Visa and Mastercard unveiled revolutionary AI-powered shopping solutions on April 30 and May 1, 2025, setting a new standard for online commerce. Visa introduced “Visa Intelligent Commerce,” while Mastercard launched “Mastercard Agent Pay,” both harnessing artificial intelligence to allow AI agents to search, select, and purchase on behalf of users. Developed with partners like Microsoft, OpenAI, and IBM, these platforms aim to deliver a seamless, secure, and personalized shopping experience. Yet, as they reshape e-commerce, they also spark concerns about privacy, security, and the ethical implications of AI-driven transactions in 2025.
The Emergence of AI-Powered Shopping with Visa and Mastercard
The AI shopping platforms from Visa and Mastercard represent a pivotal moment in digital commerce. Visa Intelligent Commerce enables AI agents to browse, compare prices, and complete purchases across 150 million Visa-accepting merchants, using tokenized digital credentials for security. With user permission, it analyzes spending patterns to offer tailored recommendations, such as ranking dining options based on past preferences. Mastercard Agent Pay integrates payments into conversational AI interfaces, allowing agents to handle transactions—like buying a pair of running shoes—within platforms like Microsoft’s Copilot. Both initiatives seek to eliminate friction in online shopping, addressing a key pain point: a 2020 Experian report found that one in three customers abandon carts if checkout takes over 30 seconds.
How Visa and Mastercard AI Shopping Works
Visa’s platform equips AI agents with tools for authentication, tokenization, and payment processing, ensuring secure transactions while respecting user-defined limits like spending caps or preferred merchants. For instance, an AI agent could book a flight within a set budget, handling everything from selection to payment. Mastercard’s Agent Pay uses similar tokenization, verifying AI agents’ authority to transact and sharing that verification with merchants to prevent fraud. Both companies collaborate with AI leaders—Visa with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Samsung; Mastercard with IBM and Braintree—to expand what they term “agentic commerce,” where AI agents autonomously manage shopping tasks with user oversight.
Benefits for Consumers and Retailers
Visa and Mastercard AI shopping solutions offer significant advantages. Consumers enjoy a frictionless experience, with AI agents completing tasks like finding the perfect gift or booking travel in seconds, all within a secure framework. Mastercard’s Click to Pay reduces checkout to four keystrokes, using facial or fingerprint passkeys for authentication. Retailers benefit from reduced cart abandonment, as streamlined payments boost conversion rates. Visa’s AI engines, which blocked $40 billion in fraud last year, enhance trust by applying decades of expertise to AI-driven transactions, ensuring safety for both parties.
Privacy and Security Challenges
Despite their potential, these AI shopping platforms face hurdles. Security is a major concern—while tokenization minimizes risks, a hacked AI agent could still misuse credentials, and consumers may hesitate to trust AI with payment data. Privacy issues also loom large: sharing spending insights, even with consent, risks data misuse, particularly with partners like Microsoft and OpenAI, whose data practices can lack transparency. Furthermore, AI-driven purchases could fuel overspending, with U.S. credit card debt reaching $1.21 trillion in late 2024, according to the Federal Reserve of New York. Without strict controls, AI agents might encourage impulsive buying, exacerbating financial challenges.
A Critical Perspective on AI-Driven Commerce
The narrative around Visa and Mastercard AI shopping solutions presents them as a natural evolution of e-commerce, but it overlooks deeper issues. Both companies dominate the U.S. market—holding 80% of transactions, per the Nilson Report—raising concerns about a duopoly, as noted in the DOJ’s lawsuit against Visa in September 2024. This dominance could deepen with AI, granting them greater access to consumer data under the pretext of personalization, potentially stifling competition. The focus on convenience risks dehumanizing commerce, diminishing user agency, and creating disparities between tech-savvy and less-savvy consumers. Additionally, the environmental impact of AI-driven e-commerce growth remains unaddressed, despite rising sustainability concerns in retail.
What Lies Ahead for AI Shopping
Visa and Mastercard plan to expand their AI shopping solutions in 2026, with pilot projects already active as of May 2025. These platforms could redefine e-commerce, automating routine purchases like groceries while offering personalized recommendations for complex tasks like travel planning. However, their success depends on addressing privacy, security, and ethical challenges. Balancing innovation with user trust will be key to ensuring AI-powered shopping benefits consumers without compromising their autonomy or data.
