Posted by How do you feel about an AI agent making shopping purchases for you? Mastercard and Visa just introduced new technology that will make this option a reality – and along with it an entire new era of intelligent, autonomous shopping.
While Visa’s system enables AI programs like ChatGPT to make transactions by using stored credentials, Mastercard goes even further with their new system called “Agent Pay.”
Mastercard’s Agent Pay features fully autonomous agents who can research, identify, negotiate and pay for your purchases, based on the users preferences and intention. The AI agent not only suggests best options, but can also complete the transaction on your behalf.
Sherri Haymond, Co-President of Global Partnerships at Mastercard, explained that this “agentic AI executes tasks autonomously, understanding our intentions and making decisions in real time to achieve our goals.”
An important distinction with Mastercard’s “AI agents” is that AI no longer merely responds, but acts. This “agentic commerce” represents a new class of AI-powered capabilities in which software agents can handle the entire end-to-end process of a purchase, all the way from “discovery” to “delivery” – a step forward that required a leap in AI design.
Mastercard’s technology utilizes a system of “tokens” that replace sensitive card credentials with “secure, merchant-specific tokens.” It allows the AI agents to conduct a transaction without exposing any vulnerable payment data, which is considered a critical component in a marketplace where transactions are taking place without direct human oversight.
“We’ve enhanced this technology and built it for the age of AI,” Haymond explained. “Mastercard agentic tokens allow AI agents to make secure and transparent purchases on behalf of users.”
To inspire consumer confidence, Mastercard’s AI agents are required to be registered and verified, and every purchase is logged and traceable. Shoppers can also set parameters for what the AI agent is and is not authorized to do.
Mastercard has also assured the company is applying its “full suite of cybersecurity capabilities” to monitor such transactions.
“We expect that Mastercard Agent Pay will unlock an entirely new commerce reality,” said Haymond. Find additional information and examples of his emerging new technology by reading the full story here.