Visa is introducing a brand new safety framework designed to unravel one of many thorniest issues rising in synthetic intelligence-powered commerce: how retailers can inform the distinction between reliable AI purchasing assistants and the malicious bots that plague their web sites.
The funds big unveiled its Trusted Agent Protocol on Tuesday, establishing what it describes as foundational infrastructure for "agentic commerce" — a time period for the quickly rising observe of shoppers delegating purchasing duties to AI brokers that may search merchandise, examine costs, and full purchases autonomously.
The protocol allows retailers to cryptographically confirm that an AI agent looking their web site is permitted and reliable, somewhat than a bot designed to scrape pricing knowledge, take a look at stolen bank cards, or perform different fraudulent actions.
The launch comes as AI-driven site visitors to U.S. retail web sites has exploded by greater than 4,700% over the previous 12 months, based on knowledge from Adobe cited by Visa. That dramatic surge has created an acute problem for retailers whose present bot detection methods — designed to dam automated site visitors — now threat unintentionally blocking reliable AI consumers together with unhealthy actors.
"Merchants need additional tools that provide them with greater insight and transparency into agentic commerce activities to ensure they can participate safely," stated Rubail Birwadker, Visa's World Head of Progress, in an unique interview with VentureBeat. "Without common standards, potential risks include ecosystem fragmentation and the proliferation of closed loop models."
The stakes are substantial. Whereas 85% of consumers who’ve used AI to buy report improved experiences, retailers face the prospect of both turning away reliable AI-powered prospects or exposing themselves to stylish bot assaults. Visa's personal knowledge reveals the corporate prevented $40 billion in fraudulent exercise between October 2022 and September 2023, practically double the earlier 12 months, a lot of it involving AI-powered enumeration assaults the place bots systematically take a look at combos of card numbers till discovering legitimate credentials.
Contained in the cryptographic handshake: How Visa verifies AI purchasing brokers
Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol operates by means of what Birwadker describes as a "cryptographic trust handshake" between retailers and authorized AI brokers. The system works in three steps:
First, AI brokers should be authorized and onboarded by means of Visa's Clever Commerce program, the place they endure vetting to fulfill belief and reliability requirements. Every authorized agent receives a singular digital signature key — basically a cryptographic credential that proves its identification.
When an authorized agent visits a service provider's web site, it creates a digital signature utilizing its key and transmits three classes of data: Agent Intent (indicating the agent is trusted and intends to retrieve product particulars or make a purchase order), Shopper Recognition (knowledge exhibiting whether or not the underlying client has an present account with the service provider), and Cost Info (elective cost knowledge to assist checkout).
Retailers or their infrastructure suppliers, reminiscent of content material supply networks, then validate these digital signatures in opposition to Visa's registry of authorized brokers. "Upon proper validation of these fields, the merchant can confirm the signature is a trusted agent," Birwadker defined.
Crucially, Visa designed the protocol to require minimal adjustments to present service provider infrastructure. Constructed on the HTTP Message Signature normal and aligned with Net Each Auth, the protocol works with present internet infrastructure with out requiring retailers to overtake their checkout pages. "This is no-code functionality," Birwadker emphasised, although retailers could must combine with Visa's Developer Middle to entry the verification system.
The race for AI commerce requirements: Visa faces competitors from Google, OpenAI, and Stripe
Visa developed the protocol in collaboration with Cloudflare, the online infrastructure and safety firm that already offers bot administration companies to tens of millions of internet sites. The partnership displays Visa's recognition that fixing bot verification requires cooperation throughout your entire internet stack, not simply the funds layer.
"Trusted Agent Protocol supplements traditional bot management by providing merchants insights that enable agentic commerce," Birwadker stated. "Agents are providing additional context they otherwise would not, including what it intends to do, who the underlying consumer is, and payment information."
The protocol arrives as a number of expertise giants race to determine competing requirements for AI commerce. Google not too long ago launched its Agent Protocol for Funds (AP2), whereas OpenAI and Stripe have mentioned their very own approaches to enabling AI brokers to make purchases. Microsoft, Shopify, Adyen, Ant Worldwide, Checkout.com, Cybersource, Elavon, Fiserv, Nuvei, and Worldpay supplied suggestions throughout Trusted Agent Protocol's improvement, based on Visa.
When requested how Visa's protocol pertains to these competing efforts, Birwadker struck a collaborative tone. "Both Google's AP2 and Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol are working toward the same goal of building trust in agent-initiated payments," he stated. "We are engaged with Google, OpenAI, and Stripe and are looking to create compatibility across the ecosystem."
Visa says it’s working with international requirements our bodies together with the Web Engineering Process Pressure (IETF), OpenID Basis, and EMVCo to make sure the protocol can ultimately grow to be interoperable with different rising requirements. "While these specifications apply to the Visa network in this initial phase, enabling agents to safely and securely act on a consumer's behalf requires an open, ecosystem-wide approach," Birwadker famous.
Who pays when AI brokers go rogue? Unanswered questions on legal responsibility and authorization
The protocol raises necessary questions on authorization and legal responsibility when AI brokers make purchases on behalf of shoppers. If an agent completes an unauthorized transaction — maybe misunderstanding a consumer's intent or exceeding its delegated authority — who bears duty?
Birwadker emphasised that the protocol helps retailers "leverage this information to enable experiences tied to existing consumer relationships and more secure checkout," however he didn’t present particular particulars about how disputes can be dealt with when brokers make unauthorized purchases. Visa's present fraud safety and chargeback methods would presumably apply, although the corporate has not but printed detailed steerage on agent-initiated transaction disputes.
