ARTIFICIAL intelligence agents are being proposed as digital financial assistants.
Now, Visa wants to give AI access to your credit card.
The California-based payments giant announced a partnership with leading AI developers.
These include OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Mistral.
The goal is to connect their AI agents to Visa’s payment network in order to buy goods based on preferences and budgets set by the user.
“We think this could be really important,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer.
“Transformational, on the order of magnitude of the advent of e-commerce itself.”
Pilot programs begin this week, with a broader rollout expected in 2026.
“Visa will help transform AI commerce, today a futuristic relatively unknown concept, into a seamless, secure and personalized experience for merchants and consumers alike,” the company said in a press release.
Visa is also teaming up with IBM, Stripe, and Samsung to help bring these capabilities to consumers.
HOW IT WORKS
For now, most AI agents are glorified chatbots that recommend products but stop short of actually completing a transaction.
“You get to this point where the agents literally just turn it back around and say, ‘OK, you go buy it,'” Forestell said.
Visa wants to change that by solving the hardest part of AI-driven shopping: payments.
“The payments problem is not something the AI platforms can solve by themselves,” he said. “That’s why we started working with them.”
The company envisions AI agents that are authorized to make purchases the same way a smartphone can act as a digital wallet.
Consumers will be able to set clear limits – like only spending $1500 on any flight between two cities – and receive confirmations before finalizing big purchases.
USEFUL APPLICATIONS
Forestell believes agents will shine in boring or complicated tasks, like grocery shopping or planning trips.
However, Forestell said they’ll likely stay in the background for shopping experiences like buying luxury goods.
Some consumer advocates urge caution, however.
“It’s not just Visa and Mastercard where you’re spending your money… it is that AI company,” said Ben Winters, director of AI and data privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.
“And that AI company is hungry for data.”
Visa’s announcement comes as rival companies like Mastercard and PayPal also unveil their own AI-driven initiatives.
COMMENTER REACTIONS
Users on social media expressed uncertainty about the potential applications of giving AI access to their credit card information.
In a Facebook post regarding the news, users shared comments reacting to the possible development.
“That is weird and scary,” said one user.
“I will cut my cc up before I let a robot decide to buy stuff for me using my cc.”
“Oh great,” said another.
“Another way for hackers to take cash here, here no cash.”
“There has to be a sinister purpose behind this proposition,” another wrote.
“Cash makes it too difficult for agents to follow your spending habits.”
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