Building Trust in an Automated World

At its annual Payments Forum, Visa unveiled a comprehensive technology upgrade designed to support a future where software agents handle much of our commerce. The company’s strategy addresses both the front end—how consumers interact with businesses—and the back end—how payments are processed and settled.

The core thesis driving Visa’s roadmap is that manual checkout processes will increasingly be replaced by automated systems, as AI handles transactions on behalf of users. Visa aims to provide the secure foundation needed for this new paradigm, ensuring trust and interoperability across its global network.

Powering Conversational Commerce with OpenAI

One key partnership announced was with OpenAI, which will deliver natural-language interfaces allowing users to delegate commercial tasks through conversational AI. When you ask an agent to “buy groceries under $100,” the underlying Visa infrastructure securely executes that request within defined limits.

Ensuring Safety and Reliability

To prevent abuse in this automated environment, Visa introduced:

• Agent Score: A tool for merchants to evaluate their website’s compatibility with algorithmic shoppers
• Agentic Directory: A secure registry verifying legitimate AI agents and trusted merchants \These measures help ensure only authorized entities can initiate transactions.

Next-Level Security Through Behavioral Data

As transactions move toward high-velocity automation, Visa is embedding more contextual intelligence directly into payment credentials. This includes real-time behavioral signals, permission limits, and precise identity data—essentially moving trust alongside every transaction.

One critical component is a trust score that continuously assesses each credential based on how it’s been configured and used historically. Combined with Visa’s new Large Transaction Model (trained on billions of network events), this system significantly reduces fraud while minimizing false declines—a major pain point for cross-border businesses.

Visa’s vision extends to developers, with early concepts including command-line interfaces that allow AI engines to seamlessly pay for software services during automated operations.