Payments giant Visa and Mastercard have unveiled AI-powered shopping, to make shopping experiences for users more personal, more secure and more convenient.
Visa is bringing the power of its network and decades-long expertise to bring trust and security to AI-driven commerce. Introduced on Wednesday, Visa is rolling out “Visa Intelligent Commerce” which enables AI to find and buy. It is a groundbreaking new initiative that opens Visa’s payment network to the developers and engineers building the foundational AI agents transforming commerce.
In a statement, Visa chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell said,
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“Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well. 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. 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.”
Visa Intelligent Commerce offers:
• AI-Ready Cards: Replaces card details with tokenized digital credentials, enhancing security for consumers and simplifying payment processes for developers. They confirm that a consumer’s chosen agent is allowed to act on a consumer’s behalf and bring identity verification to AI commerce. Only the consumer can instruct the agent on what to do and when to activate a payment credential.
• AI-Powered Personalization: The consumer is in control. Consumers share basic Visa spend and purchase insights with their consent to improve agent performance and personalize shopping recommendations.
• Simple and Secure AI Payments: Allows consumers to easily set spending limits and conditions, providing clear guidelines for agent transactions. Commerce signals are shared in real-time with Visa, enabling Visa to effect transaction controls and help to manage disputes.
Visa says that it is collaborating with a mix of tech giants and startups to develop AI-powered shopping experiences that are “more personal, more secure, and more convenient.” Those companies include Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, and Stripe, among others.
The move follows Mastercard launch of its Agentic Payments Program, Mastercard Agent Pay. The groundbreaking solution integrates with agentic AI to revolutionize commerce. It would give AI agents the ability to shop online for consumers. Mastercard said its new Agent Pay offering “will enhance generative AI conversations for people and businesses alike” by integrating payments into tailored recommendations and insights already provided on conversational platforms.
In a statement, Jorn Lambert, chief product officer at Mastercard said,
“Mastercard is transforming the way the world pays for the better by anticipating consumer needs on the horizon. 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.”
Mastercard said it will work with Microsoft on new use cases to scale “agentic commerce,” as well as with IBM, Braintree, and Checkout.com on other aspects of AI-powered shopping.
Visa and Mastercard aren’t the only ones allowing for AI-powered shopping. On Tuesday, PayPal announced its own agentic commerce offering.
Also, earlier this month, Amazon announced the start of testing a new AI shopping agent, a feature it calls “Buy for Me,” with a subset of users. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have also showcased similar agents that can visit websites and help users make purchases.
Looking Ahead
The rise of AI-powered personal shopping services signifies a move towards more personalized, efficient, and customer-centric retail experiences. As these technologies continue to evolve, they promise to reshape the shopping landscape in ways we can only begin to imagine.