Payment providers are banking on the fact that millions of people will soon rely on AI to find the perfect sweater, research a new vacation spot or handle their weekly grocery shopping — and they want in on the action.
While the idea of AI handling these kinds of complicated tasks autonomously might sound like something out of a science fiction novel, agentic AI is rapidly moving toward this reality.
“Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf,” predicted Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jack Forestell in a statement. “These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well.”
In fact, a number of platforms — including Google, Perplexity, and most recently ChatGPT — have developed AI interfaces to create a more assistive online shopping experience, so the ability to purchase directly through these platforms seems like a no-brainer. Which explains why, in the course of a single week, three of the largest payment providers in the country — Visa, Mastercard and PayPal — all announced new agentic AI integrations and capabilities.
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Visa Intelligent Commerce Promises a ‘New Way to Buy’
Visa’s new Intelligent Commerce offering opens up Visa’s payment network to developers and engineers who are building the foundational AI agents that enable agentic commerce. This involves the creation of tokenized cards that AI agents can use to make purchases, which encrypt sensitive information like card numbers and demonstrate to retailers that the agent is authorized to buy things.
To develop the offering, Visa has partnered with Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, Stripe and others, promising a “new way to buy, same trusted way to pay” in a video promoting the service. Consumers will still have ample control over the transactions, with the ability to set spending limits as well as other purchase conditions and approve transactions before they’re made.
“Just like the shift from physical shopping to online, and from online to mobile, Visa is setting a new standard for a new era of commerce,” said Forestell. “Now, with Visa Intelligent Commerce, AI agents can find, shop and buy for consumers based on their pre-selected preferences. Each consumer sets the limits, and Visa helps manage the rest.”
Importantly, Visa is not developing its own agentic commerce interface but rather working to have its payment solution integrated into the ones that exist today or are in development. “We’re working with companies at the forefront of AI innovation to encourage AI platform participation and support new ways to pay, with security and trust as our number one priority,” added Forestell. “Together with our partners, we fully embrace AI’s potential to transform all aspects of commerce, payments and business.”
Technology Powering Mastercard Agent Pay Already Used in Digital Wallets
Earlier in the week, Mastercard made a similar announcement. Its offering is called Agent Pay, and just like Visa, it involves a tokenized payment technology that can be integrated into agentic AI platforms to facilitate secure payments. Mastercard said its technology is already in use by some digital wallets, including Apple Pay.
Also similar to Visa, consumers will have control over what the agent is empowered to purchase on their behalf, and Mastercard said it also will use AI agents to add an extra layer of authentication. Mastercard is collaborating with Microsoft on its tool and is also partnering with a number of organizations to test different use cases, including Watsonx Orchestrate for B2B use cases as well as acquirers and checkout players like Braintree and Checkout.com.
“Mastercard is transforming the way the world pays for the better by anticipating consumer needs on the horizon,” said Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard in a statement. “The launch of Mastercard Agent Pay marks our initial steps in redefining commerce in the AI era, including new merchant interfaces to distinguish trusted agents from bad actors using agentic technology. Recognizing the seismic implications of this evolution, we are keen to collaborate with industry players to advance the standards for agentic payments, such as applying the Model Context Protocol to Secure Remote Commerce. This lays the foundation for scale and builds trust in agentic commerce.”
New Toolkit Enables Developers to Integrate PayPal into Agentic Commerce Applications
The agentic news out of PayPal this week was slightly different from that of Visa and Mastercard, although the organization’s goals are similar. PayPal offered up a suite of integration tools that will help developers on its PayPal Open platform to build out agentic AI experiences for everything from payment and tracking of shipments to managing invoices.
Among the tools now available to developers are a remote MCP server (model context protocol, an open standard developed by Anthropic) and an Agent Toolkit, both of which allow developers to integrate PayPal functionality into agentic commerce workflows.
“Over 25 years ago, PayPal made history by simplifying digital money movement. Today, we are charting the next era: the era of agentic commerce,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal in a statement. “We are building with velocity and partnering with the biggest players in AI to empower our customers to access new opportunities in the AI economy.”
At an event last week for PayPal developers, the company demonstrated the potential of these tools when used in collaboration with technology like Google’s Gemini, AI by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure AI.
“Together with our passionate developer community, PayPal is leading the agentic commerce revolution,” said Srini Venkatesan, Chief Technology Officer of PayPal in a statement. “We’re providing the tools and capabilities to empower creators to design sophisticated AI commerce experiences that are fast, efficient and secure. This is just the beginning of how PayPal is shaping the future of commerce with AI-driven solutions.”
