Visa is actively embracing the AI-driven future of commerce, launching an innovative suite called “Visa Intelligent Commerce.” This initiative marks a significant step as the payment giant Visa opens its doors to AI developers, allowing them to leverage Visa’s powerful payment network to build the next generation of AI-driven commercial applications. As consumers increasingly rely on AI agents to handle the entire shopping process, from browsing to purchasing, Visa Intelligent Commerce aims to provide these AI agents with secure, reliable, and personalized payment solutions.
The Rise of AI Commerce: A New Paradigm in Payments
The launch of Visa Intelligent Commerce reflects Visa’s profound understanding of future business models. With the continuous development of AI technology, AI agents will gradually penetrate all aspects of our lives, becoming valuable assistants in shopping, financial management, and even daily decision-making. These AI agents need to transact with merchants, and Visa Intelligent Commerce serves as a bridge, providing secure payment capabilities for these AI agents.
Gery Lasky, General Manager of Visa Israel, stated, “In the near future, people will have AI agents that browse, select, buy, and manage on their behalf. These agents need to gain trust in payments, not only from users but also from banks and merchants.” The vision of Visa Intelligent Commerce is to enable AI agents to securely and reliably find and purchase goods and services for consumers based on pre-set preferences.
Visa Intelligent Commerce Suite: A Toolbox for Empowering AI Commerce
The Visa Intelligent Commerce suite includes a range of powerful tools designed to meet the needs of the AI commerce era:
- AI-Ready Cards: This technology enhances security by replacing traditional credit card details with tokenized digital credentials. More importantly, AI-Ready Cards can verify the identity of the consumer-selected AI agent, ensuring that only authorized AI agents can conduct transactions. This is crucial for building user trust in AI agents.
- AI-Powered Personalization: This feature allows consumers to share spending and purchasing insights with their AI agents, helping the AI agents better understand user needs and preferences and provide more accurate shopping recommendations. For example, if a user frequently purchases organic food, the AI agent can prioritize merchants offering organic food.
- Spending Limits and Conditions: To further protect consumer rights, Visa Intelligent Commerce allows users to set spending limits and conditions to guide AI agent transactions. For example, users can set a maximum transaction amount for the AI agent or restrict the AI agent to transacting only with specific merchants. This helps prevent AI agents from overspending or making unnecessary transactions.
Through these tools, Visa Intelligent Commerce provides AI developers with a comprehensive platform to build a variety of innovative AI-driven commercial applications.
Ryan McInerney’s Perspective: Artificial Intelligence Empowering Consumers
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney emphasized the dual role of artificial intelligence in protecting and empowering consumers. “In the past, Visa has always used artificial intelligence to protect consumers,” he said. “Now, we will also use artificial intelligence to empower consumers, fundamentally changing digital commerce to make it more personalized, more relevant, and more enjoyable.”
McInerney’s views reflect Visa’s strategic positioning on artificial intelligence. Visa not only sees artificial intelligence as a security tool but also as a powerful force for empowering consumers. Through Visa Intelligent Commerce, Visa hopes to create a more intelligent, personalized, and convenient digital commercial environment.
Europe Pioneers: A Blueprint for Global Expansion
The Visa Intelligent Commerce program is scheduled to launch in Europe in late 2025. The selection of Europe as the first launch region may be due to Europe’s relatively sound laws and regulations regarding data privacy and consumer protection, which provide a good foundation for the healthy development of AI commerce.
The European pilot project will provide valuable experience for the global promotion of Visa Intelligent Commerce. Visa will closely monitor feedback from the European market and optimize and improve the product based on actual conditions.
A Strong Partner Ecosystem: Building the Future of AI Commerce Together
To support the global promotion of Visa Intelligent Commerce, Visa is partnering with a range of leading AI companies, including Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, and Stripe. These partners will provide support to Visa in terms of technology, data, and channels, jointly promoting the development of AI commerce.
Through close cooperation with these partners, Visa hopes to build an open, collaborative, and innovative AI commercial ecosystem. In this ecosystem, AI developers can fully unleash their creativity and provide consumers with a variety of innovative AI-driven commercial applications.
The Potential Impact of Visa Intelligent Commerce
The launch of Visa Intelligent Commerce may have a profound impact on the payment industry and the entire commercial ecosystem:
- Accelerating the Popularization of AI Commerce: Visa Intelligent Commerce provides AI developers with a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use payment platform, which will greatly reduce the development threshold for AI commerce and accelerate its popularization.
- Promoting Innovation in Payment Methods: With the popularity of AI agents, traditional payment methods may gradually be replaced. Visa Intelligent Commerce will promote innovation in payment methods, such as biometric-based payments and voice recognition-based payments.
- Enhancing the Consumer Experience: AI agents can provide shopping recommendations, price comparisons, and transaction management services based on consumers’ personalized needs, thereby enhancing the consumer experience.
- Changing the Way Merchants Interact with Consumers: AI agents can help merchants better understand consumer needs and preferences and provide more accurate marketing and customer service.
- Creating New Business Models: AI commerce may create new business models, such as subscription-based AI services and on-demand AI services.
Challenges Facing Visa Intelligent Commerce
Despite the enormous potential of Visa Intelligent Commerce, it also faces some challenges:
- Security Risks: AI agents may be hacked or exploited, leading to user fund losses or personal information leaks. Visa needs to take effective security measures to protect user rights.
- Privacy Issues: AI agents need to collect and analyze user spending data, which may raise privacy issues. Visa needs to comply with relevant data privacy regulations and ensure that users have control over their data.
- Trust Issues: Consumers need to trust AI agents to confidently authorize them to conduct transactions. Visa needs to establish effective trust mechanisms, such as transparent algorithms and secure payment environments.
- Regulatory Challenges: AI commerce is an emerging field, and related laws and regulations are not yet perfect. Visa needs to cooperate with regulatory agencies to jointly develop reasonable regulatory frameworks.
Conclusion
The launch of Visa Intelligent Commerce is an important step for Visa in embracing the AI commercial era. By providing AI developers with powerful payment tools and platforms, Visa is actively promoting the development of AI commerce and is committed to creating a more intelligent, personalized, and convenient shopping experience for consumers. Although Visa Intelligent Commerce faces some challenges, its enormous potential cannot be ignored. With the continuous development of AI technology, Visa Intelligent Commerce is expected to become an important part of the future of commerce.
The move by Visa is a calculated one, strategically positioning the company at the forefront of the impending shift towards AI-driven transactions. By proactively addressing the security and trust concerns associated with AI agents, Visa is aiming to become the dominant player in this burgeoning market. The success of Visa Intelligent Commerce will depend not only on the robustness of its technology but also on its ability to foster a collaborative ecosystem with AI developers and build consumer confidence in the use of AI agents for financial transactions. This initiative marks a significant evolution in Visa’s role, transforming it from a traditional payment processor to a facilitator of AI-powered commerce, potentially reshaping the future of how we buy and sell goods and services. The European pilot program will be crucial in gathering real-world data and refining the platform before a wider global rollout, ensuring that Visa Intelligent Commerce is well-equipped to handle the complexities and challenges of the AI-driven marketplace.