October 7, 2026, 8:05 a.m. (JST)
Fumiaki Wada
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Profile Journalist and writer specializing in cashless payments and electronic money; primarily covers cashless payment trends—including security issues—and customer loyalty programs in Europe, the U.S., and Asia |
Visa and Mastercard, which dominate the global payments infrastructure, are each pursuing powerful yet distinct AI commerce strategies with an eye toward “Agentic Commerce”—a future where AI (artificial intelligence) autonomously makes decisions and purchases in place of humans.Both Visa and Mastercard are developing the latest AI payment systems with an eye toward a future where AI (artificial intelligence) automatically makes purchases on behalf of humans.
In Part 1 (September–October), “AI Commerce and Online Payments,” we explained the key core technologies that make up AI commerce and Agentic Commerce, as well as their technical mechanisms, over the course of five installments.
Moving on to Part 2 (November–December) of “AI Commerce and Online Payments,” we will focus on online payments in AI commerce and agent-based commerce, introducing and comparing trends from payment card companies like Visa and Mastercard, as well as major payment service providers such as Stripe.
The first installment of Part 2 of “AI Commerce and Online Payments” is titled “AI Commerce and Visa,” in which we will introduce Visa’s approach to online payments in AI commerce.
AI Commerce and Online Payments: Part 2 (November–December)
AI Commerce and Online Payments: Part 1 (September–October)
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Index (Table of Contents) |
1. The Core of the Strategy: “Visa Intelligent Commerce”
Visa Intelligent Commerce is an AI commerce infrastructure that delivers a globally standardized digital “wallet” and “ID” that allow users to use AI with confidence.It is precisely because of Visa’s massive, trusted network—which issues more than 4.8 billion credit and debit cards worldwide—that even with the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) as a new type of shopper, consumers can confidently entrust the entire shopping process to AI.
Visa Intelligent Commerce is the latest payment and security infrastructure system developed by Visa, the leading credit card company, designed for an era in which AI agents shop on behalf of humans.Until now, online shopping has involved humans looking at smartphone or computer screens to select products and clicking the payment button themselves. However, a new world—known as “Agent-Based Commerce”—is about to begin, where AI (artificial intelligence) follows human instructions to automatically navigate the internet and handle everything from shopping to payment.Visa Intelligent Commerce is designed to safely and seamlessly support this new form of shopping, in which AI (artificial intelligence) takes center stage.
○ Why Is the Visa Intelligent Commerce System Necessary?
When shopping is entrusted to AI (artificial intelligence), two issues arise that cannot be addressed by existing payment systems. Visa Intelligent Commerce was created to simultaneously resolve these two issues and challenges.
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Security Issues |
・Entrusting your credit card number directly to AI (a program) is extremely dangerous, as it carries the risk of data breaches or unauthorized high-value purchases resulting from the AI running amok. |
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Issues on the Merchant Side |
・When an AI agent (customer) accesses a website, the Merchant’s system may be unable to distinguish whether it is a legitimate shopping AI or a malicious bot attempting to attack the site or hoard inventory |
○ The Three Core Mechanisms of Visa Intelligent Commerce
Visa Intelligent Commerce is said to enable secure machine-to-machine (M2M) transactions by primarily fulfilling the following three roles:
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Token technology that provides AI (artificial intelligence) with a secure digital wallet |
・For example, if you ask an AI, “Please buy this week’s supply of organic vegetables for up to 10,000 yen,” the Visa system will |
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The Trusted Agent Protocol: Proving the Trustworthiness of AI (Artificial Intelligence) |
・Visa has partnered with security firms to create |
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Visa Agentic Ready: Reassuring Banks |
・Since automated payments made by AI differ completely from those made by humans using their smartphones during waking hours—both in terms of time of day and purchase speed—banks’ fraud detection systems would often mistakenly flag these transactions as suspicious and block payments, leading |
〇How will our lives change as Visa Intelligent Commerce becomes widespread?