The protocol additionally locations Visa within the place of gatekeeper for the rising agentic commerce ecosystem. As a result of Visa determines which AI brokers get authorized for the Clever Commerce program and obtain cryptographic credentials, the corporate successfully controls which brokers retailers can simply belief. "Agents are approved and onboarded through the Visa Intelligent Commerce program, ensuring they meet our standards for trust and reliability," Birwadker stated, although he didn’t element the precise standards brokers should meet or whether or not Visa expenses charges for approval.
This gatekeeping function might show contentious, notably if Visa's approval course of favors massive expertise firms over startups, or if the corporate faces stress to dam brokers from rivals or politically controversial entities. Visa declined to offer particulars about what number of brokers it has authorized to this point or how lengthy the vetting course of usually takes.
Visa's authorized battles and the lengthy street to service provider adoption
The protocol launch comes at a fancy second for Visa, which continues to navigate vital authorized and regulatory challenges at the same time as its core enterprise stays sturdy. The corporate's newest earnings report for the third quarter of fiscal 12 months 2025 confirmed a ten% enhance in internet revenues to $9.2 billion, pushed by resilient client spending and robust progress in cross-border transaction quantity. For the total fiscal 12 months ending September 30, 2024, Visa processed 289 billion transactions, with a complete funds quantity of $15.2 trillion.
Nonetheless, the corporate's authorized headwinds have intensified. In July 2025, a federal decide rejected a landmark $30 billion settlement that Visa and Mastercard had reached with retailers over long-disputed bank card swipe charges, sending the events again to the negotiating desk and lengthening the long-running authorized battle.
Concurrently, Visa stays beneath investigation by the Division of Justice over its guidelines for routing debit card transactions, with regulators scrutinizing whether or not the corporate's practices unlawfully restrict service provider selection and stifle competitors. These home challenges are mirrored overseas, the place European regulators have continued their very own antitrust investigations into the payment buildings of each Visa and its major competitor, Mastercard.
Towards this backdrop of regulatory stress, Birwadker acknowledged that adoption of the Trusted Agent Protocol will take time. "As agentic commerce continues to rise, we recognize that consumer trust is still in its early stages," he stated. "That's why our focus through 2025 is on building foundational credibility and demonstrating real-world value."
The protocol is on the market instantly in Visa's Developer Middle and on GitHub, with agent onboarding already energetic and service provider integration sources accessible. However Birwadker declined to offer particular targets for what number of retailers may undertake the protocol by the tip of 2026. "Adoption is aligned with the momentum we're already seeing," he stated. "The launch of our protocol marks another big step — it's not just a technical milestone, but a signal that the industry is beginning to unify."
Business analysts say service provider adoption will doubtless depend upon how shortly agentic commerce grows as a share of total e-commerce. Whereas AI-driven site visitors has surged dramatically, a lot of that consists of brokers looking and researching somewhat than finishing purchases. If AI brokers start accounting for a major share of accomplished transactions, retailers will face stronger incentives to undertake verification methods like Visa's protocol.
From fraud detection to AI gatekeeping: Visa's $10 billion guess on synthetic intelligence
Visa's transfer displays broader strategic bets on AI throughout the monetary companies trade. The corporate has invested $10 billion in expertise over the previous 5 years to scale back fraud and enhance community safety, with AI and machine studying central to these efforts. Visa's fraud detection system analyzes over 500 completely different attributes for every transaction, utilizing AI fashions to assign real-time threat scores to the 300 billion annual transactions flowing by means of its community.
"Every single one of those transactions has been processed by AI," James Mirfin, Visa's international head of threat and identification options, stated in a July 2024 CNBC interview discussing the corporate's fraud prevention efforts. "If you see a new type of fraud happening, our model will see that, it will catch it, it will score those transactions as high risk and then our customers can decide not to approve those transactions."
The corporate has additionally moved aggressively into new cost territories past its core card enterprise. In January 2025, Visa partnered with Elon Musk's X (previously Twitter) to offer the infrastructure for a digital pockets and peer-to-peer cost service known as the X Cash Account, competing with companies like Venmo and Zelle. That deal marked Visa's first main partnership within the social media funds house and mirrored the corporate's recognition that cost flows are more and more occurring exterior conventional e-commerce channels.
The agentic commerce protocol represents an extension of this technique — an try to make sure Visa stays central to cost flows even because the mechanics of purchasing shift from direct human interplay to AI intermediation. Jack Forestell, Visa's Chief Product & Technique Officer, framed the protocol in expansive phrases: "We believe the entire payments ecosystem has a responsibility to ensure sellers trust AI agents with the same confidence they place in their most valued customers and networks."
The approaching battle for management of AI purchasing
The true take a look at for Visa's protocol received't be technical — it will likely be political. As AI brokers grow to be a bigger pressure in retail, whoever controls the verification infrastructure controls entry to lots of of billions of {dollars} in commerce. Visa's place as gatekeeper offers it monumental leverage, but additionally makes it a goal.
Retailers chafing beneath Visa's present payment construction and going through a number of antitrust investigations could resist ceding much more energy to the funds big. Rivals like Google and OpenAI, every with their very own ambitions in commerce, have little incentive to let Visa dictate requirements. Regulators already scrutinizing Visa's market dominance will certainly look at whether or not its agent approval course of unfairly benefits sure gamers.
And there's a deeper query lurking beneath the technical specs and company partnerships: In an economic system more and more mediated by AI, who decides which algorithms get to spend our cash? Visa is making an aggressive bid to be that arbiter, wrapping its reply within the language of safety and interoperability. Whether or not retailers, shoppers, and regulators settle for that proposition will decide not simply the destiny of the Trusted Agent Protocol, however the construction of AI-powered commerce itself.
For now, Visa is transferring ahead with the boldness of an organization that has weathered disruption earlier than. However within the rising world of agentic commerce, being too trusted may show simply as harmful as not being trusted sufficient.
