What Visa and Mastercard Are Doing in Agentic Commerce

The payments industry is witnessing a seismic shift, and it's happening faster than most people realise. Both Visa and Mastercard have thrown their hats into the ring of agentic commerce – a revolutionary concept where AI agents can shop, compare prices, and complete purchases on your behalf without you lifting a finger.

Think about it: instead of scrolling through endless product pages or setting price alerts, you could simply tell your AI assistant, "Find me the best noise-cancelling headphones under $400 and buy them when they hit that price." The AI agent would then hunt down the best deals, monitor prices across multiple retailers, and execute the purchase when your criteria are met.

This isn't just wishful thinking anymore. It's becoming reality, and the world's two largest payment networks are racing to make it happen.

Visa's Intelligent Commerce Revolution

Visa isn't messing around with their approach to agentic commerce. They've developed what they call the Intelligent Commerce platform, which is set to become generally available later this year. This isn't just another payment gateway – it's a complete ecosystem designed to let AI agents handle transactions seamlessly and securely.

The platform combines three key components: integrated APIs that developers can easily plug into, AI-ready cards equipped with tokenisation and authentication capabilities, and a comprehensive commercial partner program specifically built for AI platforms. What makes this particularly clever is how Visa has made it developer-friendly from the ground up.

They're also rolling out some pretty impressive developer tools. Visa has opened up their MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and is piloting a no-code toolkit that lets developers integrate agentic AI directly into payment systems without needing to write complex code. The MCP approach is particularly smart because it follows a "build once, reuse everywhere" philosophy, making agent behaviours portable across different markets and applications.

For merchants who might be intimidated by the technical aspects, Visa offers the Acceptance Agent Toolkit. This provides code-free integration options where simple commands like "Create an invoice for $100 for Sarah, due next Friday" can generate secure payment links instantly. Or merchants could say "Show me today's sales figures for our Melbourne store" to get real-time transaction data.

Mastercard's Strategic Approach

While Visa is building comprehensive platforms, Mastercard is taking a more targeted approach, leveraging their existing strengths in tokenisation technology. They announced their agentic commerce initiative in April 2025, partnering with Microsoft to build this new form of commerce using the same technology that already powers recurring bill payments.

Mastercard's strategy is heavily focused on strategic partnerships. They're working with merchant service providers like Checkout.com and PayPal's Braintree to upgrade merchant services across the board. They've also teamed up with IBM to explore business-to-business use cases, which could be huge for enterprise applications.

Michele Centemero, Mastercard's European Services Leader, believes this technology will be "transformational" for e-commerce, with expectations that consumer adoption will be rapid due to high readiness levels among users. This confidence isn't just marketing speak – it's backed by solid market research showing genuine consumer demand.

The Technology Foundation: Tokenisation

Both payment giants are building their agentic commerce capabilities around tokenisation technology, and for good reason. This approach creates a new 16-digit token that's cryptographically linked to your original card details, which is then provided to the AI agent for transactions.

Think of it like giving your AI assistant its own credit card, but with strict parental controls. You decide when to activate it, what the agent can purchase, spending limits, and even specific merchant restrictions. If someone were to intercept the token, they couldn't use it to access your actual card details or make unauthorised purchases outside the parameters you've set.

This technology already exists and works brilliantly for services like Netflix or Spotify subscriptions. Now, it's being adapted to handle the more complex world of AI-driven shopping, where agents need to make real-time decisions about purchases based on your preferences and criteria.

Strategic Partnerships Driving Innovation

The race to dominate agentic commerce has led both companies to form impressive partnership ecosystems. Visa is collaborating with some of the biggest names in AI, including Anthropic, Microsoft, Mistral, OpenAI, and Perplexity to integrate payment capabilities directly into AI chatbots and assistants.

Meanwhile, Mastercard has focused on a smaller but strategically important group of partners: Microsoft, IBM, Checkout.com, and Braintree. Each partnership serves a specific purpose – Microsoft for AI infrastructure, IBM for B2B applications, and the payment processors for merchant integration.

These partnerships aren't just about technology integration; they're about creating entire ecosystems where AI agents can operate seamlessly across different platforms and use cases. The goal is to make agentic commerce as simple and ubiquitous as contactless payments are today.

Market Drivers and Consumer Demand

The push into agentic commerce isn't happening in a vacuum. Enterprise interest has skyrocketed, with 65% of organisations piloting AI agents in Q1 2025, compared to just 37% the previous quarter. This represents one of the fastest adoption curves we've seen in enterprise technology.

Consumer enthusiasm is equally impressive. Research shows that 66% of shoppers want to use AI agents to secure high-demand items (think concert tickets or limited-edition sneakers), while 65% want agents that can automatically purchase products when they reach target prices. These aren't just nice-to-have features – they represent genuine pain points that consumers want solved.

The timing couldn't be better. With inflation concerns and economic uncertainty, consumers are increasingly price-conscious. Having an AI agent that can monitor prices across hundreds of retailers and strike when the best deals appear is incredibly appealing.

Implementation Timeline and Market Reality

Both companies are moving aggressively on implementation. Visa's CEO Ryan McInerney has indicated that agentic commerce will be rolling out in the next few quarters, while Mastercard's April 2025 announcement suggests they're on a similar timeline.

This speed reflects the competitive urgency in the market. First-mover advantage in agentic commerce could be significant, as consumers and merchants will likely gravitate toward the most seamless, secure solutions. Both companies understand that this technology could fundamentally reshape how payments work.

However, success won't just depend on technical capabilities. Consumer trust, merchant adoption, regulatory compliance, and integration with existing systems will all play crucial roles. The companies that can deliver the most frictionless experience while maintaining security and building consumer confidence will likely dominate this space.

The Bigger Picture for Australian Businesses

For Australian businesses, particularly in the fintech and e-commerce sectors, these developments present both opportunities and challenges. Companies that can integrate with these agentic commerce platforms early may gain competitive advantages, while those that wait could find themselves scrambling to catch up.

The implications extend beyond just payments. Customer service, inventory management, pricing strategies, and even product development could all be impacted as AI agents become more sophisticated shopping partners for consumers.

As Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer, puts it: "Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well."

This vision of autonomous commerce represents a fundamental shift in how payments and shopping operate, with both Visa and Mastercard positioning themselves as essential infrastructure providers for this new paradigm. The race is on, and the winners will help define the future of digital commerce.

The question isn't whether agentic commerce will become mainstream – it's how quickly it will happen and which companies will lead the charge. Based on current momentum, that answer might come sooner than we think.