Ant International Enlists Visa, Mastercard for AI Payment Standard as Agent Commerce Eyes $5 Trillion
Updated
Updated · CNBC · Sep 10
Ant International Enlists Visa, Mastercard for AI Payment Standard as Agent Commerce Eyes $5 Trillion
3 articles · Updated · CNBC · Sep 10
Summary
Ant International said it has brought Visa and Mastercard into a joint effort to create standards for payments made by AI agents, aiming to make those transactions safer and easier to use across networks.
The partners will build a shared “know your agent” framework linking each agent to a valid entity, assessing behavior and monitoring activity to reduce hallucination risks and strengthen trust.
Jiang-Ming Yang said interoperability is central: an agent registered with Ant should not need to register again with Visa or Mastercard, a step meant to simplify adoption for merchants and users.
McKinsey projects AI agents could handle $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030, while digital wallets already accounted for more than $13 trillion of spending in 2025, underscoring the scale at stake.
The push comes after all three companies launched their own AI payment protocols over the past year, and as Alipay begins consumer uses such as recurring Starbucks and Didi orders through its AI features.
How can merchants truly distinguish between a legitimate AI shopping assistant and a sophisticated malicious bot across fragmented global payment networks?
Will the push by financial giants to regulate AI payments create a secure future or a walled garden that locks out smaller developers?
If an AI agent hallucinates and drains your bank account, who is legally responsible under the new Know Your Agent standards?