Mastercard lets AI agents shop with virtual cards as agentic commerce expands

Mastercard is expanding its push into agentic commerce with a payment option that lets consumers give AI agents virtual cards and authorize them to make online purchases on their behalf.

Through Mastercard Agent Pay, users can set spending limits, restrict purchases to specific merchants, or require approval before checkout. The system is designed to let AI agents move beyond product discovery and complete transactions within limits defined by the cardholder.

Mastercard is positioning itself alongside Visa in a growing race to build the payment infrastructure underlying AI shopping. Visa is rolling out Visa Intelligent Commerce and has also partnered with OpenAI to bring its payment network into agent driven shopping experiences.

Meta is approaching the same market through Muse, its recently launched personal AI agent. Muse can perform tasks across the web and navigate shopping experiences, while users determine how much access and authority the agent receives.

Consumer willingness to hand over the final purchase remains limited. A YouGov survey of more than 3,300 US and UK fashion shoppers commissioned by ACI Worldwide found that only 7% would allow an AI assistant to make purchases without approval under predefined conditions. 

About 53% said they would not allow AI to buy on their behalf at all.

Shoppers were more interested in AI as a research tool. Price drop alerts and comparisons across retailers were each selected by 35% of respondents, while 18% valued personalized product recommendations.

Mastercard is also developing infrastructure intended to address concerns around authorization and disputes. Its Verifiable Intent system creates a record of who authorized an AI agent, what it was instructed to do, and the transaction that followed. 

Mastercard says the system can provide an audit trail when a purchase is disputed.