Mercury Launches Corporate Cards for AI Agents

AI agents are evolving from analytical assistants into operational workers capable of purchasing software, replenishing cloud resources and managing recurring services. That shift creates a financial-control problem: sharing a corporate card can expose credentials, obscure accountability and amplify losses from errors or compromised instructions. Fintech company Mercury is extending familiar corporate-card controls to machine identities, aiming to make autonomous spending traceable and subject to the same budget discipline as employee expenses.

Mercury introduced Agent Cards in August 2026, allowing businesses to assign each AI agent a separate virtual card and payment credential. Companies can restrict eligible merchants, impose per-transaction or recurring spending limits, and retain an itemized audit trail while agents complete purchases from selection through checkout. Transactions outside the approved policy are blocked. Mercury did not disclose standard pricing or a fixed minimum or maximum card limit, saying budgets are configured by each business.