Visa Introduces Initiatives to Promote AI Commerce and Seamless, Secure Payment Experiences

Visa unveiled its 2025 product road map at a meeting on April 30 livestreamed around the world from San Francisco. The event — known as the Visa Global Product Drop — also covered how artificial intelligence (AI) solutions have the potential to change how consumers and businesses transact.

Visa Chief Executive Officer Ryan McInerney opened the presentation with an introductory address where he revealed that Visa has processed 3.3 trillion transactions over the past 25 years. The company can use the data from those transactions to predict buyer and seller behaviors, he said. 

“As new ways to pay emerge, they need to run on a network that is always on – that is safe, secure, scalable and relentlessly innovating,” McInerney said in a press release concerning the product drop. 

“We are taking the power of our network and our decades-long expertise to bring new products and solutions that will transform commerce and bring trust and security to AI-enabled payments,” McInerney added.

The event proceeded with an overview of Visa’s belief that AI and digital commerce will usher in a new way for consumers to find and purchase products and services. Artificial intelligence agents have the capacity to search for items a consumer needs and make purchases once they locate them, according to Visa.

But for that to take place, digital commerce participants, including consumers, merchants, and financial institutions, need to trust AI agents to function as advertised. Many people may be reluctant to hand their credit or debit card information over to an AI agent without having confidence that it will purchase the right item for them at an acceptable price.

The Visa Global Product Drop gave the company an opportunity to share its work in the artificial intelligence arena.

Visa aims to help banks, fintechs, merchants, and its technology partners gain confidence in AI commerce solutions by providing a straightforward way for them to access the Visa network. 

The company introduced a new initiative, Visa Intelligent Commerce, at the product drop that allows developers involved in building AI commerce to access Visa’s payments network. 

McInerney said that the company’s use of AI has changed over time. Visa Intelligent Commerce is the most recent example of that.

“Historically, Visa has used AI to protect consumers, harnessing it to help combat fraud,” he said. “Now, we will also enable AI to empower consumers, fundamentally shifting digital commerce to make it more personal, more relevant and more delightful.”

Visa is collaborating with companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and Samsung, on its AI commerce initiatives.

Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, took the stage to dive deeper into AI’s shopping capabilities and Visa’s efforts to expand them. He gave an overview of how AI can improve shopping experiences by using buyer shopping history to create a dynamic model for each cardholder that can inform product and service recommendations.

“We see tremendous potential for the role AI agents will play in commerce, from streamlining ‘regular’ transaction-driven tasks such as ordering groceries, to more sophisticated search and decision-making such as securing that hard-to-get restaurant reservation or concert ticket,” Forestell commented in the product’s release.

The company’s strategy for AI programs includes offering AI-ready cards that make use of tokenization to increase transaction security. 

Visa closed its AI-centric portion of the presentation with a video featuring professional football player Christian McCaffrey that portrayed how artificial intelligence can bring efficiency to shopping experiences.

While the company’s AI-centered initiative was the most significant announcement of the product drop, Visa also covered numerous other new capabilities and features designed to make payment experiences more seamless.

Visa introduced Flexible Credential in 2024 to bring convenience to cardholders by allowing them to switch between buy now, pay later, credit, and debit payment methods. The company announced during the product drop that it is partnering with Klarna to expand the reach of the Flexible Credential program in the U.S.

A new service known as Visa Pay can connect participating wallets to any merchant that accepts Visa. The tool can be used at brick-and-mortar and online merchants, regardless of whether that merchant operates a domestic or international business. Visa Pay will have a beta release in select markets before expanding to further regions.

Visa Accept is a new program that provides micro-sellers with the option to receive payments on their Visa debit card from smartphones with near-field communication capabilities. Visa is making the solution available to its beta partners in July.

Stablecoins have gained popularity in 2025 as their acceptance by prominent figures, including President Donald Trump, lends legitimacy to the cryptocurrency market. World Liberty Financial, a company affiliated with Trump and his family, recently announced its intention to launch a new stablecoin.

Visa announced its partnership with stablecoin platform Bridge, a Stripe company, during the product drop. The deal will allow fintech developers that work with Bridge to offer Visa cards with stablecoin payment abilities to their customers. 

Visa has announced a solution that makes it easier to transact in stablecoins.

Those cardholders will then be able to use their stablecoin funds to make purchases at merchants that accept Visa. 

“Partnering with Bridge represents a significant move in helping to make stablecoins usable in everyday life, giving consumers more choice in how they manage and spend their money,” Forestell said in a press release detailing Visa’s partnership with Bridge.

The initiative will start in Latin America before expanding to countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Speakers at the Visa Global Product Drop displayed enthusiasm as they discussed the upgraded programs and new solutions the company has been working on. But it was apparent that the company is particularly excited about the part it can play in shaping AI-driven shopping and purchasing practices.

“Just like the shift from physical shopping to online, and from online to mobile, Visa is setting a new standard for a new era of commerce,” Forestell said.