Visa and OpenAI Let AI Agents Shop on Your Behalf Using Visa’s Global Network

Key Takeaways

• Visa and OpenAI are enabling AI agents to make purchases on behalf of users using tokenized Visa credentials
• Users will control spending through limits, merchant restrictions, and approval requirements
• The initiative is backed by Microsoft, IBM, Anthropic, Samsung, and Stripe as Visa pushes deeper into agentic commerce

The race to turn AI assistants into practical shopping tools just took another step forward. Visa and OpenAI announced a new partnership that will allow AI agents to make purchases on behalf of users using Visa’s payment network. The initiative is part of a push toward agentic commerce. This is where AI systems do more than recommend products and can actually complete transactions. The move brings payments directly into AI workflows while keeping users in control of how money is spent.

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Why Visa’s Chief Says AI Will Transform Commerce More Than the Internet or Mobile Ever Did

The partnership was brought to light at the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco and forms part of Visa’s Intelligent Commerce initiative. Under the arrangement, AI agents will be able to initiate purchases using Visa’s global network. Meanwhile, transactions remain governed by user-defined rules such as spending limits, merchant restrictions, and approval requirements.

To support those purchases, Visa will provide tokenized payments infrastructure, real-time authorization, and fraud monitoring. The company said developers and merchants will be able to integrate these capabilities into AI-powered experiences. This allows agents to search for products, compare options, and even complete purchases without users manually checking out every time.

Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Jack Forestell, said AI will transform commerce more profoundly than either the internet or mobile technology. He argues that AI agents are becoming active participants in the economy rather than simply software tools. Forestell further added,

“AI will transform commerce more profoundly than the internet or mobile technology ever did. As AI agents become active participants in the economy, Visa’s focus is to ensure transactions are trusted, secure and seamless. That’s the infrastructure we’re building with partners like OpenAI.”

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From AI Recommendations to AI Transactions

The announcement also highlights how quickly major technology firms are moving toward agentic commerce. Along with OpenAI, Visa said Microsoft, IBM, Anthropic, Samsung, and Stripe are participating in the initiative aimed at bringing secure payments into AI-driven environments.

For OpenAI, the partnership expands its efforts to make ChatGPT more useful for real-world tasks. Earlier shopping features focused mostly on product discovery. But integrating OpenAI payments with Visa’s infrastructure will create a pathway for agents to complete transactions on behalf of users.

Questions around trust and security remain a key challenge. Visa said purchases will use tokenized credentials rather than exposing card details directly. Meanwhile, users can decide how much authority an AI agent receives before any payment is approved. As AI tools become more capable, the next battleground may not be search or recommendations, but who controls the final step of the transaction.

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