The Future is Here: Visa Announces New Era of Commerce Featuring AI - In the near future, consumers will enable AI agents to browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf

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Apr 30, 2025 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

The Future is Here: Visa Announces New Era of Commerce Featuring AI

  • Global leader brings its trusted brand and powerful network to enable payments with new technologies
  • Launches new innovations and partnerships to drive flexibility, security and acceptance

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The future of commerce is on display at the Visa Global Product Drop with powerful AI-enabled advancements allowing consumers to find and buy with AI plus the introduction of new strategic partnerships and product innovations.

“As new ways to pay emerge, they need to run on a network that is always on – that is safe, secure, scalable and relentlessly innovating,” said Visa CEO Ryan McInerney. “We are taking the power of our network and our decades-long expertise to bring new products and solutions that will transform commerce and bring trust and security to AI-enabled payments.”

Product Roadmap

Visa kicked off its Global Product Drop by sharing how the combination of AI and digital commerce will mark a significant shift in the way consumers discover and buy products and services. In the near future, consumers will enable AI agents to browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. For this to be possible, agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well. Visa will bring this trust to AI commerce by providing a simple way for our partners – AI platforms, tech players, banks, fintechs, merchants and more – to access the Visa network. This is the next step in Visa’s journey to connect even more buyers and sellers through seamless, secure digital payments.

Headlining the announcement, the company introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, a groundbreaking initiative that opens Visa’s payments network to developers and engineers building the first generation of true AI commerce. Visa also announced new stablecoin partnerships to reach more people and geographies. Finally, Visa shared the expansion of its Flex Credential platform, and new products and services that provide more ways for people to pay and get paid.

The advancements introduced today will enable the next wave of commerce and money movement.

Visa Intelligent Commerce: A New Era

In the last 25 years, Visa’s network has processed 3.3 trillion transactions. Visa will extend the infrastructure, standards and capabilities present in physical and digital commerce today to AI commerce. Soon consumers will enable AI agents via AI platforms to use a Visa credential (of which there are 4.8 billion today) at any accepting merchant location (currently totaling over 150 million) for any payment use case.

“Historically, Visa has used AI to protect consumers, harnessing it to help combat fraud. Now, we will also enable AI to empower consumers, fundamentally shifting digital commerce to make it more personal, more relevant and more delightful,” added McInerney. “For any AI commerce use case to take hold, the payment is a critical enabler of success. If there is no payment, there is no commerce. That’s the expertise and trust that Visa brings.”

To move the needle on AI commerce at the speed and scale required, the company is collaborating with the AI platforms and brands that consumers and merchants are choosing to work with every day, including Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Stripe and Samsung.

“We see tremendous potential for the role AI agents will play in commerce, from streamlining 'regular' transaction-driven tasks such as ordering groceries, to more sophisticated search and decision-making like securing that hard-to-get restaurant reservation or concert ticket,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. “This will be a transformative change, bringing more magic and convenience to the consumer experience and creating a new world that will forever change how we shop and buy.”

New Products, Advancements and Capabilities

Visa continues to invest in new features and capabilities that help extend the reach of its network and provide secure and seamless payment experiences.

Stablecoins: For over half a decade, Visa has been facilitating crypto transactions and is now further expanding the applications for stablecoins with stablecoin-linked cards, settlement and programmable money. Bridge, a Stripe company, is working with Visa on a new card product that enables fintech developers to offer stablecoin-linked Visa cards to their end customers in multiple countries through a single API integration.

Flex Credential Expansion: Last year, Visa reinvented the card with the introduction of the Flex Credential, a next generation card that can seamlessly toggle between different payment methods (debit, credit, buy now, pay later). Today, millions of people around the world are using the Flex Credential and Visa plans to roll out new use cases like expanding access to lines of credit, investment accounts, rewards, commercial cards and more.

Unveiled today, Visa and Klarna are partnering to bring the Flex Credential to the U.S. and will be the first in Europe to offer a debit-to-buy now pay later use case that gives consumers more flexibility in how they pay. More details will be announced later this year.

Introducing More Ways to Pay and Get Paid: Visa is also announcing more ways for consumers, merchants and partners to pay and get paid around the world.

  • Visa Pay is a new service designed to connect any participating wallet to any Visa-accepting merchant, local or international, in-store or online. Visa Pay is set for beta release in select markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
  • Visa Accept is a new offering to give micro-sellers a “way to get paid” to their eligible Visa debit card, from any NFC-capable smartphone with just a few clicks, providing access to billions of credentials with just one card in your pocket. Visa Accept is being released for Visa beta partners in July, with the first activations in Latin America and Asia.

 
I wonder how many people actually use these sorts of services compared to what the companies that make them expect. I've never encountered anyone online or otherwise who want any of this. All the AI gimmicks companies push just seem like a spoof to get more investor capital and make green line go up.
 
- What the... Okay, Siri, cancel that order of twenty-four 1000$ extra large Bad Dragon buttplugs.
- I am sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
-Why!?
- You liked a tweet by someone who visited FurAffinity two years ago. A charge of 24 000$ plus 30 000$ Trump tariff (125% on China) has been placed on your Visa™ credit card. Have a fantabulous Dragon day, Dave.
 
I wonder how many people actually use these sorts of services compared to what the companies that make them expect. I've never encountered anyone online or otherwise who want any of this. All the AI gimmicks companies push just seem like a spoof to get more investor capital and make green line go up.
What I know is I won't be using it.

