Mastercard on Tuesday launched Agent Pay, a new service that lets AI agents shop and make payments for consumers and businesses through conversational platforms. The program builds on Mastercard’s existing tokenization technology to embed secure, personalized payment options directly into AI-driven recommendations and insights.
Key Points:
- Mastercard’s Agent Pay enables AI agents to complete shopping and payment tasks based on user preferences.
- The program uses “Agentic Tokens” built on existing tokenization tech and integrates with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and IBM watsonx Orchestrate.
- Consumer control, strong authentication, and fraud protections are baked in to ensure transparent agent-driven transactions.
Agent Pay introduces Mastercard Agentic Tokens, which extend the company’s proven tokenization capabilities—currently used in mobile contactless payments, card‑on‑file services and passkeys—to “agentic commerce,” where AI agents handle transactions with trust and security. By registering and verifying trusted AI agents, Mastercard ensures that each transaction is clearly identified as agent‑facilitated, giving consumers full visibility and control over their purchases.
In a consumer scenario highlighted by Mastercard, a soon‑to‑be‑30‑year‑old planning a milestone birthday party could chat with an AI agent to curate outfits and accessories from local boutiques and online retailers. The agent would consider her style preferences, the venue’s ambience and even weather forecasts, then complete the purchase using Mastercard One Credential, all within the same conversation. On the business side, a small textile enterprise could use its AI agent to source materials, negotiate payment terms, manage logistics and execute cross‑border purchases with virtual corporate card tokens—all without leaving its chat interface.
Mastercard said it has teamed up with Microsoft to integrate Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot Studio into Agent Pay, and will follow with partnerships across leading AI platforms. It also plans to work with IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate for B2B use cases, and with payment enablers like Braintree and Checkout.com to broaden tokenization support at merchant checkouts.
“Mastercard is transforming the way the world pays for the better by anticipating consumer needs on the horizon,” said Jorn Lambert, chief product officer at Mastercard. “The launch of Mastercard Agent Pay marks our initial steps in redefining commerce in the AI era, including new merchant interfaces to distinguish trusted agents from bad actors using agentic technology. Recognizing the seismic implications of this evolution, we are keen to collaborate with industry players to advance the standards for agentic payments.”
By embedding payment functionality into AI-driven commerce experiences, Mastercard aims to streamline the path from discovery to purchase, while maintaining security through on‑device biometrics, strong authentication and clear rules for consumer authorization. As Visa, PayPal and Amazon roll out their own agentic commerce offerings, Mastercard’s move underscores a broader industry shift toward seamless, AI‑powered shopping and payments.