Ant International signs deal to link AI payment agents to Visa and Mastercard
Ant International, Visa, and Mastercard agreed on Thursday to create a unified standard for payments made by artificial intelligence agents. The three firms aim to address safety concerns and improve interoperability as projected global commerce handled by such agents reaches trillions of dollars by 2030.
On Thursday, Ant International confirmed it has signed an agreement with Visa and Mastercard to develop a new standard for payments processed by artificial intelligence agents. The collaboration seeks to create common standards that link each agent to a valid entity, assess its behavior, and monitor activities to ensure safety. Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer of Ant International, stated that trust is the foundation of the AI transformation and emphasized the need to prevent hallucinations in payment processing. Currently, Visa, Mastercard, and Ant have each announced their own distinct protocols for securing agent payments over the past year. The agreement focuses on increasing interoperability, meaning an agent registering with Ant would not need separate registration with Visa or Mastercard. McKinsey projects that AI agents will handle between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030, driving the urgency for these security standards.
