OpenAI, Visa Partner on Secure Payments for AI Agents

Agentic commerce uses AI agents to search, compare products, select payment methods and potentially complete purchases for consumers. A report from PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa says the shift could move a growing share of retail discovery away from merchant websites and conventional platforms toward AI interfaces. Merchants that cannot distinguish agent-led traffic from human visits may struggle to measure conversion, manage fraud and authentication, or influence the recommendations shaping purchasing decisions.

The latest findings show that only 23% of merchants can clearly identify AI-driven traffic and shopping behavior. Most surveyed merchants expect AI agents to increasingly stand between consumers and sellers, affecting product discovery, recommendations and payment choices before independently executing transactions. The data points to an early advantage for businesses that build traceable, trusted agent interactions now, while the rest risk losing visibility into customers and control over the checkout journey.

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.