It is said that as Visa Intelligent Commerce becomes widespread, our concept of shopping will change in the following ways:
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Freedom from the stress of searching and comparing prices |
・For example, for regularly purchased household items such as detergent, pet food, and toilet paper, AI will automatically place orders from the store offering the lowest price and fastest delivery based on your home’s inventory levels |
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Complex reservations in an instant |
• For example, simply tell the AI (artificial intelligence) to book a business hotel and Shinkansen tickets for a business trip next week within a budget of 50,000 yen, and the AI will complete all reservations and payments in the background using Visa’s secure payment channels |
2. The “Trusted Agent Protocol” that Ensures Trust
The biggest challenge in Agentic Commerce is that merchants cannot distinguish whether an AI visiting their website is a legitimate purchasing agent or a malicious scraping bot or resale bot.To address this, Visa partnered with leading CDN (Content Delivery Network) security providers such as Cloudflare and Akamai to introduce the Trusted Agent Protocol. CDN security refers to technology that integrates robust cyberattack countermeasures (security features) into a CDN (Content Delivery Network), a system designed to accelerate website loading speeds.
Features of the Protocol’s Technology
This protocol uses industry-standard web infrastructure (such as cryptographic signatures) to securely transmit the following data to Merchants:
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Agent Intent (Agent Intent) |
・Indicates whether the user is simply browsing product information or intends to make an actual purchase |
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Consumer Recognition (Consumer Recognition Information) |
・Share contextual data, such as whether the consumer has visited that store in the past |
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Secure Checkout Flow |
・Securely pass tokenized payment information to the Merchant’s preferred payment flow while protecting user privacy |
As a result, merchants can safely allow only trusted purchasing AI (artificial intelligence) to proceed—without compromising existing anti-bot security measures or WAFs—and seamlessly complete transactions.
3. Launch of the Visa Agentic Ready Program
Visa Agentic Ready is the latest program that leverages tokenization technology—the core technology underpinning Visa’s AI commerce—and deploys it to banks. These are critical systems designed to allow consumers to entrust their entire shopping experience to AI with confidence, without worrying about their card numbers being stolen.At the end of April 2026, Visa launched the Visa Agentic Ready program in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, in collaboration with more than 50 financial partners, such as Issuer (card-issuing company).
〇What is Visa’s token technology (Visa Token Service)?
Visa Token Service is a system that converts real credit card numbers into “encrypted data (tokens)” for payment, rather than providing the actual numbers to AI (artificial intelligence).
・Why are tokens necessary?
When you ask a dedicated shopping assistant AI (AI agent) to purchase daily necessities online, if you provide the AI with your actual 16-digit card number, there is a risk that your card number could be leaked worldwide the moment the AI is hacked or tricked by a suspicious fraudulent website.
・How Tokens Work
Instead of the actual card number, Visa issues a token (a one-time digital encryption code) that looks exactly like the real card number but cannot be used anywhere else.
token (a one-time digital encryption code) that looks exactly like the real card number but cannot be used anywhere else, and provides it to the AI (artificial intelligence)
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This acts as a safeguard |
・Even if, by some chance, the token is stolen from the website where the AI made a purchase, since that code was created solely for that AI to make that specific purchase on that site, the thief cannot spend even 1 yen at any other Merchant |
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No need to reissue the card |
・Even if you lose your smartphone or the AI’s data is leaked, you simply need to invalidate the token through Visa; there’s no need to cancel the card and wait for a reissue, as you would if a physical card were hacked |
○ Objectives and Phases of the Visa Agentic Ready Program
Since AI-agent-led payments (M2M payments: Machine-to-Machine) differ completely from traditional human-based payment patterns, there is a risk that the bank’s fraud detection system might mistakenly block them.
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Simulation and Verification |
・Issuers test how AI agents initiate and complete transactions in a controlled, production-equivalent environment (sandbox). |
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Optimizing Risk Management |
・By leveraging Visa’s token-based payment technology, identity authentication, and risk management systems, we are establishing a framework (preparing the infrastructure) to accept AI (artificial intelligence)-driven payments while maintaining the reliability and security of the existing network |
○ What is the new Visa Agentic Ready program?
In a nutshell, Visa Agentic Ready is a readiness program for banks designed to ensure that their systems do not become overwhelmed or go into panic mode when faced with ultra-fast payments processed by AI (artificial intelligence).
