AI Agents Bring Shoppers, but Merchants Must Close the Sale

AI summary of the source article

Merchants are approaching agentic AI commerce as another sales channel that must function within existing infrastructure for payments, authentication, tokenization, and dispute handling. Visa Senior Director of Product for Agentic Commerce Pavan HS noted that AI agents can disrupt conventional fraud signals, citing an instance where Gemini traffic routed through Singapore triggered transaction declines for US-based parties. To address integration and risk issues, Visa applies intent-constrained agentic tokens paired with FIDO-based biometric authentication. Visa is also developing its Trusted Agent Protocol alongside efforts from Cloudflare and Akamai to establish agent identities and verify intent before checkout.

Why it matters

As consumers increasingly use AI assistants to shop, payment networks and merchants must establish agent identity and credential standards so automated purchases can pass fraud and authentication controls.

Key facts

• Visa pairs intent-constrained agentic tokens with FIDO-based biometric authentication to verify that consumers authorize transactions on expected devices.
• Unusual routing from AI agents, such as US transactions originating from Singapore IP addresses in Gemini, can trigger merchant fraud filter declines.
• Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol, alongside support from CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai, is designed to help merchants verify agent identity and permissions.