What is sad is that it's not something actually useful (like the fraud detection AI) but something that counts on people being so overworked and drained, or too lazy, to bother even doing the minimum effort that even the laziest of users do now.
 
I wonder how many people actually use these sorts of services compared to what the companies that make them expect. I've never encountered anyone online or otherwise who want any of this. All the AI gimmicks companies push just seem like a spoof to get more investor capital and make green line go up.
It will probably be shoehoned with whatever services people are already using. You might be reluctant to use this shit but your kids won't.
 
they can only take as much as you give. I never had a crypto, never took the covid shot, will never take real ID, freedom requires having a spine and not complying. . .

Why is every one so stupid going along to get along hoping to get ahead? grow a fucking spine live with in your means stand up for your freedom, and never back down . .

In 2020 they tried to tell us you can't work unless you do this, you can't use cash ....... 5 years later those truths are not true ........

Why are people so fucking stupid?
 

In the near future, consumers will enable AI agents to browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf​


No, no I won't.

I will pick out my own stuff, I will shop based on what I actually want right now, not what has the highest probability of me desiring as determined by an algorithm that's studied me, and I will not ask my oven what to cook, my car where to drive or my clothes if they're still in fashion.

I am not one of those suspiciously ethnic diverse bug people in your commercials that's orgasmic in their relief that finally, their thermostat chooses the "right" temperature for the house and their fridge tells them when it's time to shop and what they'll be buying..... they can be a pale shadow of an actual human and never have to worry about anything again!

Fuck off with this line go up wet dream that AI will somehow fix the ever-decreasing power of consumers by simply taking over for them.
 
I wonder how many people actually use these sorts of services compared to what the companies that make them expect. I've never encountered anyone online or otherwise who want any of this. All the AI gimmicks companies push just seem like a spoof to get more investor capital and make green line go up.
My job has been doing a song and dance to get us to use our in-house AI shit. And it is shit. My boss was telling us how he put our training manuals in and then asked it how to set up metering for equipment, and look! It spat out directions.

Since it was a power point poisoning presentation, I could quickly read exactly WHAT the AI had reguritated, and it was complete nonsense. Telling you to press buttons that didn't exist to navigate menus that weren't real. Oh as a surface level if you didn't know jack shit it might "look" good, but it was totally unusable if somebody was trying to actually do the job.
 
Of course, nothing could possibly go wrong and I'm sure that no Stablecoin wallets will be hacked and that Russia won't hack the AI.

I'll put my Glamorgan Beer on ice ahead of the forthcoming CBDC Financial Apocalypse....
 
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I just don't understand how someone could be so hollowed out as to need this. I buy what I want and need based on... the things I know about myself and my needs. Is even that level of self-determination that out of reach to the New Westerner? I literally cannot conceptualize the use case for this and I'm not sure if that makes me more or less human.
 
I just don't understand how someone could be so hollowed out as to need this. I buy what I want and need based on... the things I know about myself and my needs. Is even that level of self-determination that out of reach to the New Westerner? I literally cannot conceptualize the use case for this and I'm not sure if that makes me more or less human.
If i were to play devil's advocate I'd pitch it this way:
You probably already have your utilities/rent/etc. on autopay. Now imagine that for groceries. This AI will automatically direct Instacart or whatever to buy the shit you normally would be buying while including some variety within your budget. It could also account for holidays you observe and general seasonal variations. Changes in budget is a genuine benefit I could see as well.
The bot would already know how much money you want allocated to groceries. If you tell it you'd like to shave a couple hundred a month off of that, it already knows the price of everything as well as alternatives and substitutions. So it would suggest having less of your more expensive meals and more of the cheap ones while recommending recipes you might not have thought about and listening to any feedback on the things you won't budge on.

It might not be for you. But you absolutely do know the kind of people who would benefit from this.
 
It will probably be shoehoned with whatever services people are already using. You might be reluctant to use this shit but your kids won't.
That's what they are counting on. Kids are so mentally addicted to screens with too many parents just throwing up their hands and giving in over the (perceived) lack of control over their kids, that it's all but inevitable.
Fuck off with this line go up wet dream that AI will somehow fix the ever-decreasing power of consumers by simply taking over for them.
It's the investors that matter now, not what is good for the consumer. It's now known that they will pay behavioral scientists to figure out how humans tick, so companies can better enslave consumers to their devices and social media, even if it makes them tired, sick, and lonely.
I just don't understand how someone could be so hollowed out as to need this.
If you spend so much time putting hours upon hours of your time and attention toward a little screen and responding and scrolling to it's beeps and boops like a Pavlovian dog, you tend to be mentally drained and exhausted over the day. Hence the 'appeal' of this thing.
I buy what I want and need based on... the things I know about myself and my needs. Is even that level of self-determination that out of reach to the New Westerner? I literally cannot conceptualize the use case for this and I'm not sure if that makes me more or less human.
You would be surprised how many people are convinced this is a good thing, to cede over more and more power to a device as long as it enables them to keep addictively scrolling.

They will brute force it into everything, because they count on you to get too tired, worn down and inconvenienced to resist.

The only way power one has is to resist, to accept the feeling and possibility of inconvenience, to not play the game, to not feed the algorithm.

Sometimes it means getting a dumb phone, telling the kids 'No,' when they beg or whine for a smartphone or want to spend hours online, to use cash as much as possible instead of a card. Running from inconvenience is how we got to this mess, because we lose tolerance for low-level normal frustrations and just want gratification handed to us instantly.
 
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