The company will collaborate with Microsoft, IBM, Braintree, and other leading platforms to build a user-controlled, trustworthy AI-based smart commerce ecosystem.
The future of commerce with artificial intelligence is no longer an abstract idea: Mastercard has brought it to life with the launch of Agent Pay, its new payment technology designed specifically to work with artificial intelligence agents. This innovative program is part of its Agentic Payments Program, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming how individuals and businesses conduct transactions through intelligent assistants.
Agent Pay is a solution designed to integrate with generative AI-powered conversational platforms, such as personal copilots or shopping assistants, enabling a secure, transparent, and automated payment flow. Unlike traditional or even mobile commerce, here the customer does not click: it’s the agent who executes the purchase on their behalf.
“We are redefining commerce in the AI era,” said Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer of Mastercard. “With Agent Pay, we are laying the groundwork for a reliable, scalable, and secure system where intelligent agents can shop on your behalf, respecting your rules and preferences.”
How does Agent Pay work?
The system is based on several key components:
- 🛡️ Advanced tokenization: card data is replaced with verified digital credentials, known as Agentic Tokens, allowing the agent to make secure payments only when authorized by the user.
- 🧠 Integration with conversational AI: Mastercard collaborates with Microsoft, including Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot Studio, so agents can recommend products, compare prices, and execute payments from a single interface.
- 📱 Biometric authentication and user control: users can set spending limits, allowed categories, and usage times. Agents must be pre-registered and authenticated to act.
- 🌐 Collaborations across the supply chain: Mastercard works with platforms like IBM (watsonx Orchestrate) for B2B use cases, and with Braintree, Checkout.com, and banking issuers to extend its real-time payment technology to millions of online merchants.
Use Cases: From Consumer to International Commerce
- A user organizing their 30th birthday can ask their AI to select clothing based on their style, weather, and event location. The agent completes the purchase, verifies the most convenient payment method—like using Mastercard One Credential—and finishes it frictionlessly.
- A textile SME can use its AI to negotiate with suppliers, manage international payments using corporate Mastercard virtual cards, and organize optimized deliveries.
- A retailer can use Agent Pay to identify the customer (or their agent) with verified tokens, thus offering promotions, rewards, and personalized experiences through the same conversation.
Security by Design
All architecture is designed under the principles of responsible AI, with layers of enhanced authentication, fraud protection, and transactional transparency. Mastercard ensures that every payment can be recognized by the consumer, even if made by their agent, with full traceability for dispute resolution.
Additionally, new standards are being developed to distinguish trustworthy agents from potential malicious actors, with reputation mechanisms and certificates that validate the authenticity of the agent in real time.
What’s Next
Mastercard has confirmed that it will continue to expand this technology in the coming months, with more partnerships in AI platforms, fintechs, and merchants, to facilitate an ecosystem where autonomous AI commerce becomes a routine part of the digital economy.
With Agent Pay, Mastercard not only enables a new way to pay: it opens the door to commerce where artificial intelligence acts on our behalf, under our rules, with security and trust.
Source: Mastercard