・Until now, banks’ fraud detection AI (artificial intelligence) systems have based their security measures on the patterns of humans making purchases via smartphones. However, when AI agents begin automatically processing payments at multiple online stores at speeds measured in milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second) in the middle of the night—when people are asleep—bank systems would mistakenly interpret this as “The card has been stolen!“Fraud!” and automatically block the payment (resulting in abandoned carts or errors).
・What Agentic Ready Solves
Visa collaborated with banks and Card Issuers worldwide to create a secure test environment that closely mimics live operations. They fed tens of thousands of data points into the banking systems showing AI agents correctly using tokens to make purchases on behalf of humans,It is said that this process teaches banks that such ultra-fast transactions are not the work of malicious hackers, but rather authorized, secure purchases made by AI (artificial intelligence), so it’s safe to let them through without blocking them.
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By having these two components—Visa’s token and Visa Agentic Ready—work together, for example, you could simply tell the AI, “Please buy this week’s groceries“Please buy this week’s groceries for under 9,000 yen,” the AI will handle the rest without any human intervention. Behind the scenes, Visa and the bank will securely pass the baton to each other, enabling the purchase to be completed in an instant. |
4. Applications to B2B (Business-to-Business)
Visa’s AI commerce strategy is driving automation not only in the consumer (B2C) sector but also in the back office of B2B (business-to-business) transactions, as follows:
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Automation of Transaction Management |
・Agent-based AI can process complex back-office tasks—such as placing orders, automatically generating invoices, analyzing data, and reconciling payments—in a matter of seconds |
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Seamless Integration into B2B Payments |
・The company aims to build a supply chain in which AI procurement agents autonomously select the optimal suppliers and automatically complete payments using tools such as Visa’s B2B virtual cards |
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Visa’s Vision for a “Trust Layer” Amid fierce competition from rivals and partners such as Google’s A2P protocol, OpenAI, and Stripe, Visa’s strengths lie in the ultimate security of its payments, dispute resolution (chargeback handling), and its massive global payment network (4.8 billion credentials).It is said that Visa is seeking to dominate the “Intelligent Economy”—a future where AI (artificial intelligence) autonomously drives the economy—by taking the lead in establishing a global standard for the trust infrastructure (trust layer) in AI commerce. |
Visa and OpenAI’s Agent-Based Commerce
At the Visa Payments Forum 2026 held in San Francisco in June 2026,payment giant Visa and AI pioneer OpenAI announced a strategic partnership aimed at the full-scale adoption of agent-driven commerce—a system in which AI makes purchases and completes payments on behalf of humans.
This partnership between the two companies marks a historic turning point in the FinTech and AI industries, breaking through the barrier that AI had previously been unable to overcome—namely, the ability to conduct research but not to click the final “Purchase” button and complete the payment.
5. The Core of the Visa-OpenAI Partnership: Payments Are Completed “Within” the AI Chat
Until now, if you asked ChatGPT to find the cheapest flight for a business trip next week, it would only provide you with options; to actually make the purchase, a human had to navigate to a separate booking site and enter their credit card information.
Through this partnership, Visa’s global payment network will be directly integrated into OpenAI’s platform.As a result, users will be able to simply instruct the AI—such as ChatGPT—to “book and pay for it” without ever leaving the UI (screen); the AI agent will then use Visa’s network behind the scenes to automatically complete the payment.
6. “Three Shields” to Ensure Security
To address the primary concern—the fear of letting AI spend money without permission—Visa and OpenAI have built a robust security infrastructure consisting of the following “Three Shields.”
