Visa plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) agents to streamline transactions by enabling consumers to find and buy with the help of autonomous technology.
Visa kicked off its Global Product Drop by sharing how the combination of AI and digital commerce will mark a significant shift in the way consumers discover and purchase products and services.
In the near future, consumers will use AI agents to browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. For this to be possible, agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well. Visa said it will bring this trust to AI commerce by providing a simple way for its partners to access the Visa network.
How Visa will use use AI agents to streamline transactions
“As new ways to pay emerge, they need to run on a network that is always on – that is safe, secure, scalable and relentlessly innovating,” said Ryan McInerney, CEO at Visa. “We are taking the power of our network and our decades-long expertise to bring new products and solutions that will transform commerce and bring trust and security to AI-enabled payments.”
Visa sees tremendous potential for the role AI agents will play in commerce, from streamlining ‘regular’ transaction-driven tasks such as ordering groceries, to more sophisticated search and decision-making like securing that hard-to-get restaurant reservation or concert ticket, added Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer.
“This will be a transformative change, bringing more magic and convenience to the consumer experience and creating a new world that will forever change how we shop and buy.”
Visa introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, a new initiative that opens Visa’s payments network to developers and engineers building the first generation of true AI commerce.
Visa is partnering with OpenAI, IBM and Microsoft
To move the needle on AI commerce at the speed and scale required, Visa is collaborating with the AI platforms and brands that consumers and merchants are choosing to work with every day including Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Stripe and Samsung.
“Historically, Visa has used AI to protect consumers, harnessing it to help combat fraud. Now, we will also enable AI to empower consumers, fundamentally shifting digital commerce to make it more personal, more relevant and more delightful,” added McInerney. “For any AI commerce use case to take hold, the payment is a critical enabler of success. If there is no payment, there is no commerce. That’s the expertise and trust that Visa brings.”
Visa is betting big on AI agents
Visa is betting on AI agents to remove the friction and mundanity of regular purchases by using the technology to hunt for, select and pay for goods and services automatically, commented James Sherlow, systems engineering director, EMEA at Cequence Security.
“In a world where we now face multiple levels of authentication to complete a purchase, it could well prove groundbreaking and help foil fraudsters. The question remains whether the user will be comfortable giving AI that level of autonomy.”
While the AI will learn from previous buying patterns and brand preferences and will initially make recommendations, empowering technology to make purchases for us may take some getting used to. “Then there’s the issue of security. How will these transactions be protected? We know verification will be handled by VISA and that it will adopt a similar set up to ApplePay except working with AI agents. Visa has also stated it will handle disputes, nut using AI agents with PII & PCI data could have far reaching ramifications.”
Putting in visibility and guard rails from the start will be critical for buyers, bankers and merchants, said Sherlow. “We’ve already seen PCI DSS changed considerably under version 4.0 with API security now included. APIs are fundamental to both ecommerce and AI so securing them would undoubtedly become an even higher priority if AI-sanctioned payments become the norm.”
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