Major payment and technology companies are accelerating efforts to build infrastructure that allows artificial intelligence systems to search, compare prices, and complete purchases directly inside chat interfaces, as early pilots signal a new phase of digital commerce.
Payment networks including Visa and Mastercard say consumers are increasingly using chatbots for shopping-related tasks, but until now still needed to exit those tools to complete transactions. Over the past year, both companies have been developing systems and partnerships to enable end-to-end purchases within AI-driven interfaces, with commercial rollouts expected in 2026.
What Agentic Commerce Means In Practice
The concept, often referred to as agentic commerce, describes AI systems that act on behalf of users to find products, compare offers, and execute payments without leaving the chatbot. Instead of navigating multiple websites or apps, users can rely on AI agents to curate and complete purchases based on detailed prompts.
Payment executives said early use cases include travel bookings. A user could ask an AI agent to find a specific flight within a set budget, after which the system would scan available options, select one, and pay using stored credentials, all within the same conversation. Mastercard executives said agents could also be authorized to make purchases while users are offline, such as automatically buying an item if its price falls below a defined threshold.
Payment Networks Prepare For Bot-Initiated Transactions
Visa and Mastercard have rolled out early frameworks designed to secure transactions initiated by AI agents and have already completed pilot programs with selected merchants and users. Sandeep Malhotra, Mastercard’s EVP for Core Payments in Asia Pacific, told CNBC that commerce previously moved from physical stores to online platforms and is now progressing toward AI-mediated transactions.
T.R. Ramachandran, Visa’s Asia Pacific Head of Products and Solutions, said commercial use of personalized and secure agent-based transactions could begin as early as the first quarter of 2026. He added that more than half of Visa’s total payment volume already comes from e-commerce, and internal data points to rising demand for AI-assisted shopping.
A Visa survey conducted in December found that nearly half of U.S. shoppers use AI tools to support shopping activities such as gift searches and price comparisons. Separately, Adobe reported that AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail websites increased by 4,700% in July compared with the previous year.
AI Platforms And Merchant Participation
Agentic commerce transactions are expected to occur across widely used AI platforms, including ChatGPT and Gemini, as well as through merchant, banking, and app-specific agents. Payment companies have been working with AI developers such as OpenAI to prepare for these use cases.
OpenAI introduced a “Buy it in ChatGPT” feature in September that enabled instant checkout within its platform. In November, Perplexity partnered with PayPal to launch a free AI shopping agent for U.S. users.
Large merchants are also experimenting independently. Amazon began testing its “Buy For Me” feature earlier this year, while also blocking external AI agents from crawling its site as it evaluates how to manage AI-mediated shopping.
Security, Authentication, And Liability Questions
Despite early progress, payment companies say unresolved challenges remain. A key focus has been the development of agent authentication mechanisms to separate authorized AI agents from malicious bots. Visa launched its Trusted Agent Protocol in October in collaboration with Cloudflare, creating cryptographically authenticated records for bot-initiated transactions. Visa also plans to introduce additional payment signals for banks, using behavioral data to strengthen verification.
Liability presents another issue when AI agents make errors, such as purchasing the wrong product or booking incorrect travel dates. Ramachandran said disputes traditionally involved four parties: the consumer, issuing bank, acquiring bank, and merchant. With AI agents involved, platforms become an additional participant in the transaction chain.
Payment executives said the trial phase is being used to design guardrails, permissions, and dispute mechanisms to address these risks before broader adoption.
Expectations From Payment Companies And Merchants
Proponents argue that agentic commerce can reduce search costs and save time by giving consumers direct access to information and deals within a single interface. Mastercard’s Malhotra said consumers would gain improved access to goods, services, and purchasing experiences.
Payment executives said merchants will likely need to implement agent verification systems, build their own AI agents to interact with consumer agents, and rethink loyalty and upselling strategies as AI-mediated shopping becomes more common. While the exact pace of adoption remains uncertain, Visa said industry experience with large language model adoption suggests deployment timelines measured in months rather than years.
Featured image credits: PxHere
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