Dive Brief:

• Amazon and Visa are joining forces to offer tools and connections in the retailer’s web services marketplace that will let software developers and other companies create agentic commerce experiences, the companies said in a joint Monday press release. They didn’t say when exactly the tools would be available, and a spokesperson didn’t immediately comment on timing.
• The e-commerce juggernaut and card network behemoth plan to connect developers “to a growing ecosystem of agentic commerce providers for next-generation reliable and secure payment experiences,” and they emphasized their goal is to allow AI agents to transact “autonomously” on behalf of consumers,  according to the release.
• Amazon and Visa are also partnering with other companies, including Expedia Group and Intuit, to make the agentic tools available for retail, travel and business-to-business applications, according to the release.

Dive Insight:

Since at least April, Visa has been talking about creating artificial intelligence-driven agents that can shop on behalf of consumers, noting the arrival of AI-enabled Visa cards that will let the agents make payments. That month, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney told Bloomberg News that consumers would see the tools in the market “soon,” without providing a specific timeline. The card network talked about protocols for agentic shopping again in October.

Visa Chief Financial Officer Chris Suh explained at an investor conference last month how Visa is investing to compete in the agentic ecosystem. “The pace of innovation, as we can all see, is very fast, perhaps even accelerating,” Suh said at the KBW Fintech Payments Conference. “Some of the topics of late, around things like stablecoin and agentic, clearly, there’s a lot of interest and innovation and investment happening in Visa, and also in the entire ecosystem.” 

Visa and Amazon are teaming up as players race to embrace the promise of digital agents that will shop on behalf of consumers, tapping artificial intelligence to make decisions about purchases and payments based on initial commands. 

Digital payments pioneer PayPal Holdings, processing giant Fiserv, digital payments startup Stripe and Visa rival Mastercard are among the many companies seeking to make bot-shopping a reality for consumers.

The latest announcement comes as Amazon has become embroiled in litigation over how such agents operate on its marketplace. Last month, the online retailer sued artificial intelligence company Perplexity in federal court over its use of AI assistants in Amazon’s retail sphere.

While some companies have said they’re testing AI-driven shopping tools, including payments processor Worldpay, there are currently few real-life use cases in the marketplace. 

Some professionals have noted there are numerous issues yet to be resolved for such commerce, including what happens when such agents go haywire and purchase the wrong items, requiring returns and refunds. Such outstanding issues present risks for use of the new shopping tools, they say.