AI Agents Will Soon Shop for You, and Visa Wants to Secure Every Transaction

Visa has unveiled a bold new vision for the future of shopping — one where AI agents act on behalf of consumers, selecting, purchasing, and managing items based on individual preferences. The initiative, called Visa Intelligent Commerce, was announced during the Visa Global Product Drop on April 30, 2025.

At the heart of this announcement is a simple but transformative idea: AI will become a central player in how people shop, and Visa wants to be the trusted payment layer behind it all.

“Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. “These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well.”

This shift, Visa argues, is as significant as the leap from physical retail to e-commerce — and then to mobile commerce. Now, we’re on the cusp of AI-led commerce.

Visa is Partnering with the Giants of AI

To make this future real, Visa isn’t going at it alone. The company is collaborating with several high-profile partners in the AI space, including:

• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• IBM
• Microsoft
• Samsung
• Stripe
• Mistral AI
• Perplexity

These companies are building the platforms, tools, and agents that consumers will increasingly rely on. Visa’s role is to provide the trust, security, and infrastructure needed for these agents to safely handle money.

So, What Exactly is Visa Intelligent Commerce?

At its core, Visa Intelligent Commerce is a suite of APIs, developer tools, and platform features designed to let AI agents interact with Visa’s payment network in a controlled, secure, and consumer-approved way.

AI-Ready Cards

Instead of sharing your actual card details, AI agents will use tokenized digital credentials that confirm they’ve been authorized to act on your behalf. This protects your identity, limits fraud, and ensures you remain in full control.

AI-Powered Personalization

Visa says users can choose to share basic purchasing data — with consent — to help agents offer more relevant and personalized shopping experiences. This keeps the user in the loop while enabling smarter AI behavior.

Real-Time Transaction Controls

Consumers will be able to:

• Set spending limits
• Define specific transaction rules
• Approve (or revoke) agent access
• Monitor purchases as they happen

Visa will receive real-time signals from agents, enabling fraud checks, dispute resolution, and seamless transactions without friction.

Built on 30 Years of AI in Payments

Visa says this is not a leap into the unknown. The company has used artificial intelligence and machine learning for more than three decades to detect fraud and manage risk. Those same capabilities are now being extended to AI-driven commerce.

Technologies like tokenization and secure authentication APIs — already in place for millions of mobile and web payments — will now support AI agents transacting on behalf of consumers.

Why This Matters for Developers, Merchants, and Users

For developers, Visa is launching a commercial partner program to make it easy to integrate these capabilities into AI platforms.

For merchants, it’s an opportunity to tap into AI-powered demand, while still ensuring that transactions remain safe and disputes manageable.

And for consumers? This could soon mean:

• Your groceries auto-ordered every week by an AI agent
• A digital assistant booking and paying for your travel
• An AI bot comparing deals and auto-checking out on your behalf

All without you ever entering your card details — and with full control over what your agent can do.

Trust Must Come First in the AI Commerce Era

While the possibilities of AI-led shopping are exciting, Visa is placing trust and security at the center. “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.

The company is betting that consumers will only adopt AI shopping agents if they feel safe, in control, and protected from misuse — and it wants to provide the foundation that makes that possible.