What is Agentic Commerce?

Imagine a future where your daily errands and purchasing tasks are seamlessly handled by intelligent assistants, freeing up your time and simplifying your life.

To have somebody who is empowered to make decisions on what would suit you and your lifestyle, at a price you can afford, who can negotiate on your behalf and then present you with all the options so that you can make an informed choice on what you buy is a dream for many.

With the emergence of AI, machine learning and large language models, such help in navigating the vast and complex world of e-commerce is becoming open to everyone..

AI agents are a new and rapidly expanding category of AI-powered software applications that blend ‘autonomy’ with ‘intelligence’. Learning from each interaction we have and building the ability to act on our behalf.

The pace of change in AI and how it is integrating into our everyday lives is staggering, but until now, AI agents have been missing a critical part. They can browse, recommend, even negotiate – but they haven’t yet been trained or equipped to pay or be paid.

It’s easy to imagine why. Without a formal connection to the trusted payment systems and methods used by billions of consumers, there are too many questions and obstacles to overcome. But with the announcement of Visa Intelligent Commerce – which opens Visa’s payment network to the developers and engineers building the first generation of ‘Agentic Commerce’ – that formal connection has been officially established.

So let’s see how Visa Intelligent Commerce can now answer the three most common questions on this topic:

1. Are my payment credentials secure?

Simply, yes. It starts with loading your secure-tokenised credential into an AI agent. Tokenisation has transformed digital payment security – we’ve seen a nearly 50% reduction in fraud1 and close to 7 ppt uplift in approval rates2 – but in the agent environment, we’re adding a new layer of protection. Every Visa token here will be “locked” by default and can only be activated when you tell the credential what you want it to do. It is also combined with Visa Payment Passkeys, so that we can securely authenticate the Consumer when these tokens as created, but also whenever a formal payment instruction or confirmation is required, together with these extra layers of security.

2. Can you “trust” an agent with payment?

Trust has been at the heart of what Visa does since its inception. You need to know that your money is safe and secure while they shop, and merchants need to be paid from authenticated sources with trust at the centre.

Agentic commerce is no different. Whilst the idea of a personal shopper in your pocket sounds like a dream, it could easily turn into a nightmare if that agent spent money on items or services that you didn’t want.

That’s why Visa’s trust promise will remain throughout – that when AI agents can truly shop and buy for us, it will be safe and secure. We’re partnering with the innovators of AI, equipping their agents with bank grade tools and guardrails they need. Therefore, if something were to go wrong, consumers can expect the protections they benefit from today when they shop online and in ‘real-life’.

Central to this will be consumer consent. AI agents will be powerless until you explicitly confirm consent. Even when the agent is making a purchase on behalf of someone, they will first have had to set the limits and guardrails within which the agent can operate. Crucially, the consumer will be in control of their purchase intent – the difference between ‘just looking’ and committing to a purchase. If they choose to automate within certain limits, that’s up to them.

3. Is my payments data private?

For AI agents to be able to offer the personalised, insights driven recommendations to consumers, they will need to understand or at least have insights into that person’s habits, likes, wants and desires.

Shoppers shall be able to enjoy advanced levels of hyper-personalisation – filtering out the things that don’t appeal and showing them only the things that will really enhance their lifestyle. Imagine the time you’d save planning a trip abroad with a concierge service that knows both you and the city you’re travelling to intimately…

This will be powered by Visa Intelligent Commerce insights, which will superpower your agent through the sharing of basic spend and purchase insights, improving the performance of the agent every single time you shop.

Visa believes passionately that data can empower customers and deliver new and unique experiences, but also in the absolute sanctity of consumer consent and privacy-preserving data models. Your data belongs to you, any request for that data should be clear and relevant to the task at hand, and you have the right to turn it on or off or be forgotten entirely.

It’s clear – agentic commerce has the power to elevate every shopping experience, uniquely personalising the journey and allowing consumers to focus on living their lives, not scrolling endless options.

And with Visa’s technology and experience in the world of payments working in partnership with the AI innovators, consumers can look forward to using their preferred AI agent, supported by Visa Intelligent Commerce, to shop and buy on their behalf with security and trust baked in, truly transforming the future of commerce.