Mastercard pushes ahead with AI-powered payments and Agentic Commerce

Mastercard is stepping into the next phase of digital payments with a strong focus on AI-powered, agent-driven commerce. The company has announced a set of new initiatives designed to create safer, smarter shopping experiences while laying the groundwork for global standards in agentic transactions.

AI Shopping Comes to Mastercard Cardholders

By the upcoming holiday season, all Mastercard cardholders in the U.S. will be able to experience Mastercard Agent Pay, with a worldwide rollout planned soon after. Citi and U.S. Bank customers will be among the first to test AI-enabled shopping, alongside early adopters like PayOS and other ecosystem partners.

To power this shift, Mastercard is working with global leaders such as Google, Stripe, and Ant International’s Antom to make agentic commerce scalable for digital merchants and platforms worldwide.

New Tools to Accelerate Adoption

To help developers and businesses embrace agentic commerce, Mastercard is rolling out several key tools and services:

• Agent Toolkit: Available via Mastercard Developers, the toolkit leverages the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to make Mastercard APIs more discoverable and easier to integrate into AI workflows.

• Agent Sign-Up: A streamlined process for identifying AI agents and connecting them with Mastercard-enabled services.

• Insight Tokens: Secure, permission-based tokens that allow AI agents to deliver personalized shopping experiences, built on Mastercard’s existing technology and already integrated with partners like SAP Concur.

• Agentic Consulting Services: Expert support to help issuers, acquirers, merchants, and AI innovators design and deploy intelligent commerce experiences.

Shaping Industry Standards

Mastercard is also playing a leading role in developing interoperable standards for agentic payments. Working with the FIDO Alliance and its Payments Working Group, Mastercard is contributing to a new credential standard that securely verifies payment details — including amount, merchant, and product — to ensure transactions are trusted and consumer-approved.

This builds on Mastercard’s history of driving digital payment standards such as contactless transactions and tokenization, extending that legacy into the AI era.

The Future of Intelligent Transactions

“AI-powered payments aren’t just a trend — they’re a transformation,” said Craig Vosburg, Chief Services Officer at Mastercard. “We’re building the infrastructure for a new generation of intelligent transactions, where consumers and developers can empower AI agents to act on their behalf with trust, transparency and precision.”

With its expanding partnerships, tools, and consulting services, Mastercard is positioning itself as a key player in the evolution of agentic commerce. The company’s approach emphasizes not only innovation but also the security and transparency required to make AI-driven payments a trusted part of everyday commerce.