Visa has completed live AI agent-powered payment transactions across Europe, with more than 30 banks enabling autonomous purchases at participating merchant websites in what the payments company describes as the next phase of agentic commerce.

The announcement, made at Visa Payments Forum in Paris on Thursday, marks a shift from controlled demonstrations to real-world transactions involving independent merchants. AI agents are now able to browse products, select items and complete purchases on behalf of consumers, operating within user-defined parameters and using Visa's infrastructure to authenticate transactions and meet European regulatory requirements.

Visa said the initiative forms part of its Visa Intelligent Commerce portfolio and its wider Agentic Ready programme, which is intended to establish the infrastructure, standards and partnerships needed to support AI-driven commerce at scale. Participating merchants include lastminute.com, Frasers, Cleverbridge and BrickDepot, with transactions spanning travel, retail and e-commerce.

Mathieu Altwegg, head of product and solutions for Visa in Europe, said: "We're now seeing AI agents buy on behalf of people directly with independent merchants. The next step is to scale this by bringing the whole ecosystem together - from standards and infrastructure to partners and enablers - with trust built in from the start."

Visa said more than 30 European issuers have completed live agent-executed transactions, including Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Revolut and Klarna. The transactions are authenticated using Visa Payment Passkeys, which the company said ensure every payment is linked to a verified cardholder and explicit customer authorisation while supporting compliance with Europe's Strong Customer Authentication requirements.

The company said merchant participation is enabled through its Trusted Agent Protocol and Agent Directory, which allow websites to identify verified AI agents and distinguish them from unverified automated traffic. Visa said the technology integrates with existing merchant risk and security systems rather than requiring new infrastructure, with implementation supported by Cloudflare and Akamai.

Alessandro Petazzi, chief executive of lastminute.com, said the company's role in managing travel bookings made it well placed to test the technology as AI reshapes consumer purchasing behaviour. He said: "Visa's work on authentication and trust is what makes it possible to pilot this seriously. Early days - but exactly the right thing to be testing, and we're glad to be part of it."

Visa said the model will be extended beyond consumer payments to commercial and business-to-business transactions, where trusted AI agents could automate purchasing processes while maintaining visibility and control for businesses and financial institutions.

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