently without depending entirely on proportional increases in workforce size.
Garlinghouse Challenges the AI Layoff Narrative
Garlinghouse also pushed back against the idea that artificial intelligence is necessarily the main reason behind large corporate layoffs.
He suggested that some businesses may be using AI as an explanation for workforce reductions that could have happened regardless of the technology.
According to Garlinghouse, companies with genuine growth opportunities can use AI to increase productivity while continuing to hire people in areas where additional talent is needed.
His comments reflect his own assessment of the current corporate environment. Companies across different industries have cited a variety of reasons for layoffs, including automation, restructuring, rising operating expenses and changing customer demand.
Ripple’s own strategy currently appears focused on combining workforce expansion with increased automation.
Ripple Expects Revenue to More Than Double in 2026
One of Garlinghouse’s most significant claims was that Ripple expects to achieve a record year in 2026.
The CEO said the company expects to “more than double revenue year on year,” despite continued weakness across parts of the broader cryptocurrency market.
Because Ripple remains privately held, it is not required to publish the same audited quarterly financial statements as publicly traded companies. As a result, the revenue forecast currently represents company guidance rather than independently verified public financial data.
Still, Ripple has significantly expanded its business over the past several years.
The company is no longer focused primarily on cross-border payments. Its operations now cover institutional trading infrastructure, stablecoins, digital asset custody, corporate treasury management and prime brokerage services.
Ripple Prime Strengthens Institutional Business
A major part of Ripple’s expansion came through its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road.
The transaction was completed in October 2025, after which the business was renamed Ripple Prime.
The acquisition pushed Ripple deeper into institutional finance by giving the company a global prime brokerage platform covering both traditional and digital asset markets.
According to Ripple, Ripple Prime now clears more than $3 trillion annually for over 300 institutional customers.
The company previously said the prime brokerage operation had tripled in size between the announcement of the acquisition and its completion.
Because Ripple is privately held, these figures remain company-reported metrics rather than numbers verified through public financial filings.
Nevertheless, the scale of Ripple Prime demonstrates how aggressively the company is moving beyond its original payments-focused business.
Ripple Expands Into Corporate Treasury Management
Ripple has also entered the corporate treasury technology market.
Following its acquisition of treasury software provider GTreasury, the company introduced an enterprise platform designed to help businesses manage digital assets, liquidity and treasury operations.
The expansion gives Ripple another way to connect traditional corporate financial systems with blockchain-based infrastructure.
Together, payments, custody, stablecoins, prime brokerage and treasury management are creating a broader institutional ecosystem around the company.
AI could now become an important layer connecting these services and making them more efficient.
Ripple Wants AI Across Financial Infrastructure
Garlinghouse said Ripple remains focused on the infrastructure and institutional side of digital assets.
Rather than concentrating exclusively on retail crypto activity, Ripple wants to provide the systems that financial institutions use to interact with blockchain networks and digital assets.
This strategy positions the company as a bridge between traditional finance and decentralized financial infrastructure.
Ripple President Monica Long has outlined a similar vision.
In the company’s 2026 predictions, Long suggested that AI models could eventually work alongside blockchain technology to automate financial processes such as liquidity management, margin calls and portfolio rebalancing.
Such systems could allow financial institutions to automate complex operations while blockchain networks provide transparent and programmable settlement infrastructure.
AI Could Increase Productivity Without Replacing Ripple Employees
Ripple’s current approach does not suggest that the company plans to replace its workforce with autonomous AI systems.
Instead, the company appears to be using artificial intelligence to increase the productivity of existing teams.
For example, AI-powered development tools could help engineers build and maintain infrastructure faster, while automated systems could improve operations across payments, treasury management and institutional trading.
This approach could allow Ripple to support more customers and enter new markets without requiring its workforce to expand at exactly the same rate as revenue.
The company’s continued hiring plans support this strategy.
If Ripple successfully combines AI-driven productivity with workforce growth, it could provide a different model from companies primarily using automation as a cost-cutting measure.
Institutional Crypto Infrastructure Becomes Ripple’s Priority
Ripple’s evolution reflects a broader shift in the cryptocurrency industry.
As digital assets become more closely integrated with traditional finance, institutional investors increasingly require infrastructure for custody, settlement, liquidity, compliance and risk management.
Ripple has positioned itself to provide many of these services.
Its growing portfolio now includes cross-border payments, institutional custody, stablecoin infrastructure, prime brokerage and corporate treasury management.
AI could potentially improve how all of these services operate by automating routine processes, analyzing large amounts of financial data and helping institutions manage liquidity more efficiently.
For Ripple, this combination of AI and blockchain infrastructure could become an important competitive advantage.
Ripple Growth Does Not Automatically Mean XRP Growth
Ripple’s commercial expansion could strengthen the company without necessarily producing an equivalent increase in demand for XRP.
Ripple is a privately held technology and financial infrastructure company, while XRP is an independently traded digital asset.
Some Ripple services may use blockchain technology without requiring XRP for every transaction.
That distinction is important when evaluating announcements about Ripple’s revenue, acquisitions or institutional customers.
A doubling of Ripple’s revenue would therefore not automatically translate into a similar increase in XRP adoption or price.
Any potential impact on XRP depends on whether specific Ripple products and services generate additional demand or utility for the token.
What Comes Next for Ripple?
Two major indicators will help determine whether Ripple’s strategy is succeeding: revenue growth and hiring.
Garlinghouse expects the company to more than double annual revenue during 2026 while continuing to expand its approximately 1,500-person workforce.
At the same time, Ripple is embedding AI deeper into its engineering and financial infrastructure operations.
If those investments allow the company to serve more institutional customers without proportionally increasing costs, AI could become an important contributor to Ripple’s next phase of expansion.
Ripple’s acquisitions also give the company significantly more exposure to traditional financial infrastructure than it had several years ago. Ripple Prime, treasury technology, custody, stablecoins and payments collectively provide multiple potential sources of future revenue.
For now, however, Garlinghouse’s revenue target remains company guidance. The clearest test will be whether Ripple can translate its growing institutional footprint and aggressive AI adoption into the financial growth its CEO expects.