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Robust User Management (Guardrails) |
・For example, a human (user) can set strict permissions and budget limits (policies) in advance, such as “Maximum of 10,000 yen per transaction,” “Total of 30,000 yen this week,” or “Only allow purchases of daily necessities.” • AI (artificial intelligence) can only operate within the scope of these rules and must seek human approval each time it exceeds the limits |
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Tokenization Technology |
・When AI (artificial intelligence) processes a payment, it does not use the user’s actual credit card number ・Since an encrypted, one-time string (token) is automatically generated for each transaction to process the payment, the risk of card information leaking from the e-commerce site is reduced |
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AI-Specific Fraud Monitoring and Real-Time Authentication |
・Visa’s advanced AI fraud detection system monitors payments made by AI agents 24 hours a day in real time and blocks suspicious transactions |
7. Visa’s “AI Commerce Platform,” Announced Simultaneously
Alongside this partnership with ChatGPT, Visa is rolling out Visa Intelligent Commerce, a new infrastructure designed to enable AI (artificial intelligence) to participate in economic activity.
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Agentic Directory (A directory specifically for agents) |
・A system that verifies and registers AI agents and e-commerce sites on the internet to confirm they are genuine and legitimate • Merchants can determine whether an AI (artificial intelligence) that has accessed their site is trustworthy, and AI agents can verify that the site is not a fraudulent one before making a payment |
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Agent Score (Agent Score) |
・A tool that evaluates how well an e-commerce site is optimized for automated purchases by AI agents (including data retrieval and payment processing) |
8. Why is this partnership important?
・The leading role in payments is shifting from humans to AI (artificial intelligence).
Visa’s traditional payment business was built on the premise that humans would swipe a plastic card at a store or tap their smartphone once (human-initiated). However, this partnership between Visa and OpenAI marks the official launch of a new Ecosystem(M2M: Machine-to-Machine economy)
・For OpenAI, this strategic partnership significantly enhances the practicality of actionable AI (AI agents), while for Visa, it allows the company to secure a monopoly on the platform for AI-driven automated payments—a sector expected to see explosive growth in the future—ahead of rivals such as Mastercard. This partnership holds immense significance for both parties
Visa’s TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol)
The Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP) is a new authentication protocol (communication standard) for the AI era provided by the payment giant Visa.It is a mechanism developed to distinguish between genuine shopping AI (artificial intelligence) and malicious resale bots at the network level, effectively serving as a digital ID badge specifically for AI shopping.
Background and Purpose of the Technology
In recent years, the use of shopping AI (AI agents)—which patrol the internet on behalf of humans to automatically find the lowest-priced products and complete the payment process—has been rapidly expanding. At the same time, e-commerce sites must block malicious bots that engage in bulk buying or high-priced reselling; however,At first glance, both AI (artificial intelligence) communications and reselling bot communications appear identical in that they involve automated, program-driven access.If left unaddressed, this situation could lead to legitimate shopping AIs—which offer great convenience—being mistakenly blocked (false positives) as suspicious bots. To address this, Visa collaborated with Cloudflare, a major network provider, to jointly develop TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol).
〇How TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol) Distinguishes Between Legitimate Agents and Malicious Bots
・TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol)
Rather than simply blocking communications that disguise themselves as legitimate browser traffic, TAP ensures that the payment layer and the communication network (at the connection and protocol levels) work closely together to verify the legitimacy of the source of access.
・Identity Verification via Cryptographic Signatures
When legitimate shopping AI agents access an e-commerce site to conduct transactions, they present a cryptographic signature in accordance with the TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol) standard, which includes proof of which user has officially delegated purchasing authority to them.
・Detection of malicious resale bots
Malicious resale bots do not possess cryptographic signatures (tokens or payment control permissions) legitimately delegated by users
. The e-commerce site verifies these TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol) signatures at the network level and immediately blocks any automated access that lacks a signature or has a forged one, identifying it as a malicious resale bot
・Linking payment limits and rules
The system also integrates with Visa’s Intelligent Commerce platform. By pre-configuring budget limits and one-time payment tokens for the shopping AI, it prevents fraudulent behavior—such as unlimited bulk purchasing by resale bots—at the very root of the network and payment processes
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The term “bot” is derived from “robot” and refers to software or programs that automatically perform tasks on behalf of humans according to a pre-set program. |
Visa’s TAP (Trusted Agent Protocol) is a next-generation defense technology that challenges conventional security wisdom—which treats all automated access as malicious (bots)—by issuing dedicated certificates to trusted AI (artificial intelligence) systems to allow them through, while accurately blocking only malicious resale bots without certificates at the network level.
