Visa Survey Finds Consumers Wary of AI-Managed Payments

Generative AI is evolving from offering recommendations to selecting products and making payments on consumers' behalf, giving rise to agentic commerce. Andrew Torre, president of Visa Value-Added Services, said that as AI agents gain the ability to transact autonomously, the competitive focus will shift from model performance to trusted identity, payment authorization and accountability. These factors will directly shape the adoption of automated payments.

Visa recently said it is embedding identity verification, consumer authorization and transaction-dispute controls into payment flows. The aim is to ensure that an AI agent can confirm a user's intent and handle anomalous transactions when making purchases. The related report provided no specific launch date, investment amount or transaction volume, but indicated that Visa views security and trust mechanisms as central to deploying agentic commerce.

Visa said consumers in Asia Pacific are increasingly comfortable using AI to search for products, compare options and support purchasing decisions, positioning the region to move first toward “intelligent commerce.” The next phase will focus on building trust among users, merchants and financial institutions so AI can complete payments autonomously under appropriate authorization and security controls.

Visa’s Asia Pacific president, Stephen Karpin, recently said the region would lead the global shift to “Agentic Payments.” Visa is using payment technology and security mechanisms to narrow the gap between AI-generated shopping recommendations and completed transactions. No specific investment amount or formal launch date was disclosed.