Mastercard Bets on AI-Powered Payments to Power the Future of Commerce

Mastercard announced it will soon make its Agent Pay program available to all U.S. cardholders. The company is partnering with leaders in AI and commerce to make agent-driven transactions both more secure and more accessible.

Credit card issuers, merchants, and shoppers eager for Mastercard’s AI initiatives won’t have to wait long. After the U.S. launch, the company plans a global rollout, starting with Citi and US Bank customers.

Many of the advances for AI use in the credit card arena so far have centered on improving an issuer’s ability to detect and prevent instances of fraud. Casap, a New York-based fintech, recently raised $25 million in funding to help bolster its efforts to bring more clarity to the credit card dispute process.

And Mastercard itself offers a decisioning solution that leans on AI to stop fraud before it starts.

A global rollout of Mastercard Agent Pay will follow its U.S. launch.

But the company’s latest moves signal a new frontier in how AI solutions can improve the credit card ecosystem. Mastercard leaders believe that the mix of AI and payments is just getting started.

“AI-powered payments aren’t just a trend — they’re a transformation,” Craig Vosburg, Chief Services Officer at Mastercard, said in a press release. “Payments must be native to the agentic experience.”

In 2025, artificial intelligence assistants may handle 20% of eCommerce activities, such as managing customer service tasks and providing product recommendations, according to a PYMNTS report. And Mastercard stands to be one of the institutions leading the charge when it comes to how AI agents assist shoppers.

“We’re building the infrastructure for a new generation of intelligent transactions, where consumers and developers can empower AI agents to act on their behalf with trust, transparency, and precision,” Vosburg said.

Credit card issuers may be wary of the growing use of AI and the potential it has to impact the products and services they offer. Many financial executives today likely grew up in an era where popular works of fiction contained depictions of the dangers advanced technologies could bring when they didn’t function as their creators intended them to.

Others may be concerned about the growth of AI-enhanced solutions simply because they lack an in-depth understanding of how the technology operates. 

“Many banks are great at technology and great at making software, but for some, that’s not their bread and butter,” Jonathan Bailey, Chief Technology Officer for Extend, told us during a recent interview. “They’re great at being a bank, but they need support in order to enable a modern technology experience for their customers.”

To that end, Mastercard announced the release of its Agent Toolkit, which empowers AI assistants as well as agentic solutions to decipher API documentation from Mastercard.  

The card network is also rolling out a straightforward method for companies that use its toolkit to find their agents and access Mastercard’s AI-enabled solutions, as noted in the company’s release.

Financial institutions that seek extra assistance can turn to Mastercard’s consulting service that focuses on agentic tools. That resource will enable participants in the credit card arena, including acquirers, issuers, and merchants, to access expert support to help them develop intelligent shopping experiences.

Mastercard is teaming up with the FIDO Alliance, in addition to its Payments Working Group, to engineer a verifiable credential standard that can confirm transaction information, including the amount and the merchant location where the cardholder made the purchase.

The company said the process should ensure that all parties in an AI-powered transaction can be confident the shopper approved it. 

The list of companies participating in the Payments Working Group reads like a who’s who of the payment industry. The unit includes representatives from Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and PayPal.

The company is working with other industry stakeholders to build standards that will one day define agentic commerce, said Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s Chief Product Officer, in the release.

“We’re committed to enabling a trusted environment for AI-powered payments to scale globally,” Lambert commented.

Mastercard is making an aggressive play to incorporate AI-driven tools into everyday shopping experiences. But it isn’t the only big name in the payments sector to bet on AI in 2025.

Visa introduced its Visa Intelligent Commerce solution at the company’s product drop event in April. The tool promises to position AI agents to deliver secure, personalized experiences for shoppers. 

Visa, which is the biggest credit card network in the U.S., announced a few updates of its own earlier this month for its intelligent commerce program, including the launch of its Acceptance Agent Toolkit.

Other big names in the payments landscape are also hitching their wagons to agentic AI solutions. PayPal unveiled a toolkit this spring that aims to assist developers in building agentic workflows that can efficiently manage financial operations. 

Visa introduced its Intelligent Commerce program to the world in April.

Financial institutions that work with Mastercard and Visa should take advantage of the plethora of resources the companies offer to help their partners familiarize themselves with AI-driven payment programs.

Credit card issuers that move quickly to educate people about the power of agentic commerce may be able to attract new customers who want to streamline their shopping habits. Other consumers who fashion themselves early adopters of new technologies may also gravitate toward solutions that boost payment experiences with AI.

Artificial intelligence has already begun to change some areas of the business realm, and it may soon have a greater impact on the payments space.

A Visa spokesperson told Digital Transactions earlier this month that, “Artificial intelligence, generative AI, large language models, and machine learning are transforming our world, and we believe these technologies can radically transform digital commerce, too.”