The news: Mastercard will let AI agents make payments on behalf of cardholders through a partnership with Alchemy, per a press release.

Alchemy’s agentic payment product, AgentCard, will integrate with Mastercard Agent Pay. 

Users and issuers can program how much an agent can spend, what it can buy, and where it can shop.

Visa Intelligence also partnered with Alchemy.

Why this matters: Agentic commerce is taking shape. Mastercard’s and Visa’s partnerships with Alchemy bring agentic infrastructure one step closer to actual use by mainstream consumers. 

At the same time, AgentCard’s safeguards help protect against agent misconduct. These features can help convince consumers to delegate shopping to AI agents: Data security and lack of trust in AI agents are the top two inhibitors to consumer adoption, per Nosto.

Implication for payment providers: Agentic solutions won’t take off unless consumers feel like they have oversight over their agents.

• Consumers should have the option to approve or deny an agent’s purchase via a push notification sent to their connected devices.
• Issuer-backed AI agent coverage, like American Express’s Agent Purchase Protection, can inject more consumer confidence into AI and agentic commerce.

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