Runtime vs Runbear: AI Agents in Slack for Fintech

Feature	Runtime	Runbear
What it is	Agent harness for payment and risk ops	No-code AI agents in Slack and Teams
Setup speed	Days with a forward-deployed engineer	Minutes, no-code
Slack and Teams	Built in, plus email, SMS, and voice	Core product
Each agent gets its own computer	Yes: browser, terminal, files	No
Runs in your cloud	Yes, or fully self-hosted	Hosted platform
PCI and PII handling	Masking, local open models	General
Approvals on money movement	Built in	Not the focus
Audit trail	Every query, tool call, approval, and cost	Conversation history

Runbear is a fast, no-code way to answer questions and handle lightweight requests in Slack, Teams, and Discord from tools like Notion, Linear, and HubSpot. Runtime is the stronger choice for payment and risk operations, where the request in the channel needs an investigation across ledger, processor, and bank data, with approval before money moves. Runtime is the AI agent harness for payment and fintech teams.

Runbear and Runtime at a glance

Runbear is a no-code platform for building AI agents that live in Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord. Agents answer questions from tools like Notion, Linear, and HubSpot, automate requests in shared channels, and can be set up in minutes without engineering.

Runtime is the AI agent harness for payment and fintech teams. From payment ops to risk, compliance, and support, anyone on the team can build agents that work their queues on their own computers inside your cloud, called from Slack, Teams, email, SMS, or voice, with approvals and a full audit trail.

Runbear is for teams that want answers in chat, fast. Runtime is for payment and risk teams that want the work done behind the chat.

How they differ

Answers versus investigations

Runbear agents answer questions from the knowledge in your SaaS tools. Runtime agents do the investigation: a merchant asks in Slack where a payout is, and the agent checks the ledger, the processor, and the bank file on its own computer, then drafts the reply and the fix.

Payments depth

Runtime is built for money movement: processor reason codes, ACH returns, disputes, reserves, and recon breaks. Agents follow your SOPs and reach tools through APIs, databases, CLIs, MCP servers, and a browser for portals with no API.

Your cloud, your sandbox, your models

Runbear runs as a hosted platform. Runtime agent computers run in your AWS, GCP, or Azure account, or fully self-hosted, with your own sandbox provider and any model, including open-weight models in your cloud. Routing and fallbacks keep agents running when a model provider goes down.

Approvals and an audit trail in the same channel

Runtime agents start read-only and ask for approval in Slack or Teams before anything moves money. Every run records the trigger, every query and tool call, the approval, the cost, and the result. A forward-deployed engineer with a payments background sets up the guardrails with your team.

Where Runtime enters the picture

Runbear answers in chat. Runtime does the work behind the chat. When a partner-bank RFI about a merchant's transaction pattern lands in a compliance Slack channel, the agent pulls the transaction history, KYC file, and prior alerts, drafts the response, and waits in the same thread for compliance to approve before it is sent. Runtime is the AI agent harness for payment and fintech teams.

No single vendor to depend on. Agent computers run in your AWS, GCP, or Azure account or fully self-hosted, on the sandbox provider you choose with fallbacks, using Claude, GPT, Gemini, or open-weight models, with harness routing across Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode.
Guardrails you set. Read-only by default, approval in Slack or Teams before a response goes out or money moves, RBAC, masked credentials, card numbers and SSNs stripped, and every run recorded.
Built for teams. Support, payment ops, finance, risk, and compliance share agents, templates, and one memory across channels.
An engineer, not an account executive. A forward-deployed AI engineer whose team built payment infrastructure at Hulu's payments team at Disney, Finix, Modern Treasury, and BlackRock maps your processes and builds the first agents with your team.

New agent

Create a banking ops agent that handles RFIs, hold-harmless requests, and returns of funds from our partner bank, verifies against our ledger, and drafts replies for my approval.

Describe the agent you want

Agent ready

bank-ops-agent

Tools picked from your prompt

EmailLedgerSFTPMastercard

Anyone on the team describes the work in plain English and attaches the SOP. Runtime builds the agent and gives it its own computer.

Where Runbear is stronger

Setup speed. No-code agents in Slack or Teams in minutes, without engineering.
Chat-native. Slack, Teams, and Discord are the core product.
SaaS knowledge. Answers from tools like Notion, Linear, and HubSpot.
Lightweight requests. Good at Q&A and simple automations in shared channels.

Which should you choose

Choose Runbear if

You want AI answers in Slack or Teams in minutes, without engineering
The work is mostly Q&A and lightweight requests
Your data lives in common SaaS tools
Sensitive financial data isn't involved

Choose Runtime if

Requests in Slack or Teams need investigation across ledger, processor, and bank data
Card data or PII has to stay in your cloud
You need approvals on money movement and an audit trail your sponsor bank will accept
You want one platform for every team that touches a transaction

See Runtime on your busiest queue

Bring one SOP. A forward-deployed AI engineer builds the first agent with your team, inside your cloud.

Book a demo

Frequently asked questions

Is Runbear good for fintech teams?

Runbear is a fast way to answer questions and automate lightweight requests in Slack, Teams, and Discord from tools like Notion, Linear, and HubSpot. For payment, risk, and finance work on sensitive data, Runtime adds agent computers in your cloud, approvals, and a full audit trail.

Can Runtime agents work in Slack and Teams?

Yes. Runtime agents are called from Slack, Teams, email, SMS, voice, or the dashboard, and approvals happen right in Slack or Teams.

What is the best Runbear alternative for payment operations?

For Q&A over common SaaS tools, Runbear works well. For investigations across your ledger, processor, and bank files, with approvals before money moves, Runtime is built for payment and fintech teams.

Can Runtime run in my own cloud?

Yes. Runtime agent computers run in your AWS, GCP, or Azure account, or fully self-hosted, with your own sandbox provider and models if you prefer.

Where does Runtime fit next to Runbear?

Runbear answers questions in Slack, Teams, and Discord from your SaaS tools. Runtime is the AI agent harness for payment and fintech teams: agents investigate RFIs, payouts, and recon breaks across your ledger, processor, and bank data in your cloud, with approvals in the same Slack or Teams thread.