Visa Empowers AI Agents to Make Purchases with Tokenized Cards and Personalized Spending Controls

Visa is embarking on a major shift in digital commerce by enabling AI agents to conduct financial transactions on behalf of consumers. Through its new initiative, Visa Intelligent Commerce, the company is piloting integrations with advanced AI platforms from Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Mistral. The goal is to automate everyday purchases, such as buying groceries or booking travel, by allowing AI systems to complete secure payments without direct human input. This move is expected to significantly streamline online transactions and reshape how consumers interact with digital shopping assistants.

Visa Bridges AI and Payments with Secure, Tokenized Cards and User Controls

While AI-powered assistants have become proficient at helping users discover and evaluate products, finalizing purchases has remained a challenge due to security concerns and the need for manual payment authorization. Visa aims to solve this problem by embedding its payment infrastructure directly into AI platforms. This enables a seamless shopping experience where AI agents can finalize purchases independently, bridging a critical gap between product discovery and secure transaction completion.

To ensure trust and safety, Visa is rolling out “AI-Ready Cards” that use tokenized digital credentials, shielding sensitive card information during AI transactions. These cards are designed to operate within strict boundaries defined by the user, including authentication protocols, authorization parameters, and spending controls. Consumers will have the ability to customize how much autonomy they grant to their AI agents, ranging from requiring confirmation for each transaction to setting broader spending guidelines.

AI Agents Learn User Preferences, Ushering in a New Era of Personalized Payments

Developers working with Visa foresee deeper personalization opportunities as AI agents learn from consumer behavior. With explicit consent, agents could analyze transaction histories to make better-informed product recommendations based on individual preferences. For instance, an AI agent could identify the user’s preferred electronics brands or travel choices, enhancing both convenience and relevance in suggestions. Over time, as trust in AI autonomy grows, these agents may become more proactive in completing tasks without needing user confirmation for each action.

Visa’s initiative coincides with a broader industry shift away from physical cards toward secure, digitized credentials. The company’s system is designed to reassure consumers, banks, and merchants that AI-initiated purchases are both legitimate and safe. Built-in mechanisms for fraud prevention and dispute resolution aim to bolster confidence in AI commerce. According to Visa’s chief product and strategy officer, Jack Forestell, this development could be as transformational as the rise of e-commerce, marking a new era in how payments and personal finance are managed.