Visa has introduced Trusted Agent Protocol, a foundational framework for agentic commerce designed to establish secure communication between merchants and AI agents during transactions.

As more AI agents browse and buy on behalf of consumers, Visa said that merchants face new challenges such as managing bot detection systems that can mistakenly block legitimate agentic transactions.

Additionally, merchants have to support agent-driven guest and logged-in checkout whilst also preserving visibility into the consumer behind the agent and payment data.

Trusted Agent Protocol aims to address these challenges by enabling approved agents to securely pass critical information to merchants.

The protocol provides a framework for recognising trusted agents with commerce intent and distinguishes them from malicious automation and rogue bots.

Visa added that it created the protocol for a new era where AI can search, compare and pay on behalf of consumers, while ensuring trust between merchants and AI agents.

The move comes after rival Mastercard and payments firm PayOS earlier this month completed a payment transaction using a Mastercard Agentic token, a digital credential designed to enable AI agents to execute transactions on behalf of users.

The companies confirmed that the transaction was successfully completed via Mastercard Agent Pay, a service launched last April that integrates agentic AI into intelligent agents such as AI assistants to autonomously manage tasks such as shopping, bill payments and subscriptions.

Mastercard Agent Pay currently offers a tokenisation solution to boost global commerce in a range of payment services including contactless mobile payments, Secure Card on File and Mastercard Payment Passkeys.

At the end of September, OpenAI also launched Instant Checkout, a feature that lets people buy products directly within ChatGPT.

This week, Walmart announced it had partnered with OpenAI for direct purchases in the platform.

AI-driven traffic to retail websites in the US has surged by around 4,700 per cent over the past year, according to research by Adobe. The company’s data also shows that some 85 per cent of shoppers who have used AI to shop say it improved their shopping experience.

With the release of this protocol, which was developed in collaboration with technology company Cloudflare, Visa said it is reinforces its commitment to supporting safer and more seamless interactions in the evolving ecosystem of intelligent payments.

Trusted Agent Protocol is currently available in the Visa Developer Center and GitHub.

During the development of the protocol, Visa said it has received insightful feedback from other early partners including Checkout.com, Coinbase, Microsoft, Shopify, Stripe and Worldpay.

“We believe the entire payments ecosystem has a responsibility to ensure sellers can trust AI agents as much as they trust their best customers and networks,” said Jack Forestell, chief product & strategy officer, Visa. “For the past year, we’ve worked closely with sellers, issuers and partners to make sure agent-initiated transactions are as seamless and secure as any payment today.

“Our new agent protocol is focused on creating no-code functionality for merchants to securely identify agents with an intent to buy and provide a better payments and personalized experience for its known users.”

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