Visa, Mastercard, and more than 25 companies have launched the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA), a new industry coalition aimed at developing common standards for payments made by autonomous AI agents. The initiative brings together major payment networks, fintech companies, blockchain infrastructure providers, and AI firms to help define how agent-driven commerce will operate.
Founding members include Circle, Solana Foundation, Uniswap Labs, Avalanche, Chainalysis, Fireblocks, Fiserv, Remitly, and several other companies spanning traditional finance and digital assets. The alliance will focus on creating shared frameworks for AI agent identity, authentication, transaction authorization, fraud prevention, security, interoperability, and regulatory compliance, addressing challenges that current payment systems were not designed to handle.
The group was formed as AI agents evolve beyond chatbots into autonomous software capable of completing purchases, managing subscriptions, booking travel, and executing business transactions without continuous human involvement. Industry participants argue that common technical and security standards will be essential before agent-driven commerce can scale globally.
The launch also highlights the growing convergence of traditional payment networks and blockchain infrastructure. Stablecoin issuers and crypto protocols are participating alongside global card networks, reflecting expectations that future AI agents may settle transactions across both conventional payment rails and digital asset networks.
According to McKinsey, global commerce involving AI agents could reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion annually by 2030, creating a significant new market for payment providers, infrastructure companies, and financial institutions. The alliance aims to ensure that the underlying standards evolve consistently as autonomous AI systems become increasingly active participants in the global economy.
Rather than introducing a new payment network, the Agentic Payments Alliance will serve as an industry working group, coordinating technical specifications and best practices that could eventually become common standards across the emerging ecosystem of AI-powered commerce.
