Visa Launches AI Agents for Secure Transactions
Visa is integrating artificial intelligence agents into its payment infrastructure to facilitate secure transactions across Europe, a move the company says prioritizes user control and fraud prevention.
How the agents work
The technology allows AI agents to search for, select, and initiate purchases on merchant websites, but only within the parameters set by the user. To use the system, consumers answer prompts that tailor the products to their needs, and every transaction requires manual human authorisation before completion. Visa’s Intelligent Commerce supports these secure agentic transactions at scale.
Authentication occurs via Visa’s Payment Passkeys, a security measure that links the transaction directly to a verified user and their explicit instruction. This system keeps the user fully in control of payments made via AI Agent. The models are currently live and enable agentic commerce to scale across Europe, with the functionality extended to B2B payment scenarios to improve efficiency.
Expanding the ecosystem
Visa has expanded its Visa Agentic Ready program to include merchants, adding the final piece needed for agentic transactions. This expansion relies on Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agent Directory, which allows merchants to recognize and work with verified agents across different environments and platforms. The company is working with technology providers like Cloudflare and Akamai to embed these capabilities at scale on merchant websites.
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Visa is currently collaborating with 30 European issuers to enable these transactions on behalf of cardholders. Partners include Frasers, BrickDepot, Cleverbridge, and lastminute.com. The announcement was made during the Visa Payments Forum in Paris, a convening of 2,000 payments leaders.
Visa executives presented an example using lastminute.com at a roundtable detailing trends in Europe, where Principal European Economist Adolfo Laurneti also joined the discussion on the region’s economic outlook. Visa Group Country Manager Albrecht Kiel noted that there is high demand for understanding generative AI as money moves differently. The company announced a €500 million investment in Europe recently, reflecting a long-term commitment to the region.
The payment network views this expansion as the next step in commerce. Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product and Solutions at Visa Europe, stated that the company is seeing AI agents buy on behalf of people directly with independent merchants. He added that the next step is to scale this by bringing the whole ecosystem together—standards, infrastructure, partners, and enablers—with trust built in from the start. Visa believes this approach mirrors how contactless payments scaled previously and will shape the next wave of commerce.
